A craigslist ad (north of Minneapolis)—
# Palomino 2013 saddlebred mare - $1,500 (Grasston)
Palomino mare. Not broke to ride. Easy to handle. 15.2 Allbreedpedigree.com as Princess Georgia
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LOL, not at all! With the right training, feed regimen and proper conditioning, a lot of them DO look like refined Warmbloods. Since i bought her, everyone who has guessed at her breed guessed Warmblood or WB cross. One person (from France!) actually thought she was a “nice imported Hanoverian” but was surprised she was so short, haha! 
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Once a long time ago, I asked a rider at a dressage show if her horse was a Saddlebred. I got an icy stare and she said no, he’s Dutch. Not sure if he had harness horse bloodlines, but he had the build and movement of a Saddlebred.
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I just very recently bought a very nice Hannoverian/Arab cross gelding–pretty impeccable bloodlines on both sides, bred for the sport as far as I can tell. I wouldn’t consider him an off-breed, so to speak–whereas my beloved, now mostly retired, appaloosa, definitely was!
New horse is a nice mover, but not earth-shattering, easy to sit, super-intelligent, fun little Ferrari of a horse with a respectable show record through I1, which will take me a couple of years to catch up to! Manageable size at about 16.1, and narrow enough not to hurt my ageing hips. He has some Araby spook in him, but no buck or bolt, and my gut feeling is this will diminish as the two of us get to know each other better and he starts to trust my judgement more 
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i am being given a new, older mustang. Gotta go pick him up this weekend. Don’t know if i’ll ever get him under saddle or not, but i aim to try. If he isn’t amenable then i’ll gentle him enough to get him really good in a halter, get feet trimmed, get vaccines and dewormed and let him live large in our pastures with the other non-ridable horses i’ve adopted. But…Isn’t he cute!!! There’s a video, just clickon the film icon
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hahahaha…that’s pretty funny!!
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I’m not a KWPN expert, but they do actually approve ASBs for breeding, right? Harness types, at least. So it is entirely possible to have a “Dutch WB” that could very well literally HAVE Saddlebred blood. But don’t tell that icy stare person that 
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Side note but did you notice that there’s an Anglo-Arab on the list of entries for the Kentucky 5*? And sired by a purebred Arabian from old American lines.
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Unfortunately for the breeders - yes - because Shagyas are still struggling to achieve widespread recognition (too many still have never heard of them) it has been hard to find a market. So they are affordable which is of course fortunate for the buyer. You can get one for $10,000 or so. The problem now
is that they are now even rarer because we don’t really have anyone breeding them on a large scale -
we only have a few breeders producing only a few foals each year.
But those few are fantanstic.
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Vermiculus? He’s my fav 
Are you educated on Arabs? If so I want some advice on picking a stallion for my mare
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I know that two of them went to amateurs focused on dressage. I saw one come up for sale as a 6 year old and purchased by another amateur, also focused on dressage. Unfortunately I lost track of those two when they were around 8 or so. The third one I produced, the stallion owner purchased from me. I believe she still has him and does more working equitation and cattle work with him. She’s relatively tall and appreciated having a horse with more height, though she also still has purebreds who average between 15 - 16 hands.
Regarding thoughts about smaller horses being sounder, in general, that larger ones - I believe Deb Bennett, Ph.D, the conformation expert - has stated this, so she would agree with you.
I have found this to be true in my experience as well. I’ve seen a lot of big, tall warmbloods with
soundness issues of one type or another.
And regarding the comments about non-warmblood breeds’ toplines- croup- hindquarter conformation and hindleg angulation - all valid comments - but - don’t forget that horses also have hearts and minds,
and throughout history there are plenty of stories about less-than-perfect horses rising to amazing levels of achievement because of their hearts and minds and their willingness to try. Attitude and temperament is at least 50% of the ratio for success. A horse with less than ideal conformation, which is willing to go to the moon for its rider/trainer, will often out perform a more perfectly conformed horse with a less cooperative temperament…
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Her work is just amazing. I’m just about her biggest fan and have been for 40 years. For those of you who don’t know of her let me gush for just a bit. 
She works scientifically from the bones on out. I still have three of her short books where she analyzes photos of horses by drawing angles etc. She has some amazing “before correct work”, and “after correct work” photos. The changes in the horses are nothing short of stunning in some cases. She is fantastic and explaining what can be done with good training based on the way the horse is built not the way it looks at this moment. She is also clear why one shouldn’t ask from a horse that which it just can’t do. She has no breed favoritism, I think she loves them all, but is very realistic on ability based on structure. That said, please don’t think she believes one can pick out the next dressage superstar or million dollar jumper just based on structure. It’s so much more than that.
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I love Deb Bennett’s conformation work too.
I would add from my own experience:
There is what a horse looks like standing still, which could be evaluated in terms of basic conformations correctness, conformation appropriate to your discipline, fitness and muscling, and prettyness.
Then there is how the horse moves both naturally and as a result of training.
I’ve known a couple of big WB who looked like lummoxes standing still and rather awful if ridden badly. But they actually had excellent conformation in terms of bone angles, and ridden correctly carrying themselves they were stunning.
I also still find it hard to look at a weedy 3 year old racing fit OTTB and visualize the gorgeous mature adult horse he will be with 3 years of correct schooling.
On the other hand, sometimes you see a drop dead beautiful horse with nice conformation but it’s gaits are nothing special.
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I agree with all you just said. I’ve seen a horse go from stilted and angry to soft and flowing in 15 minutes with just a rider change. The rider was Arthur Kottas and he’s a bit magical. Fortunately he’s very good with riders also.
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I have an Appaloosa that doesn’t appear to be from western stock. I don’t have papers on him. He seems to be a TB cross. He looks like a refined warmblood. He’s about 16.1 and takes up a good amount of leg. When I bought him I was told he came from an elderly dressage trainer’s barn in Phoenix and had done lower-level dressage. I don’t know if he ever showed. He’s an ok mover. He has his own motor, which I like. He good off the leg, does basic lateral work. He goes on the bit quite easily although his evasion is to tuck his nose in. Right now we are working on jumping. He’s doing 2’6" with my trainer and working on his lead changes. After a long lay off for me (due to ACL surgery), I’m coming back slowly, just walking and trotting right now.
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There is TB in some Appaloosa lines.
Also the true foundation Appaloosa horse is not a bull dog quarter horse type. It’s a leaner rangier kind of Indian pony, with longer legs for its size. Breeding to QH has diluted that look and made them more like polkadot QH.
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He is a very handsome horse. Looks like he’d be a real pleasure to ride.
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Vermiculus is fabulous. His older full brother, Snooze Alarm, was Lauren’s first international level horse. It’s so awesome that she sought out his brother for taking even further!
Their sire, Serazim, is from “CMK” lineages (Crabbet-Maynesboro-Kellogg and associated satellite breeding programs) which are essentially the early “working” type Arabian lines in the US. Those lines still excel in endurance and sport disciplines (including in all-breed sport disciplines).
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There are also some folks purpose breeding Appaloosas for sport performance. I recall chatting with one of them when I took a bunch of my young homebred Arabians to the breed show at Dressage at Devon about 10 years ago.
I rode my cousin’s App when I was a kid and still have a soft spot for them.
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