I told Scarlette this story before but it's a great story and appropriate for this thread.
When I was about 19ish I was working for a trainer and she put me in charge of all the young yearlings who were going into the halter classes in the summer shows.
There was this one young colt who was an appy-arab cross. he looked exactly like an appy (not like this horses here) He had a big appy butt and the short tail. The whole works. BUT his attitude was arab - which I adore.
Arabs have this special trait where they can stick their tails straight up in the air. Most horses will flop them to one side or the other
So, one day I'm working this horse and there's no one in the arena. It was my last horse of the day I think and there just wasn't anyone around. So I free-lunge him in the arena. Meaning I exercise him without a line. And he sticks his short appy tail straight in the air like an arab. It was like a flag pole lol. It was the cutest thing
And he bucks and gets all the kinks out. I didn't know this but some of the people that owned the arena were watching and they put on some dressage music and he started moving to it. Boy could that little horse move! He danced all over the arena. It was wonderful.
The dressage people came up to me after and were complimenting him and saying with a horse that moves like that he really should be in dressage...
I had a good laugh that day.
Later, at the shows, the whole arena was filled with laughter when he pranced in with his flag-pole tail. He didn't win but he was a crowd favourite!