Mark Todd and Phillip Dutton both favor the new Zealand tb as does jimmy wofford. I believe the short program completely killed the sport. I think the super technical courses being used to weed out horses rather than true eventing just isn't cool. I definitely see the Europeans crying because their big warmbloods just couldn't hold up for it. They were phenomenal for dressage but just didn't bounce back for show jumping as they were too tired. Also of the Rolex horses that have died in last several years were warmblood or warmblood cross. Incredibly sad yes I know there have been tb fatalities but the ones that stand out are wb. I think with a lot of tb web could be competitive. I find it funny instead of breeding a horse for the sport, the Europeans change it to where their horses can be competitive. I still remember David o Connors dressage test blowing everyone away in the Olympics. That was when we saw the formats changing. They don't take not having a superior horse well.
Rather more specifically I think it was the Germans and the Dutch who, amongst the Europeans, lobbied very effectively to change the format from long to short, more suitable for the WBs that they were breeding. Both the Irish and the Brits, with TBs and ID x TBs who excelled at the long format, were caught out by the politics, sadly
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