French Dressage Horse

From the 1980s, several French studs, including Massa, Le Coussoul, La Gesse and Les Frêtes, crossed Lusitanos with horses from families selected for dressage. The Association française du cheval de dressage gained approval as a breeding organisation in June 2020. The CDF studbook records the horses produced through this work and allows their parentage to be traced across generations.

The Association française du cheval de dressage sets out the desired physical traits in its breeding programme. Viewed from the side, the horse should be slightly longer than it is tall, with the withers higher than the croup. The neck should be sufficiently long and well joined to the shoulders, the shoulder long and sloping, the back muscular and supple, and the loin strong. Well-defined joints, regular feet and powerful hindquarters should support long, supple and rhythmical strides. The programme sets no single height.

The French Dressage Horse breeding programme emphasises build and dressage aptitude rather than a defining coat colour. Eligible bloodlines allow a range of colours. A horse that resembles a Lusitano, or has a colour common in that breed, is not necessarily registered as a CDF. Pedigree and the registration route remain essential.

Dressage progressively asks a horse to retain rhythm, balance and responsiveness through increasingly demanding exercises. Collection involves, among other changes, greater weight-bearing by the hindquarters and more sustained movement. The programme combines observations of young horses, ridden presentations and competition results to assess this development over time.

Register A retains a genealogical link to the Lusitano: at least one ancestor within the first three generations and less than 100% Lusitano ancestry. The September 2025 programme also provides for Register B from 1 January 2026, with separate admission rules. Its birth-registration route requires two CDF-approved parents; other admissions involve an assessment. Neither division simply includes every dressage horse born in France.

The French Dressage Horse breeding programme records 56 stallions active in SIRE at the end of 2024, from more than 80 approved stallions. Approval and actual use in a given year are therefore different measures. These figures describe the breeding stallion pool and its activity, rather than all living CDF horses or those competing in dressage.

DNA markers are compared to check the foal's declared parents and support its documented ancestry. Dressage qualities depend on many inherited factors, growth and training. Approval therefore also involves inspection and performance assessment. The programme contains no single DNA test that can certify a horse's possession of a “dressage gene”.