I’m so happy my mare isn’t “loud” when she’s in heat. A lot of times I don’t even notice. At her breeder’s place, the other mares would get as close as they could to the stallions when they were in heat (across a driveway). My mare just didn’t care.
There was one memorable time though… She had an hour long trailer ride with a studdish gelding to a show, and when she came off the trailer, she was in raging heat - peeing, winking, calling, fractious, the whole nine yards.
How’s this one for a love story? An extremely hormonal and oversexed stallion I showed had a favorite at horse shows, and he would always puff up and nicker to it when we’d pass by.
What kind of horse was it? A life-sized fiberglass horse that a mobile tack shop used for displays. 
Many, many, many years ago by now, there was an infamous day at a horse show when a stallion managed to get loose and chase a mare all around the show grounds for probably a good 30 minutes or so, although it felt more like two hours.
And for part of that time, the mare still had the kid in the saddle. Eventually the kid finally either fell off or jumped off, and the stallion proceeded to chase the mare around the grounds a while longer before somebody managed to catch them and separate them. That was a crazy day, and everybody present remembered that for years and years and years and years.
I almost think the stallion ended up winning the big class of the week. So of course, the classic horseman’s approach would be to prepare him exactly the same way every time after he won that big class. But I don’t know if they had enough nerves of steel to do it exactly the same way again. Lol.
Then there was the one where it happened in the middle of the night and the braider who finally caught the mare got to hold her while the deed was done. The braider was then nicknamed Keeper of the Virgin Vault.
When the mare ended up preggers, the stallion owner tried to get a stud fee from them. The mare owner countered that the stallion owner should pay for loss of use.
I have a similar story of Equine Love. It was also years ago, at LA Eq. Center at the Sporthorse Breeders Classic. I was showing one of my mom’s Trakehners in-hand. He was a 2-year-old gelding, and was a lovely copy of his elegant sire, Memphis. Also in the class was a stud colt from DG Bar. It became enthralled with my mom’s horse. It broke loose from its handler and bolted over to me and tried to mount my mom’s horse. It was chaos! Two huge young warmbloods, one very much intent on screwing the other. I really had no choice but to let go.
That DG Bar colt chased my mom’s Trakehner all around the arena. My mom’s horse tried to escape… by jumping over the block wall and into the bleacher grandstand! He leapt over several rows of seats, with that obnoxious stud colt screaming after him! It was utter bedlam!
Eventually Willie Arts and I-- with the help of many others-- caught the two young horses. Amazingly enough, neither were injured. Not even a scrape.
My mom’s horse, however, did turn out to be a fancy hunter and eventually a jumper for Edgar Pagan. I guess he was proving his natural talent that day.
There was a Davenport mare who fell in love wit a John Deere tractor.
Can’t remember offhand who owned her.
Wow, that took some brass ones.
I also remember a hunter breeding show some years ago when the colt that had been selected for Best Young Horse somehow managed to escape from his trailer and run back into the show ring, and then gallop around while the amateur handler class with about twenty entries was in progress. That was exciting in a bad way.
The one funny thing about it was that he had such a beautiful trot when he showed in hand that we had been wondering what his canter might look like, and then we found out the hard way. Lol.
That can be a worry! My mare got knocked up at her breeder’s yard (she was two; so was the boyfriend… they were also half-siblings…separate your uncut colts from your fillies? Maybe???). When I discovered the pregnancy – a week before she foaled* – I dithered for a little while about telling the breeder. My filly was too far in to contemplate sending her back to the breeder’s, and I wasn’t happy about having a foal, but I sure as hell didn’t want her breeder getting involved and trying to claim ownership of the foal or a stud fee. I didn’t have much faith in the breeder not being weird. I let things play out quietly. Foal was fine, mom was fine, and I emailed breeder when he was a few weeks old, saying, “Um, this happened.” She responded with, “what a wonderful surprise.” It was certainly a surprise.
She didn’t give me a any flak. Good for her? The rest of it, not so much good.
*She hid it well. No one thought she looked pregnant, until she did, about one week out. She had a pre-purchase vet check about four months before she foaled and a couple vet things after I bought her, for vaccinations and yard-move strangles testing. No one picked it up.
RE horses becoming besotted with inanimate objects - IIRC, Steffen Peter’s Ravel was gelded at age 8 before he left quarantine because he was such a hot mess of hormones - screaming and difficult to handle - that he once tried to mount the wheelbarrow. 
Related, I guess.
Two horses at the show I attended last weekend. One was CLEARLY a DHH (head/croup/back/movement - it was obvious), and when asked the owner said “He’s a dutch warmblood”. I asked “harness lines?” and she said yes, but she doesn’t like to say that.
The other one wasn’t so obvious, and that owner straight away said their horse was a DHH.
Is DHH something to be embarrassed of?
As the owner of one with is very own IG hashtag, I say absolutely not at all. And he’s a fun crossbred with Morgan lineage.
But I do think there is some amount of misconception that they are some how a lesser WB or those who consider them a budget Dutch Warmblood–as a derogatory thing. At least around me, I see a lot of folks toss them in with other driving/cart breeds which is fair but on the other hand, I personally see a lot of Keeping Up With The Jones sort of passive aggressiveness & derision that come with that.
Ride what you ride and if you’re having fun, then who cares!! I personally think mine is very fancy with a big future–FWIW, an opinion backed up by several professionals. But I also really love his brain, so much that I DNA’d him to figure out his lines. So take my words with a pinch of salt 
ETA:
His sire
His dam* (TL;DR he wasn’t recorded as a foal but based on what I knew about him when I bought him and what ADHHA could find, it’s highly, highly likely she’s his mom)
Saying, “Dutch warmblood” carries more prestige and/or value.
I dunno. People are weird. The horse world is strange.
The riding and harness divisions have different conformation that lends itself to different talents and disciplines. There’s been a lot of good discussion here suggesting that the harness horses may indeed also have jumping talent.
I would say that in general, the harness horse breeds struggle with collection in dressage, though they have lovely big trots which count for a lot of points. It then becomes a tradeoff. This is true for Friesians as well. I expect it would be true for OTSB as well but I have yet to see one schooled up for dressage at all
Both Totilas and Verdades were Dutch harness and dressage crosses. I would think a lot of breeders are trying for a lucky nick. Schleese discusses horses backs changing as we breed more harness horses into the old cavalry standards for more power and movement in jumping and dressage and less stamina.
Modern WBs are very heavy on TB blood.
No. Totilas had old Gelderlander blood ,through his dam I believe, he was not a DHH cross. Gelderlander and DHH are not the same thing because the harness horses had infusions of hackney horses and a few American Saddle Breds (an experiment that I don’t think was continued). The DHH was bred to be a high stepping flashy driving horse - not a riding horse. I think the Gelders were older fashion, heavier, all purpose horses.
Verdades did have some DHH in his pedigree on his dam’s side.
It was Groningen (used primarily for light draft and agricultural work). His dam’s maternal grandsire was Akteur, who was registered NWP (Groningen). Akteur’s sire was Holsteiner, SWB, and Trakehner but his damline was NWP. And Totilas’s 3rd dam was also from an NWP damline.
Verdades’ dam had both Hackney and Gelderlander blood a few generations back. She was registered KWPN but I think those lines are essentially Dutch Harness Horse.
But the Groningen, Gelderlander, and DHH all fall under the KWPN umbrella these days. And they are considered Dutch Warmbloods because they certainly aren’t hotbloods nor are they coldbloods.
[Edited to change name of Totilas’ dam’s maternal grandsire - Akteur, not Akteull. Sorry for the confusion - I sort of automatically typed Akteull.]
Is there more than one Aktuell? The only Aktuell I know of is by Absatz.
edited to correct a spelling
That makes sense, the horses are further back in the pedigree as the type evolved. I don’t think the top breeders are bringing in full Harness Horse crosses these days and hoping for an Olympic cross.
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