Five Tips For Picking An International Dressage Horse

If you’ve ever picked out what you thought would be a young international dressage prospect(s) and the future revealed otherwise, you may already know how difficult it truly is to pick a winner far in advance.

The journey from 3 to 7 in a dressage horse's career is full of surprises, good and bad. Buying a young prospect is like getting married. You really don't know what you have until after you've made the commitment. Some mediocre horses reveal themselves as rare dressage talents, and the most promising young horses often go nowhere in their careers. You can, however, increase your odds of success by using the sage wisdom of successful horse professionals.

I've been intentional about trying to learn from them over the years. What do they look for and what is the secret to their repeated success? I've noticed that while still seeing the big picture, they focus on specific attributes, ones that tend to be more important in predicting dressage success.

I just came back from an amazing experience watching the stallions selections at the 2025 KWPN stallion show. We watched one three-year-old stallion after another. It's a great exercise for developing a discerning eye. Looking at that many horses, hearing the judges remarks, and discussing them with other successful professionals helped me to refresh my thoughts on this topic.

Here are 5 tips for picking a top International dressage horse:

1. Prioritize the Hind Leg. 

If there is one thing that has held true, a horse with a great hind leg will prove to have a significant advantage in developing as an upper level dressage horse. Smart dressage horse buyers make it an important focus and a priority attribute when they select a prospect. 

The best horses have an active hind leg that comes quickly off the ground, like it is trotting on hot sand. It articulates its hind joints as though it is trotting over poles and never looks "out behind." During transitions, it never looks clumsy or uncoordinated behind. It finds it easy to switch leads behind when cantering. The use of the horse’s hind leg should contribute to an overall impression that the horse is extremely nimble, not slow, clumsy, or uncoordinated. 

By way of example, look to great horses with Ferro in the pedigree. That stallion contributed greatly to the Dutch breed by giving many of his offspring a great hind leg for dressage. 

You can recognize a great hind leg from the first step. It shouldn’t take several strides for the horse to get going with his active hind leg. While observing the horse on the longe line, note how it reacts when the longe whip encourages it to move forward. Look for a hind end that drops and pushes forward.

Related to this, the active hind leg should have power. The legendary Jazz can be credited with giving a hind leg that has the power needed for success at the higher levels. Jazz' typical offspring had a power from behind that lifted the front end, creating an ideal impulsion with lightness and expression. It's no wonder that this stallion became a legend and produced more than 125 horses who went on to compete at Grand Prix.

2. Look For Uphill Tendencies.

Observing the horse from the side, look for the horse to tilt its torso upward as it pushes forward, right from the start. Look for a “motorboat” and avoid buying a level-moving “freight train” even if it flicks its legs extravagantly. Don’t confuse big leg movement with uphill movement. 

3. Visualize Piaffe and Passage.

Imagine the piaffe and passage as you watch the horse move. For example, what will its front leg style be? Will it have enough activity and specifically, knee action to score the needed 8 or 9 needed to win? Does it have enough power and lift to produce a passage that has air-time? Predicting this involves both art,  science, and experience, but knowledge of pedigree can sometimes help you make more educated predictions. Trainability is highly inheritable, and don’t forget to scrutinize the mother-line!

4. Buy a Great Walk and Canter.

It’s easy to fall in love with a fabulous trot and there are more and more near-perfect trots in this generation of dressage stallions. That said, I can (but won’t) name several of these famous stallions that often produce flat canters that often show lateral tendencies and walks that are far from the 8 or 9 you’d like to be able to count on. 

Buy a canter that is handy, uphill, clear in the rhythm, naturally collected, and easily extended. Never buy a flat canter with a lateral tendency.

Stallion Daxx has an excellent walk and canter as a coming 4 year old - Click to see...

5. Buy a Young Horse That Looks Young.

Recently, I've been seeing a number of US dressage enthusiasts promoting bloodlines that produce overly mature young horses. These offspring look great at 3 years old, but at 7, they’re thick bodied and they lack the elegance you want to ride down center line at the CDI. 

Take Florencio for example. Most would agree that this stallion was one of the better young dressage stallions in the world in the last two decades. I remember seeing him as a young colt when he got off the trailer at Reesink Horses in Eibergen, NL. I videoed him trotting in hand in the outdoor courtyard. He was a slow developing young horse and while he was a lovely type and a beautiful mover, he was small, immature, and late to mature compared to other young stallions his age. Several dressage horse shoppers passed on buying him because of it. He just wasn't the mature beefy type of young horse that buyers often fall for. History ended up writing a very different story for this legendary stallion, a success trajectory that began with his winning the World Championships in both 2004 and 2005 earning the highest marks ever given to a horse at the World Championships for Young Horses to date.

Summary

A good rider can give the horse what nature hasn’t given it. A good rider can quicken that slow hind leg, deal with a tight back, and half-halt a horse to move more uphill. But why start with a handicap? 

Some buyers make poor decisions because of their "trainer mentality." They believe they can fix a horse's shortcomings and in fact, are actually attracted to "project" horses, especially when the price is discounted.

Remember, the road to Grand Prix is full of surprises. Keep shopping until you find a horse that checks all the boxes because horses with shortcomings put you at a serious disadvantage. Don't listen to that voice in your head that says, "yes, but you are such a talented trainer, you can fix this horse." Maybe, just maybe you can, but it's a fools mission. Your competition is buying better horses than you and you'll have regrets in 4 years if you buy a horse that needs fixing.

The more experienced you are at selecting young dressage prospects the more likely you are to admit it's nearly impossible to know for sure if a young horse will turn out to be a champion. Experts know how difficult it is to predict which young prospects will end up being great. I'm confident though that using these tips will increase your chances of picking a winner.

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This post is the opinion of Steven Wolgemuth at the time of publication. If you have ideas you'd like to contribute to this article, a question, or even a disagreement, please share them with Steve. Together we make one another better.

This post is copyright by the author 2024. No reproduction of any part is permitted without expressed permission.