Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Quarter Horse Dressage.... Inspiration :-P

One of my main goals with Penny is to train (and possibly compete) with her in dressage. While she may not have the flashy elastic gaits of a warmblood, she seems to be very willing to please and not have terrible conformation. I was curious to see if there were many stock horses competing in dressage, as they aren't well known in the discipline.

With only a little bit of searching, I found quite a few who are doing very well!

Here's one of my favorites:

Meet Quatro Clabber, a 2006 AQHA Stallion currently competing in 1st Level on the east coast:



Seriously, how cute is he?

He is also a licensed AWR Approved Stallion for Dressage. Not bad for a short little stock horse!

A video:



I'm thinking that every week or so I'll spotlight a stock horse competing in dressage or other "nontraditional" discipline (jumping, eventing, etc). Mostly because I'm just curious to learn more about them! If any of you know of a horse I should hear about, post it in a comment :)

At any rate, it gives me hope for me and Penny in a few years. She's such a cute mare <3

5 comments:

  1. ! : ) You guys will certainly get there! My stocky QH (bred to be a barrel racer) has been learning dressage for the last couple of months, and they have so much try. You might be surprised of her movement once you're in training and she's conditioned. My big ol'short necked, tubby, long-backed QH looks like a different horse when you get him moving in a nice trot! We're hoping to start competing training level next summer and are currently schooling training/first level. : ) There is hope!

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  2. There's always Reveille! *grin* Not that I'm biased or anything. And you should check out kaboomeventing.blogspot.com -- she has a cow pony she's eventing successfully. All horses can do dressage at the low levels, stock horse or not. Some learn more easily, some like it more than others, but all horses can at least do LL dressage. It's good for them!

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  3. Love that last picture...there's tons of love going on!

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  4. Both my husband and I have Paint horses and we both do dressage. My Paint loves it -- my husband and his horse, not so much. The most important thing is attitude. If you and your horse are having fun, you are a success. Go for it!

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  5. Trainer Lynn Palm is all about promoting dressage among stock horse breeds, you should absolutely check her out and see if she is somewhere clinicing where you can go audit or participate! She's amazing! http://www.lynnpalm.com/about_us.htm

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