If I may comment, I think that those two horses are at the top of a discipline right now, so they must be doing way more right than wrong.
Now, as armchair quarterbacks, what else can most of us be, we do have our own uneducated to barely educated opinions.
Those we need to take with a grain of salt, because expressing those opinions really reflects more on how little we know and understand of the whole.
Now, my unenlightened opinion is that yes, Toto seems inherently like a horse made with two men in horse suits, the front one and the back one just trying to work in unison.
He has tremendous gaits in front and the excellent rider brings the rear up for him and keeps it effective and all together, but I doubt it is easy.
The other rider has a horse that moves like a 2x4, stiff as a board laterally, way to up in front to have that effective a power engine behind, he loses some flexibility and forward motion.
I think he would benefit from six months of trail riding over hills and long and low to loosen up.
At the same time, that less powerful engine for forward movement is very good at the more static movements, althougt it seems like it is not as active as it should be and stuck to the ground at times.
I would like to compare him to a Rembrandt in the stiffer way of going, but he way lacks the lightness, evenness and correctnes in the way R performed.
Now, for the times Rembrandt was showing in, some of his performances did bring tears to most eyes, they were so close to what I thought was perfection, compared with the horses he was competing against.
So, we have two completely different horses, that move also in different ways.
The trick is to decide, as they perform, which is the most correct overall for what is being judged in dressage and why and where to give and take from their performances, so there is a winner and loser.
I have yet to see a perfect horse, because some of what we ask of them is antagonistic with each other, like ultimate collection and far-out, very expressive extensions.
It is very hard to find it all in one horse.
There have been a few dressage horses that seemed to have it all, but I expect even there, we would have to agree to disagree who they are and why it is so.:yes:
Think I can put Fuego there too. That horse tries his heart out.