And those fences had heavier poles and deep jump cups. The back rails of oxers nowadays are in breakaway cups, and many of the shows have nearly flat cups for the front rails. These fences fall easily. You can’t get a good rub or a flat jump to it.
I’d also say the TBs nowadays are not the horses of the 90s. They don’t move the same and they don’t jump the same. You can find a good one, but they are rare.
I’m fairly certain that the issues being conflated with the breed here are that very few people who sit on TBs in this country have any idea how to put the flatwork on that comes pre installed from Europe. The idea that the average TB horse is either less responsive/adjustable or less careful than a WB is pretty unlikely, generally at least.
I do feel like there aren’t as many now that have the scope for 1.40, but 1.15 is still feasible.
This is a very good point. Most of the people restarting TBs around here are not great at producing horses period
I also agree with outside_leg that it’s getting harder to find nice TBs but they are definitely out there. You had to weed through a lot of unsuitable horse sin the 90s too. And there are breeders producing them in small numbers still.
I’d argue that the TBs have no problem jumping clean if they can stand off the fence a but. But the courses have changed to where they reward horses who can get under a fence or can actively shorten the stride right before takeoff. Also the way people are taught to jump now is very different. I hear clinicians and trainers saying “get as close to the base as possible” “I want you taking off from under the front rail” etc all the time whereas back in the day we learned to leave from further out and it was hammered into us that getting too close would lead to rails. Go back and look at hunter rounds from the 80s and 90s and they are taking what people today call gappy distances to every fence. That was considered correct then.
That’s just reflective of what I mentioned above several times already, not that TBs can’t jump cleanly just that the course design and riding style nowadays is not geared to their strengths. And agree with C Boylen that a lot of people don’t know how to work with that. If you ride a TB like a WB you’ll have rails. If you ride a WB like a TB you’ll have stops.
What I really want is a 16.3hh version of one of those jumper ponies that you can just zoom around 1.2m+ on and they will save your life at every fence and enjoy doing it. Seems like the perfect combination of the two!
I was going to write something like this, too. Any UL event horse can play in the jumpers, and most do to get that stadium practice. Most of them are at least half-TB, and plenty are straight TBs. Their dressage training and the increasingly complicated questions being asked on XC make for much more intensive training, including adjustability. My trainer’s FEI horse is an OTTB that has 4th level buttons and whenever she takes him out to play in the jumper shows she always beats me and my jumper-bred WBs. First, because she’s a better rider than me 
, but second her zippy, powerhouse, sensitive TB can very often out-zip my WBs.
I don’t know, though- I rode my old TB (who ended up doing eventing as his last career), like a WB and he loved it. My trainer at the time (he passed away a few years ago) had all of his horses, TBs or WBs or something else, trained that way.
Since I started training with eventers I’ve been taught how to use my seat as an aid because dressage requires it. My current trainer’s horse that I mention above needs and wants his rider to sit to the jumps, exactly the way my WBs do. He’s trained to it, and that is where she gets his balance correct. Her younger horse is a 1/2 and 1/2 WB x TB purpose bred event horse and is hot as heck, and she sits on him, too. UL XC courses are getting more and more technical, and horses that have adjustability trained into them on the flat and over fences are the ones that win.
Everyone who wants the best of both worlds (TB cattiness and WB hardiness) can just buy a SF 
I’ve had the absolute joy of owning one for the last 7 years (and for the rest of her life). She is a joy - fast, adjustable to the base, forgiving, really a TB in a barely WB body.
Anywhere from 75k plus unless you are willing to go younger or older or quirky, difficult
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