Occasionally you'll even find an Arabian cutting horse, or an Arab someone is roping off from. Of course, we all know that the quarter horse makes a better ranch horse. Venturing into the demanding world of dressage, the Arabian has done a very credible job. They half-pass, piaffe and passage with the rest of them. But until you've seen a seventeen-hand Trakehner do the Grand Prix stuff, you haven't seen the best.
Versatility is like that.
This too is a specialized and demanding job not every breed is suited to. Normally a pack horse is saddled with a hundred and fifty or more pounds of gear, a load the animal must handle without the help of a rider to steer him around. On the end of a packer's lead shank, they have to take care of their load with little help from their two-legged boss. They must learn, with little coaching, they have to give trees and rocks along the way an extra wide berth, and if the cross-buck rig shifts to one side a little, it stays there until the end of the trail. Arabian horses seem to have enough savvy to quickly figure out their duties as pack horses, and their built-in endurance keeps them on the trail for many miles.