In Defense of the Non-Warmblood

     Dear dressage/sport horse world,

     I, like many, enjoy occasionally looking at horse sale advertisements.  I get to admire some cool horses while keeping in touch with reality on prices.  The discussion today is about prices.  Just because something is a "warmblood" doesn't mean that it is necessarily worth diddly squat.

     Now, I couldn't be a real dressage rider if I had never fantasized about some big and fancy Warmblood, but I am under no impression that they are magic just because of their breed.  Some still come out with crooked legs or a terrible hind-end.  I won't even start on the discussion about how some folks think we're breeding dressage horses to have flashy movement instead of correct movement these days.  The point of this post is to point out that there are some awesome horses out there (even within our own boarders) that don't have the Warmblood stamp.

     We have all heard people complaining about the cost of a good dressage horse.  A two year-old WB prospect will easily run you $10,000 and up.  Once you get to a four or five year-old, who is probably showing First, you're easily in the mid-twenties on price.  If someone is looking for a schoolmaster you'd better just burn the mortgage (I think I'm pretty funny).

     I've seen youngsters being sold with less-than-ideal confirmation for more money than I make in a year (admittedly, I don't make that much) and I just cannot understand it.  Confirmation isn't everything, but when it doesn't have training or breeding potential, what are you actually paying for?  The old saying, "You can't ride papers" is around for a reason.

     What is the real difference between a WB and a TB or a QH?  I've ridden a QH that could just about get a 70% at First without a human on him.  He had the darn float-iest trot that would put a lot of WBs to shame.  I have piloted several TBs through a lot of levels;  I've even won sometimes.  I've also ridden some fun and talented WBs.  I've also had the same types of issues with all of these horses.  Some go around in a fake frame.  Some are tight over their topline.  Some are dull to the aids.  Most horses can be trained to be awesome dressage horses; most horses can also have issues that make them not-so-awesome dressage horses.  It's a way better investment to put your money into lessons and/or training than a big ticket price.

     Now, I want to be clear that this post is NOT to knock the warmbloods and warmblood-lovers of the horse world.  There are some really fancy WBs that I'd love to put a leg over.  People can spend their monies however they would like; that is not my issue.  The point of this post is to shake some sense into people who think that they can ONLY have a warmblood if they want to be successful in dressage.

     The average AA will never compete on the international stage.  Some of us may never compete at the FEI levels.  Some of us will forever be stuck at First Level and below.  Some of us may never show at a recognized show.  Some of us will never even show.  All of that is fine, and it's fine if these folks want to drop money on a WB.  What isn't fine is hearing these people complain about the lack of quality horses that aren't going to cost an arm and a leg.

     There are hundreds of really athletic TBs that will run you less than $1,000.  There are thousands that will run you less than $5,000 and those are the untrained ones.  You could buy a confirmed Third Level TB who also jumps 3' courses for probably $15,000.  You could find a deal on one for half that price if he had some jumping limitations, but could still show dressage happily for many years.

     Finding a good quality horse with sporty confirmation for less than $5,000 isn't that hard; you just have to not care about impressing your friends with the WB title.  It's more fun impressing them with training your grade QH cross to kick their butt anyway.