Finding a Dressage Prospect

[rothmpp]

Has the breeder of the filly bred the mare before? If so, what do those offspring look like? F1 draft crosses are a crapshoot for sure.

I got my silver medal on mine, but I fully acknowledge I got super lucky with him and was not my plan when I bought him as basically feral, 6 rides total 4yo.

I like the filly better than the colt based on the videos, but I don’t really like the video presentations on either of them. In general, I’d expect the resale on a GRP to be better than a draft cross, but she’s not necessarily your average draft cross if you go through the hassle of getting her KWPN approved. Let’s not forget that she is a George Clooney (DeNiro) offspring.

Whether one of these is the proper choice for you is partially a matter of whether you want to ride and show into a upper level, and how competitive you would like to be, either locally or regionally. You said that you are pretty much priced out of your area’s breeders, and in my experience that usually trickles down to the quality of horses in the show ring in the area.

[soloudinhere]

There’s lots of offspring of BigName™ stallions from mediocre mares. I would care a lot more about the mare when buying a young horse than what name brand stallion they paid the stud fee on. The truth is the vast majority of offspring do absolutely nothing of note, so don’t get caught up that this is a well bred horse because you recognize the name of the stallion.

That commentary applies to the colt in this case as well, but at least that mare is inspected and approved.

[rothmpp]

Oh, for sure, but if the stallion did not matter at all, there would be no big stud fees for stallions that produce good foals. I was comparing it more to the rando tb/draft F1 crosses some breeders seem to think are going to be the next national champion dressage horse.