I thought something like that, but didn’t want to overstate his greatness.
The first time he met Feronia, he correctly guessed that she has some Morgan Park Harness horses in her pedigree.
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Wow!
So I wouldn’t need a four-in-hand, then … 
You are not a lawyer unless you have passed the bar exams and kept up your accreditation every year.
Many people go to Law school and drop out without completing. I understand first year can be notoriously tough in some schools. Others graduate the courses but never pass the bar exams. Others are disqualified because they have a criminal record. And if you can’t find a place to article, you can’t continue on and write the bar exams.
“After law school” is not the same as “after graduating from law school.” And its not the same as “after passing my bar exams.”
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This made me think of a gal I knew who leased this sweet little western pleasure mare who in her prime had “placed 5th at worlds”… buckskin worlds. 
We were very young and she was just excited to have a competitive horse, but it still makes me chuckle.
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One of our coach acquaintances who trained in Europe and immigrated to Canada had a story about meeting a young woman at a clinic or somewhere, possibly a coach herself. She told him enthusiastically that her background was she’d won a jumping championship. On inquiring further, she said “yes, I was cross poles champion.”
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Very much and totally exactly.
It’s precisely because the Dutch are quite expert at selective breeding for an end (I mean, they created that specialized machine that is the Holstein (-Friesian) dairy cow) that it really matters for their horses in particular whether its in studbook dedicated to making riding horses or driving horses. I think most people asked for clarification about the horse being “KWPN” vs “DHH” because they looked at the horse and could see a difference in type.
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DHH is KWPN which is the Dutch warmblood registry. That is not a misrepresentation. Also, there are DHH participating in sport, including upper level dressage. The DHH stallion, Gambler, from Sport Horse Logic is an excellent example of how talented these horses can be in sport.
It also appears via FB that she is breeding very nice jumper KWPN lines.
DHH may not be someone’s cup of tea but please respect them as a breed.
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Actually, we have a DHH/saddlebred cross we restarted as a hunter. It took a long time and involved a lot of patience (was trained saddleseat) but he turned into a very nice hunter. Surprised the heck out of me. And, he has a great disposition.
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How was this disrespectful to the breed? The registry itself says that the breed standard is different for each type. So someone looking at a horse bred for harness and saying its not their pick for the upper levels is not “disrespectful.”
Needless to say, her horse could be Valegro and it doesn’t sound like I would want to deal with her as a buyer.
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1.Thanks for the man-splaining about the dutch books. I truly think that anyone with wadded panties in this discussion (like me) already know the difference.
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No one said anything about disrespecting the DHH horse as a breed**. On the contrary: The “problem” for people seeking riding horses is that these harness horses very much are purpose-bred for something different.
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** And distinguishing them as “a breed” means that you do think the DHH and KWPN horses are appreciably different.
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And if you know these sub-groups of selectively-bred horses are different, you can see why someone would be bummed about about Shearer being called Honest because of the technicality that both books are under the same registry. In other words, that’s a BS way of describing her stock that might fool the ignorance buyer but which merely wastes the time of a knowledgeable one.
And none of this is to say that horses bred to drive and/or to trot can’t be great to ride and awesome to train.
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I found sales videos online following links someone posted above. All her WBs have the body type I associate with harness horse: high neck and flat croup. They have knee action. They do seem to be scopey and can fold their knees wonderfully. That’s a plus. On the other hand, they have a very upright bouncy canter and their hocks trail a bit despite having a lot of articulation. To me, they move a bit like Arabians.
So there may be advantages to scope and knees, but I think that canter would be hard to work with for jumpers and dressage, and the trot would need work for dressage.
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The Arabian people are fond of crossing DHH harness type with Arabians for big moving saddleseat horses which they excel at but tend to be very hot. Graff Kelly in the area and is quite popular and produces lovely saddleseat horses. Generally speaking, while the harness type doesn’t lend itself to being a natural at dressage, as none of the harness breeds do, I don’t see the harm in someone purchasing one for dressage if they understand the roadblocks involved, or crossing them with traditional WBs as long as the breeders are honest and the buyers do their research
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The only reason I care is that I have a friend who has one of these Arab/DHH crosses, and the description suits him to a “T” (high headed, high moving, flat croup.) She insists he is a Dutch Warmblood Sporthorse because he has KWPN papers. I’ve stopped fighting the battle.
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Yes. They are objectively nice horses of their type. I think all the criticism was that there seemed to be a slight of hand advertising flat crouped high stepping swan necked horses for modern English sport.
However, the videos were all a couple years old. This breeder doesn’t stand her own stallion. The business model seems to be buying AI, and acquiring lower value surrogate mares (was advertising on FB this month for recipient mares on loan or lease), using egg donation (not clear if breeder owns the actual mare(s) on record. Then the surrogate mares are sent out to a low cost of living area to gestate and the foals sold in utero. The surrogate mares are under full care of the farm owners. There may be more than one location.
So I expect it’s cost efficient compared to running a traditional breeding farm, no stallion, possibly no high end broodmares, surrogates that are easily replaceable, and lowest possible cost of maintaining the pregnant mares. It’s an interesting model.
It’s also a model that appears to lend itself to bottomless conflict and FB drama. There was kerfuffle a few years ago over unpaid bills and substandard mare care. Just last week she was exploding because the trailer she left onsite in Oklahoma to take her mares to the repro vet came back with dents on it. Etc. If you are going to go with super cheap absentee boarding situations yup, these things happen.
However, the plus side of the equation is that the breeder can pivot to studs, egg donor mares, bloodlines, types, from year to year. There is no investment in a particular lineage or stallion or mare band, or in a facility. Get AI, park the mares in the boonies, sell foals in utero.
This means that breeder could easily switch to a different type of horse if there was criticism of her direction. If people decide they dont want harness horses, she can source another stallion. So it’s possible she is breeding other lines now, maybe more sport horse.
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Had ET gotten a lot cheaper over past few years? I could see maybe leasing mares to breed for a season and maybe saving money, but I recall ET being pretty pricey, the whole flushing of mares, syncing the recipient, shipping semen, ect. There’s a whole lot of vet/vet tech time involved.
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I have no idea what they charge in Oklahoma. She was however advertising for loaner recipient mares. I don’t know if it’s a big part of the business model.
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The point I was addressing was someone saying that DHH is being misrepresented as a Dutch warmblood. DHH are not “appreciably different” than KWPN. They fall under the breeding umbrella of KWPN. They are Dutch warmbloods, plain and simple.
Again, she is also breeding KWPN jumping lines assuming what’s posted on the FB page is accurate. The crosses she is using are not DHH lines. I do not believe by using those lines, the breeder is misrepresenting DHH as jumper prospects. So, no, I do not see why someone would be bummed about that.
DHH is of a certain type but they have been proven in performance as well. There is a lot of stigma against the DHH that I think is unnecessary. There are many DHH that have excelled at the top of the sport as well as many DHH lines interwoven in extremely successful pedigrees, hence why I think people misunderstand the DHH as a potential sport horse. There is obviously a lot of misunderstanding surrounding the breed.
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It’s quite possible she has switched up her foal production operation and is making sport horse lines now. The sales videos of harness type horses are all about 5 years old. As I said, with her business model this would be an easy pivot.
A lot of the horses she was advertising 5+ years ago were not products of her breeding program, just resales. Most of the ones she is producing now are Jumper/DHH crosses (which are registered KWPN in the jumper book), a few pure DHH and some DHH/Arabians
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I highly doubt we are going to see any DHH blood at the “top” of todays jumping sport. If its there, it will be many generations back.
A master of manipulation, purposefully leaving out information in her marketing strategy, taking advantage of the lack of education in america about the KWPN breeding books. Yes they all have papers that say KWPN on them, but they are bred for different jobs. All QH’s have papers from the AQHA too. I would not buy a halter or cutting horse bred QH to jump a GP. Nor an English Pleasure bred Arabian to do the Halter. Those both have AHA papers too. 
Foal inspections are nice, but they are one day in its life. Validating the success of a program on the good result of 1 foal out of the SIX you took to an inspection is funny, esp since the foals are only judged on type and movement. Not actually jumping. When they come back as adults that actually have to show they can jump, or go into sport and do well, then maybe we can talk.
Drama is like oxygen for some people.
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