but what is a heritable trait is the willingness to learn and please the owner. (Otherwise known as good character and temperament.) Good training does maximise the potential of a horse but if the horse does not have natural talent then it will not get the perfect 10 for all its gaits no matter how 'fantastic' or long the training.
I so agree with this, Mic. I was buying a Thoroughbred mare once to use as a dressage horse and I asked her breeder, an old race horse man, how her sire had performed at the track. He sort of barked back at me, I thought you weren't going to race this mare!" Well, I had no intention of taking her to the track, but I had found that horses that perform well in one venue because they have good minds, excellent conformation and a nice work ethic, also perform well in other venues. This mare later went to a big evaluation in California and was judged the horse with the best conformational potential as a dressage horse that was there that day. She immediately went into someone's broodmare band. I was a little disappointed, she was a lovely lovely mare. I would have liked to see how she did in more advanced dressage than I had ridden. Nancy
