One of the hurdles for Morgans having credibility as a sport horse is within the breed itself. In “Morgandom” the primary focus is a love of the breed. However, in sport the strongest motivation is success and enjoyment of the discipline with a suitable equine partner. Therefore, while breed shows are of obvious value to the breed enthusiasts, they do not carry the same weight as open competition. And I don’t think adding prize money would change that. We have a Morgan gelding that is shown at GP and a stallion who would have been out this year at PSG, and it has been all open competition (save one show years ago) because we feel, as Morgan sport breeders, there is more value in showing open.
That isn’t to say that there are not some exceptional individuals competing at the breed shows (as Mulligan mentioned), but breed shows tend to be more limited in the levels that they offer (e.g. dressage is often lower and occasionally mid-levels only) and obviously don’t have the facilities for eventing and combined driving. So, while there are always exceptions, in general you tend to not see the more accomplished sport competitors at breed shows—they go open. And, unfortunately, there were a significant number of these Morgans who are either are not competed under their registered name and/or their riders do not have a current membership with the AMHA—which means that there are probably more Morgans out competing that the breed is given credit.
There is no one bloodline, program or family of Morgans that consistently produces competitive sport horses, even at the higher levels. There are programs that do a better job of getting their horses into the hands of talented, ambitious riders and therefore have prefixes that are more recognizable, but you can find solid, talented Morgan sport horses in all the families. If you want to get an idea of what Morgans are currently competing in most of the sport disciplines and their breeding, take a look at the databases on the Morgan Sport Resource (http://morgansportresource.com/?page_id=40). It includes the sire, dam and breeder.
