There are a few main characteristics. Here is what I look for in order of importance:

1. Intelligence. Dressage requires a horse to be a good learner. The system is set up so that even a half-smart warmblood or thoroughbred can do it, but the smarter the horse, the faster he will learn and the better he will do it. Smarter horses will respond better to practice.

2. Personality/temperament. Dressage also requires a horse to trust people to lead him. This can be taught, but if you have a trusting horse to start with, you will progress faster. It also requires a horse that likes to show off and go places, that bonds strongly with its owner, that enjoys learning new things. If they have a bit of a perfectionist streak in them, all the better. You will need that to get above a 6-7 in scoring. It is most important the rider and horse have compatible personalities, though.

3. Size. The horse and rider enter the ring to be judged as a pair. So you want a horse that matches you not only in temperment but also size. The horse's withers should be no taller than your head and no smaller than your mouth/chin. You should also look for a horse that is built similarly to you. If you have long legs, go for a deep chested horse to show off your elegant legs. In other words, if you are medium height and slender, don't get a 20+ draft horse!

4. Gaits. You want a horse that naturally has tremendous, scopey, lofty, soft footfalls in all three gaits. Most important is walk and trot. If the walk is good, the canter will be good. You want a horse that is forward naturally. The hind legs step under the girth and the haunches drop a few inches towards the ground when they move out. Do not look for flashy. Look to see that when the horse is trotting, he makes a backwards-slanting-front-end-higher parallellogram with his body.

5. Conformation. You want a horse whose neck comes out of the shoulder, preferably with no dip in front of the withers. You want the horse to be balanced in his body--with the front end (poll to wither), the back (wither to croup) and hind end (croup to tail) roughly the same length when standing in a dressage/upright outline or frame.

The only thing dressage training can't really overcome or improve much is intelligence. That is why it is first on my list. The level of inteligence of the animal describes how long or if you will ever reach your training goals. So choose wisely. Gaits are second to last because these can be improved with training. I put conformation last of all because many serious halter class faults are overcome with dressage training. If the horse can walk, trot, canter and halt, he can perform the dressage it has learned.

In my opinion, every Standardbred has all these qualities in spades. I personally look for the taller horses because I am tall and nicely padded. Because the breed varies a great deal, you can usually find one that matches you in size. (If you are short and stocky then I would look for a stockier morgan or quarter horse type.) Generally speaking, Standardbreds of a quarter horse, warmblood, or thoroughbred type are good choices because they look prettiest in the show ring.

Most people believe a horse has to be at least 16hh for dressage but that is not the case. Especially with Standardbreds--a 15.2hh Standardbred when he moves out looks 16.2! :-)

Thanks for the question!

Ann S.