Ramses was actually an Anglo Shagya - his sire was the Thoroughbred Rittersporn, and his dam, a Shagya mare named Jordi.
There is a lot of Shagya blood in warmblood lines, mistakenly identified as Arabian. Shagyas are mostly Arabian - but they are not purebred. They were developed by the Hungarians by crossing desertbred stallions on native mares “of oriental type” - there are a few drops of English TB and Lippizanner in Shagya lines as well.
As many have already stated, conformation is not the be all and end all. While it can contribute to gait quality and long term soundness, the biomechanics of a horses movement, how it coordinates itself, has a definite genetic component that cannot be seen in conformation alone.
One of the video links above also show lovely springy gaits that no doubt are the results of both genetics and TRAINING. There has been more than one thread showing some of the greats (Totilas, Valegro) as youngsters (i.e. prior to any real training), and their gaits were correct but not spectacular…training added the ‘wow’ factor.
[QUOTE=pluvinel;8994344]
The Trakehner was unique vs “other” WB breeds. The Trakehner was considered a “riding horse.” It was the “officer’s horse” in the German horse cavalry…and has a relatively closed stud-book admitting anglo-arabs to add “blood” to the breed.[/QUOTE]
But the Trakehner also plowed the fields in between wars. In England in the 60’s WB were uncommon, and considered rather heavy, and Trakehners were considered some sort of Polish thoroughbred.
Only a few breeds had the highstepping “carriage horse” in them. Many Trakehners though show strong Arab influence, as well as TB. Additions being made cautiously. Pluvinel is correct in that they have a closed stud book, where other breeds accept any breed that meets their inspection standards.
As long as judges pin a particular type movement, that movement will be sought after. There are many rumbles now about the overactive front ends shown by some horses, vs he flowing paces of others.
Judges severely altered the AQH with their WP and halter standards, in my NSHO, not for the better.
For everyone’s enjoyment
Sea Lord - Thoroughbred
from a post in the Chron Archives in 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx8IFlknNIU
And Ken’s Kitten, also Thoroughbred
I think much of the bounce is due to pasterns and angles, but also that elasticity in the other joints of the body and the makeup of the muscle fibers. Someone has posted studies on the types of muscle fibers found in different horses.
Part of the reason for that desire for the bounce is when you properly train a horse it will develop cadence and bounce. So if you breed it in, bonus! Except that the bounce doesn’t necessarily mean a soft back and rideable horse. My trainer has a mare who is rather spectacular who he is developing slowly specifically because he wants to get that mobile back. When she was 3 someone got on and held her too tightly and she started to passage, because she naturally had that bounce and the bend in her legs. She wasn’t ready for that, and my trainer stopped it - but it’s just there. Making her more easily rideable for anyone, not just someone who rides 10 horses a day, is the challenge - and correctness which both makes her happier and will help her stay sound longer. I suspect only moving in the legs and other joints with a stiff back is VERY bad for the legs, and teaching her to relax and swing through her back is very good for her long term soundness. Her movement is becoming more spectacular in a different manner with training - instead of the somewhat stilted bouncy look, now when she moves she just flows. It’s gorgeous and healthier and more classically correct - for a horse who is VERY much your modern type. I believe more people are working to get that kind of flow out of these spectacularly bred horses and we will see more of that in the upper levels in the future.
As far as stallions who didn’t get approved or weren’t well received - Ravel was rejected due to his head (and later approved due to his performance), and his sire Contango wasn’t well liked in Europe, so he was brought to the US, then the Europeans started seeing how well he produced and looked to use him as well.
That’s netg! That’s the direction I was hoping for. Some type of explanation of the microbiology of springy horses vs non. I know TB’s have different types (or ratios) of muscles and muscle fibers that allow them to use blood and oxygen differently and more efficiently and thus allow for their great speeds. Was curious if WB’s at a level under even conformation are genetically made differently so that even a horse with very little or no training just has a naturally springy way of going.
If you search under Google scholar, you can find numerous academic articles attempting to quantify what makes a good dressage horse. They didn’t find a lot of predictors, jumping talent was both more predictable and more heritable than success in the dressage ring.
OP,
You’ve gotten some good information in these posts.
Springiness is very much genetic, and much to do with conformation. Exercise regimes alone will change muscle fiber types. You can change your own muscle fiber types if you dedicate yourself to a sedentary lifestyle, marathon running, or sprinting. The type of exercise is paramount to muscle fiber type.
You cannot train a certain level of “bounce” into a horse. You can enhance bounce, but some horses have a natural bounce in the trot and some horses don’t. In terms of dressage, horses with bounce don’t necessarily have a correct passage or piaffe (horses with “sit” do), and horses with little bounce can have a much more correct passage or piaffe (because they sit).
Agreed, it is not all about angles. Some horses have the best conformation on paper and not so great movement. Hilda G. did a clinic at a barn I was at and an 8.5 conformation mare was a 6.5 mover. It happens. But that disparity isn’t so common.
Donnerhall was also rejected as a stallion early on. People aren’t mentioning trainability in this thread. A good brain can overcome conformation, and a difficult brain can thwart conformation. A horse has to WANT to participate in the training and muscle building.
They also have to jump with acceptable form for stallion approvals. And some of the very upright horses jump terrifyingly badly in front.
I don’t have anything to add, but just want to say that I’m really enjoying this thread 
Interesting discussion. I remember reading that warm bloods and baroque type horses have more “slow twitch muscles” than say a quarter horse or TB. That may help with the more up and down movement of the horse when he is taught collection. Plenty of TB’s have “springy” gaits (I’ve owned a couple) but the power and ability of the warm bloods to “sit” and exaggerate the up and down seems to be more inbred to me.
Someone else mentioned overlaying the build of a warmblood and a non-warmblood. This is rather specific to Morgans (which are actually closer to WBs in conformation type than many realize) and Saddlebreds vs Thoroughbreds (the author refers to trotting breeds vs running breeds), but it is the same kind of idea. It illustrates pretty well some of the differences in how a horse’s conformation affects their way of going.
https://www.morganhorse.com/upload/photos/904TMH_Jan2015_PhysiologyofTrottingBreeds.pdf
Since someone brought up the Baroque vs WB horses…
Perhaps folks would be interested to know that the Netherlands (and the other "Low Countries…Belgium/Luxemburg included) were Spanish possessions for over 100 yrs…so there is probably some influence (though far back in time) of the iberian horse on the northern european WB.
We’re talking back into the late 1400’s to 1500’s with Phillp II of Spain and his son Charles V, called The Holy Roman Emperor…he was also heir to the House of Hapbsburg.
So…if you were ever bored with history and reading about the Middle Ages, but are interested in breeds and their history, specifically European breeds, you need to know European history…with all the intermarriages, treaties, etc to see who owned what at what time and you will start to see how breeds evolved.
The “modern” WB is the produce of the military horse used in the “campaign school”…eg., that all-round/all-purpose cross country horse used in war by the mounted cavalry. This horse came after the “manege horse” when gunpowder changed methods of war and the battlefield…and was followed by modern developments to refine the breeds when the mounted cavalry was obsoleted by the mechanized cavalry.
[QUOTE=RooMB4;8995610]
That’s netg! That’s the direction I was hoping for. Some type of explanation of the microbiology of springy horses vs non. I know TB’s have different types (or ratios) of muscles and muscle fibers that allow them to use blood and oxygen differently and more efficiently and thus allow for their great speeds. Was curious if WB’s at a level under even conformation are genetically made differently so that even a horse with very little or no training just has a naturally springy way of going.[/QUOTE]
I doubt that the types of gaits have much to do with muscle physiology, as I’d think it would have a lot more to do with conformation. So things like the lengths of different parts of the skeleton relative to each other rather than differences in the way the soft tissues function.
[QUOTE=J-Lu;8995813]
Agreed, it is not all about angles. Some horses have the best conformation on paper and not so great movement.[/QUOTE]
I think it’s true that it’s very hard to predict how a horse is going to move by looking at his conformation. Gaited horses are a good example of that, as it’s often hard to tell if a horse is going to have smooth gaits just from looking at his conformation and registration papers. IOW, the horse in question could be from two smooth gaited parents, yet still have godawful rough gaits.
Part of the reason for that, I think, is because the conformation differences that produce the gait characteristics can be very subtle.
And I don’t think you can dismiss attitude in the equation. A horse can have all the right conformation in the world but if he’s sore or depressed he’s not necessarily going to be “springy”. We’ve all seem the little mouse or big moose who comes alive with movement because he loves what he’s doing.
Agreed.
You will find different ratios of fast vs slow twitch in the thbd. You could have a turf/distance bred European thbd with much higher slow twitch ratio and an American thbd dirt sprinter that is all fast twitch. Both horse could be equally springy (or not). I own one of each of the above and the one bred far to the left would be much more desirable as a dressage horse than the one bred to the far right. So in my small sample that isn’t the answer.
This thread is awesome btw. Very interesting.
[QUOTE=CFFarm;8996069]
Interesting discussion. I remember reading that warm bloods and baroque type horses have more “slow twitch muscles” than say a quarter horse or TB. That may help with the more up and down movement of the horse when he is taught collection. Plenty of TB’s have “springy” gaits (I’ve owned a couple) but the power and ability of the warm bloods to “sit” and exaggerate the up and down seems to be more inbred to me.[/QUOTE]
Modern WBs have so much Tbred in them that they are no longer generally a “slow twitch” horse. Pretty sure that was one reason for the blood infusion into the WB in recent history - to create a more reactive horse. Nor are Andalusians in general “slow twitch”. That is really more going to affect their reaction rate to the rider then the loft in their movement. The Friesian and Lippizan are more “slow twitch”, and the Friesian tends to have lofty gaits while the Lippi is usually more earthbound.
The all purpose military horse, a term that I prefer to cavalry horse for the classic WBs, were also used in great numbers in the horse artillery where they pulled smaller guns far faster than the heavy artillery. The officers rode right along with the pulled guns.
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