Bill, You forgot Arabs on your poll. Texas, California, and Washington State have the leading population in Arabs in the entire nation and are worth a mention here. I grew up on Arabs, training, showing and eventually breeding, and they're wonderful horses. I'm now into "colored" horses, and currently have a big (15.2, 1150lb) paint gelding, a grulla mare, and her 04 grulla paint colt, but will always have a soft spot for the Arabs. While not traditionally used for stock purposes, they are fast braking into cutting and working cattle events and are doing very well. They have no "cow" in them what so ever, but once "shown" what they're supposed to do, they treat it like a game and love to play. I had a little bay Arab gelding for 17 years that I just lost this past June, and I swear that horse had more common sense than I did. I broke so many babies off his back, that I have to wonder how affective I would have been without him, and didn't realize how much I depended on him until he was gone. I always said he was a lousy Arabian, but a great horse. A&M used him for their equestrian team events, I trained baby race horses to pony and gallup in company off him, worked and pushed cows on him (which he loved), rode the big trail rides into Houston for the stockshow on him, rode trails in the Pacific Northwest that would scare a billy goat on him, and wouldn't have let him go for a million. He was truly a partner in every sense of the word, and over the years, I learned to trust his judgement more so than my own at times. I'd like to say that he was unusual, but after 34 years in the Arab world, I came across more that were like him than not like him. Some lines are more inclined to calmness than others, but overall they're quick minded and take a little different attitude when training and starting. If you can stay ahead of them mentally, then you will most likely have a neat little horse on your hands. The trick is to stay one step ahead of them mentally and handle them with calmness which is true for all breeds, its just that one step ahead mentally for Arabs requires a little more effort than others.