Serious question, why do so many dressage riders/breeders/enthusiasts like/prefer/want black dressage horses? Is that also a preference in Europe? I love this new Hilltop stallion, Fürst Belagio FOD (Fürst Belissaro-Rotspon)! Just wondering about why so many are black. Is it like a breed preference? Just curious. TIA
Black?
I would say most are bay.
From light to dark.
Serious breeders care more about pedigree/breeding lines and show results than color.
Competitors may prefer darker colors as it is WAY less trouble for general cleaning.
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Totilas effect.
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I think a lot of this is happenstance. There have been several hugely significant stallions (and then a number of others that aren’t necessarily international phenomena on the competition/breeding level but are still really, really popular) that happen to be black. Their color isn’t really why they became popular (or are popular) but between the fact that there’s so many of them I can name, and that some of the named had ludicrous number of offspring, there’s bound to be really high numbers of black dressage horses out there, despite it not being the easiest color to “get”, genetically.
De Niro was black, Sandro Hit, Rubinstein, Ferro. Less colossal from a breeding perspective but still big (and less aged), San Amour and Stedinger, Dante Weltino, Don Frederico, Negro, Gribaldi.
It’s also apparent that at least some of the “F” line horses carried black. (Florestan had a few black offspring, so the gene is spread throughout that line as well, evidenced in stallions like Finest being black - a young stallion whose popularity I think has less to do with his color and more with their inspection results & he, at least, is already having some real success with his offspring. He has several approved sons already despite being so young himself.)
That said, my favorite color horse is that which is the color of dirt for practicality’s purpose. I bought a filly whose dam was chestnut and sire was bay. Black horses take a few generations to show up in her pedigree…
Yep. Turns out she’s black. I hope she sunbleaches!! :lol:
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There are a lot of people who don’t want gray, and many that don’t want chestnuts, so there is some motivation, I think, to breed for bay/black. I sold a chestnut mare last year as a broodmare, and buyer said she would cross her to something guaranteed to put black points on the baby.
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Black is the base color for bay, meaning that bay is black with a modifying gene. So black and bay are going to turn up in the same family lines.
Really there aren’t too many choices in WBs (or TB) if you disregard the few pinto lines. Black, bay, chestnut, grey (which can be any base color obviously). That’s it.
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If it moves as they want, is trained as they want, rides well for them, they buy it., Color is incidental. As is sex, if the horse is nice enough.
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Black Beauty/Black Stallion syndrome.
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I don’t think it is a Black Beauty syndrome for me - but there is something about the way a truly black horse looks that I like.
That being said - I’m certainly not buying a horse based on color - I’m looking for conformation, temperament, etc…
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Take a look at the breeding forum-- there’s a lot of people looking for homozygous black stallions. It’s not just happenstance; people are breeding for it (and some of those people are pretty influential).
A big dark horse is impressive, I’ll grant you that. But man, they’re hard to keep that color in a hot and sunny location.
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I see more hunter people looking for homozygous black (and actively selecting by color, largely to avoid chestnuts) than I do in dressage breeding. What programs are you thinking of that select by color? I would be curious to know who those are.
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IME and in my part of the country it is WAY easier to keep a chestnut “clean” than a black or a dark bay! 
I think a black horse looks nice in a dressage show with black tack, the rider’s black hat/helmet, coat, and boots, and white breeches and a white saddle pad. But a chestnut can also look good in black tack with a black saddle pad.
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Nobody really notices the colour of a horse with OMG movement !
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Thanks, these were all very helpful answers. I have friend that is a pretty big and influential breeder and though I know she breeds for quality and gaits, she definitely desires those qualities in Black horses.
Also these things do go in waves of popularity. True black isn’t that common naturally so a breeding program that creates more black and builds on a famous black sire may have an advantage until that becomes the dominant color in the breed.
Likewise greys are fairly rare in the general population but over the centuries the Andalusian and Lippizaner breeders created breeds where grey predominates.
I get why black would look nice with black tack in the dressage ring, super shiny at a distance. But honestly it turns out I don’t love black horses up close. Too uniform. I like looking at a horse with black points, bay or buckskin.
:lol: Or the Holsteiner C line through Capitol, for grey.
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Is there also a concentration of chestnut Oldenburgs or is that just a local coincidence?
What’s the issue with chestnuts? I’m aware of the red chestnut mare thing, of course. But I love the look of a bright chestnut.
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I think it’s just a matter of preference. I actually have a chestnut Paint but I remember as a kid I didn’t really like the look of the chestnut Arabs the show horse girls were getting.
Not really sure why. Too monochrome? Don’t really like rust brown orangey anything? Too common in QH and Arabs?
Chestnut can be a fantastic color. There are many gradations and the hair can get this double glint metallic thing going on that is very pretty.
It is also harder to match gear to a chestnut.
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@Scribbler I tend to find a hilarious number of chestnut Hanoverians (I generally credit it to Weltmeyer enjoying a reemergent popularity - so much red!)… pretty sure that’s just the breeders I follow though. The recent auctions for H, O, and W were all really, really brown. I’ll be curious what H’s foal auction collection looks like…
And as far as the chestnut thing, I can’t speak to why hunters do/don’t, but some of the breeders I’ve spoken to for dressage admit chestnut is harder to sell than bay, a chestnut mare is more challenging, and then a small chestnut mare is the hardest sell. Redhead ladies have a reputation I guess.
