|
July 2007 • VOLUME 23 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
Dressage Horses Are Dumb.
Well, it has finally been confirmed...dressage horses are dumb. Not only are they dumb but they are the dumbest of all horses from all disciplines. You may think this is a joke, but... “A recent study shows that, compared with horses involved in other disciplines, high-level dressage horses displayed the lowest level of learning performance in simple tests.”
Hausberger M, Bruderer C, Le Scolan N, et al. Interplay between environmental and genetic factors in temperament/personality traits in horses (Equus caballus). J Comp Psychol 2004; 118:434-446. - PubMed -
Let us look at that again ... “the lowest”,... “the lowest level of learning performance.”
If that doesn’t startle you, perhaps it should.
Dumb, as in not bright. As in not smart. Note the words “high-level dressage horses”.
I can just hear it now, in tack rooms and chat rooms all over the world. Hunters and trail riders, eventers and jumpers, polo riders and barrel racers, all laughing away about the same thing. Saying, "Did you read that article, did you hear? Well, we knew it all along. I've been saying it for years..."
And you know what? They have been saying it for years. And for years the dressage riders sat in their saddles a little straighter, raised their noses a little higher as they dismissed those others - after all, they knew very well how much work and how complicated the movements that they were doing were. What did they know?
But now for the first time we have a study that says, compared with horses involved in other disciplines, high-level dressage horses displayed the lowest level of learning performance. The lowest level.
How can that be?
One can safely assume that this is not genetics. After all, many breeds develop horses that excel not only in dressage but in jumping or three-day eventing as well. Very few horses are bred to be only dressage specific. So if you have the same breed, breeding horses that are both being used in jumping and dressage and we come up with these kind of results, then we know this really doesn't have anything to do with genetics.
|
|||||||
|
