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

[Arugula Latte]

15. Not true. I took riding lessons with a dressage expert when I was a kid.

It's actually a more humane of training a horse -- much better than yanking on their mouths and using cruel bits the way a lot of Western style riders do. You give them very subtle cues with your legs, seatbones, and subtle rein pressure. They yield to it.

When you look at dressage riders, their movements are almost imperceptible, but they are cluing the horses nonetheless.