Dressage and three day eventing do happen here in the US, but it's not as popular as in Europe.
My uncle, who was a mounted police officer for many years, and did some stunts at the annual Farm Show in PA (he would jump two horses over a car, no kidding) always said dressage was where the real riding was.
Look at it this way, MMSC- clearly they think Ashkal Way is naturally a good mover, and very, very smart, or they wouldn't bother. And if you love him, dressage horses have much longer careers than racers, so if he turns out to be good at it, you'll get several years to enjoy watching him in his second career. It'll probably help keep him limber and healthy into old age, just like yoga and things like that do for people.
And here's my favorite youtube dressage video- and I'm not even a particular fan of the sport- I love how, at the end, they comment the horse is "only nine!" What a difference from us calling Evening Attire an old man. We've posted it here before, but it's worth a rewatch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKQgT...eature=related
My favorite part of the video Steve posted was watching the horse's ears flick back and forth during the routine- not to anthropomorphize, but the horse seemed to be having as good a time as the rider!