A friend told me they have to beat a horse to make it a dressage horse like Romney's.

[Larkspur]

3. You don't beat any horse to make it an athlete

The upper class dressage horses have been trained since they were born.
Dressage in essence is about getting the horse to bend within a frame and use its hind end to support itself. That's not a horse's natural way to carry itself, but it is not abuse. It teaches a horse to use its natural power to carry itself and its rider it a balanced way. The horse's hind end has the most muscle mass and therefore is the power base for the horse.

Dressage maneuvers were initially devised to make the horse a valuable war weapon by European armies and calvaries. That's why its roots are 400 plus years old. Horses were the tanks of the ancient and Medieval worlds.

Today, dressage is essentially to horses what ballet is to humans. The famous Lippizaner horses of Austria practice dressage.