Tawna24, I think I’d like to respond to your longer post with something specific you may want to consider…and I’m trying to say this as tactfully as possible, OK–and as usual, people should and will feel free to disagree with me.
Your filly is cute, but she DOES have some concrete flaws that are not a matter of preference, but rather of performance. It isn’t that there’s “no possibility,” but some of her flaws, well, someone who hasn’t developed horses to “X” level (I hate to use any other term, don’t want to sound snooty or anything) may not realize are pretty important.
One example of this is your filly’s forearms and gaskins. Now, granted, it’s super hard to tell just from pictures, but for a sporthorse to be competitive beyond the lowest levels (and surely you aren’t breeding “merely” for that–right?), it needs not just movement, but strength–as in “carrying ability.” The weaknesses in your filly in her gaskins and forearms MAY (not a certainly, but a possibility) prevent her from having (or reproducing as a broodmare) the kind of carrying ability that will make collected work easy for her to accomplish.
Similarly, her quarters may (another BIG may) lack carrying ability and the power it might (might) take to be competitive against the best in the dressage arena today (at any level, but especially at the lower levels in particular where the “trendy” warmblood mover, including its power and push, nails it over others). In addition, there’s a possibility that her hocks, given their angle, will not function effectively for such challenging movements as pirouettes and half passes. She may do them, but she may not hold up.
These conformation issues are not matters of “trend,” they are matters of form following function. It is probably one of the issues you know you have to deal with with Saddlebreds: they have some stupendously amazing traits that suit the sport of dressage, but they also have some traits that don’t, such as the “sitability” (bringing the hocks under, flexing the joints in the hind end, and lowering the quarters) expected as one moves up the levels.
So, in sum, my argument is that it really isn’t a matter of “trend” at all. It’s a matter of function. When I cull, it is usually because I know that the baby simply won’t function well enough to be worth raising, usually due to significant conformation or movement glaws (and occasionally, a temperament so awful that I can’t ignore it not matter how hard I try).
That said, there are always exceptions to the rule…but exceptions rarely, if ever, “breed true.” I had one pokey, ordinary baby whom I thought would do nothing beyond the lowest level, who proceeded to pop around a preliminary level course the first time he’d ever schooled x/c at all. Heaven knows how he did it, but it seems in spite of my opinion of him, he’s capable enough to at least get further than most ponies who event.
But I’d still wouldn’t (and hardly did when I sold him) “bank” on it happening, especially not in a breeding program.