Matching Horse and Rider through Blood Types and Temperament

Due to my last post of the oblivious draft and the anxious child, I thought I would take a little time to discuss horse temperament and blood type. No I don’t mean blood type as in A, B, AB or O. I mean blood type as a subjective way to identify the temperament of the horse breed. Others also use a scale from 1 (calm) to 10 (fiery) to categorize the temperament of a specific horse or breed.

I think these temperament scales can also provide a useful way to identify the temperament of the rider (the teenage daughter) and to help match the rider and horse.

Horse blood types and temperament

Blood type is usually described as being cold, warm or hot. There are also horse breeds that horsey people generally place into these categories. Interestingly, these categories are also geographic. That is, cold blood breeds are descendants from colder northern European and Great Briton climates. From my previous post, you know that draft horses such as Clydesdales (the Budweiser horses) and other working horses are considered cold bloods. Cold blooded horses have a calm, unexcitable, and docile temperament.

Hot bloods descended from Middle Eastern desert climates. They tend to be thin-skinned and fast such as Arabians. It’s no coincidence that today’s thoroughbred race horses are descended from Arabians. Hot blooded horses have, what some call, a fiery temperament.

Warm blooded horses are descendants of the mixing of cold and hot blooded horse breeds. They were bred to try to capture the qualities of both cold and hot blooded breeds. Many of these breeds have made excellent dressage horses such as Trakehners, Dutch Warmbloods, and Hanoverians.

Please keep in mind though that these are average ratings for breeds. The individual temperament of specific horses can vary greatly from the breed norm.

Daughter Blood Types and Matching Rider to Horse

Anyone who has lived in a house with teenage daughters knows that they are, more often than not, of the warm to hot blooded variety. As such, it was to our best interest to try to find a horse with a calm temperament for balance.

 So when we were in the market for a trained dressage horse (school-master) for our daughter, we narrowed it down to two horses, both from breeds noted for being cold-blooded. The first was a Clyde cross gelding; the second was a beautiful Friesian mare. But we quickly found out that the temperament of individual horses can vary drastically from the average of the breed. On the Clyde cross, when the rider made a mistake, the horse just remained calm, patient and forgiving showing a very pleasing temperament. On the Friesian, when the rider made a mistake, you could see the horse becoming visually agitated and unforgiving. The tenseness of the ride continued to escalate frustrating both horse and rider.

Don’t get me wrong. For the right person with the right temperament (and training) that Friesian mare would have been a fabulous dressage horse. She looked stunning in the ring. But it was more important for us to match the temperament of the rider with the temperament of the horse to set them up to succeed as a team.

So obviously we went with the Clyde cross. I’ll keep you posted as to how it all turns out…fingers crossed!

DDD

Sources:

Draper, J. (2002). The book of horses and horse care: An encyclopedia of horses, and a comprehensive guide to horse and pony care. New York, Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Pickeral, T. (1999). The encyclopedia of horses & ponies. Bath, UK, Parragon Publishing.