Wild Dance produces a very nice jumping style and has offspring as hunters as well as dressage. He was the champion of his stallion test with top dressage scores but also received 9s for jumping. Rubignon had an international dressage career , on the Swedish team but also got 8s and 9s from his Swedish test riders for jumping under saddle and has produced numerous well moving and jumping hunters with superb characters. Donarweiss same thing, Grand Prix dressage career with a junior but likes to jump and in great form, he also produced good hunters as well as GP dressage offspring. www.Eurequine.com
Any debate on the subject of breeding for the jumper first as dressage bred first can produce a jump killer; but putting a jumper into a dressage line can produce more hind end strength and power?
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Element Farm - I have a nice Riverman granddaughter (Royal Appearance x Final Poolxx) who takes after him - a multi purpose type and good at all.
But every time Riverman is mentioned here he gets slammed although he is Hilltop’s flagship stallion. There are a few up here starring in eventing and wonderful horses.
I know many of his were said to be temperamental or a pro’s ride. My mare was, er, spicy, as a youngster, but matured into a very ammie-friendly, willing to work, mare. I’ve heard others say the same thing. And there are SO many successful eventing, hunter, and dressage horses by him (and ridden by amateurs), my experience clearly isn’t the outlier.
If I had the right mare, I wouldn’t hesitate to breed to Riverman.
Thank you - my mare is the same, willing, kind, forward, brave…a few voices can do a lot of damage to a stallion’s reputation if we were to listen to them.
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It is a bit polar in breeding goals these days, but many of the dressage horses make good hunters especially if they have a little jumper blood in them. So I would look for that. Navarone has thrown all around horses for ammys and pros and he has had international jumpers, dressage and eventers and a lot are doing super in the hunters too. I think more so you have to fit the stallion to what your mare needs to improve on whether it be the jumper or the movement to do both.
Dreamscape farm had a dressage stallion Freestyle (who passed) who was a successful dressage sire but sired a son Farscape who was good at dressage but better in the hunters. After initial dressage training, they sent him down the hunter path and he did quite well, but I haven’t seen much from him since about 2015. They only have frozen semen from him.
Does anyone know what’s going on with him? How did his get turn out?
I offer this tidbit because I own his full brother. I ride dressage and have jumped him minimally (so I can’t say much about his form), but I think he would have done very well in-hand in hunter classes. He’s pretty gorgeous. I posted a conformation picture here on COTH about 5 years ago.
Farscape is a wffs carrier and I believe he was gelded. He’s still on my radar because he’s all kinds of my type. I’d also be curious to see his get that is showing.
ETA- And id love to see his brother in action!
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Oh wow, thanks! I don’t have many videos but I’m happy to send you what I can dig up and pictures. PM me with your email, I’m happy to send you stuff!
Classy baby! How old is he now? How’s his temperament?
We have bred to many “dressage” stallions over the years that have the right look, disposition, movement and jump for the hunters and have been very successful. In the US I would look at Dreamscape Farms and Edgar’s stallions and we have also used and been very pleased with Fresh Semen Stallions Dacaprio, Widmark, Sinatra Song & Harvard. Frozen we have loved many of the F and R lines stallions. We go often across the pond to make sure we are making the right decisions as we can see so many in a short amount of time over there and also see the dressage stallion jump in the licensings.
Gone now but I believe still available by frozen is the Trakehner stallion, Hennessey. I bred my tb mare to him twice and got one that loved to jump and one that loved dressage, although both could do either. The first was smooth as silk over fences but, since I don’t jump I sold her. I am always getting comments on the movement of the one I kept. Hennessey is the sire of the hunters Zito and Zealous.
He was a nut case as a 3-6 year old. Despite the fact that the owner at the time purchased him as a foal and he was worked with regularly and started by a professional, whose half-brother imported at the same time went on the win the NA 70-stallion test, this guy was the apparent outlier. He was afraid of the world to the point that it really interfered with his starting and early years under saddle. The breeder wasn’t much help with my inquiries or very nice describing them after the fact.
He needed an alternative route of training after he bucked off an established trainer and she broke her collar bone. No area dressage riders would ride him as a 4 year old. I invested in alternative training to help him think through problems. Happy to send you a video of why.
He’s 10 now and has matured considerably. He has 3 good gaits, loads of “try”, a big and affectionate personality. He’s one of the smartest horses I’ve ever ridden, but also one of the spookiest/most reactive ones. He notices everything out of place and can get very upset by this - it is my job to convince him that he’s working and shouldn’t be upset. We have a great relationship now (words can’t describe what we’ve been through together) and he has very much taken care of me when we came back after his falling with me… Laaaaaaazzzzzyyyy as he can be until, for example today - a lady bug flew diagionally in his path and he elevated in front to see it and then splayed his front legs and wanted to spook. At a lady bug. Sure gave energy to our ride! I was able to harness this for a fantastic ride.
He is simultaneously very reactive/forward and lazy. Mr. 90%. He can easily get with the program and work, and has lots of talent and is very athletic. But he’s EXTREMELY insecure and needs a rider who can “hold his hand”. Right now, I love this horse to death because we have developed a great relationship, he’s really talented/athletic, and looooooooves to interact with me - try for me. He anticipates a lot because he’s smart, and this sometimes gets in the way, but we work to overcome this. I work with his personality to get the best I can from him, and I really REALLY enjoy this horse now. As a 4 year old? Not so much. Again, I think he was an outlier. And age really helped him.
my guy as a 4 year old. Professionally started by a woman who bred WBs for dressage for decades and rode/trained to GP. She prepared his half brother (imported together) for his 70 day stallion test win.
The statistical outlier as a 4 year old after no local trainer would ride him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLu5r4jcHhU
He’s come a loooooong way and is a fabulous 10 year old. And he makes me laugh.
Kudos to you for sticking with him and learning to understand him instead of labeling him as a "nut case"and throwing him away! He looks like maybe he needed more time getting used to the saddle than he got in that video. These horses do not have the same temperment as a quarter horse. I have a “sensitive” one too and I am learning how to deal with her. Looks like you are steps ahead of me so maybe there is hope.
That was the part 4 of a 4 part, multi-day exposure. This cowboy took dressage lessons with a really well known dressage trainer in my area, and was recommended by her well-known daughter who was helping me with this horse. He was also head trainer at a local Lusitano breeding farm. The cowboy took at least a week before this saddling (this was week 2?) and ended up having him 5 months full time, 7 months part time (I learned his approaches in this time). He taught this horse that unfamiliar things were a puzzle he could figure out rather than bolting, bucking or freaking out. Thank your for your nice comments! I think he if he was passed on he’d be dead to collect the insurance money. This particular horse needed time to figure things out major things in life. You couldn’t even groom a leg and then reach over and groom the opposite leg without him reacting. He had no idea how his body was put together even at 4. Still, he needs some time to figure things out because he over thinks thinks things. He over-thinks even a canter depart or a walk transition. He’s not “bad” by any stretch, never was, he just needed time and to be taught an alternate way to think about things. Now, I encourage his mental participation in the ride (his overthinking and hypervigilance of his surroundings forced me to take a different approach to his training) because he’s turned out to be a REALLY nice dressage horse who loves people. My trainer rode him today and although she was a bit reticent because of his antics he was beautifully on her aids, tried really hard for her, and she made him look beautiful. She loved riding him. His reactivity has turned into “electricity” you can harvest to create beautiful, forward gaits. Have I said I love this horse now?
PS, this guy didn’t know the woman who started him or her approach (hence the comments). Like I said, the woman who started him has lots of experience. I will say when I visited and rode him as a 3 year old, some horses were made to switch paddocks because of over-fence fighting and he was literally shaking like a leaf because “things were different”. We put the horses back before my ride. I should have noted that red flag before diving in but alas. He bucked her off, too. He was a difficult youngster who grew into a really nice moving, big personality, affectionate, super-smart and willing adult. He grooms me regularly and plays with my ears. bra-strap and helmet regularly…and gently. He’s the horse we let kids feed carrots to because he’s so gentle in taking them…
REDWINE is the best!!
Redwine is the best what?
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SilverDragon is apparently dragging up old threads with weird comments
From a year-old “what do you think about this cross” thread
^^ not even a correct statement no matter how you defined “inbreeding”
And now this year-old thread as well
Edit - at least 20 threads, from 8 months old to 9 years old, have been resurrected by Silver Dragon.
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