Why do Hans, Klaus and Greta have German accents? The German accents are actually a case of Fridge Brilliance. The show horses are meant to be Lipizzans, a breed most famously associated with the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. A large part of the breed's original bloodstock was brought into the Austro-Hungarian Empire from Spain when different branches of the Habsburgs ruled both areas. In other words, they are National Animal Stereotypes. This also explains why they're so associated with dancing; Lipizzans are often trained in fancy dressage techniques.
Dissing Ferdinand, one of the horses snipes that the bull's parents weren't even related. The lineage of Lipizzaners is a highly inbred one, with no outcrossing to non-Lipizzans permitted for centuries.
The presence of an exotic horse breed on a ranch that specializes in bull-breeding seems incongruous, until you realize that both bullfighting and dressage are arena-event sports. In effect, Moreno's ranch services the entertainment industry's demand for large trained animals, with fighting-bulls as his primary revenue stream and performing horses as a sideline.
Fridge Brilliance: When Lupe gets her first good look at just how big Ferdinand is, she falls backwards with her legs straight up in the air. Tennessee Fainting Goats are famous for doing this; when frightened, they basically play dead by falling over flat on their backs with all four legs sticking straight up
The bulls operate under the assumption that if they're able to win against the matador, they'll be treated like kings. While bulls that actually win are killed, they're also not entirely wrong — the bull that performs well enough in the arena to warrant a very rare pardon and then survive his injuries afterwards is allowed to live out his natural life in the pasture as a stud. It stands to reason that the few bulls lucky enough to find themselves in this position either assumed they'd won or built up some sort of denial that they did, and that word got around.
Fridge Horror appears when one realizes most fighting bulls are around 3 or 4 years old...and that one of the arguments the bull fighting industry likes to use is that regular beef bulls are much, much younger.
; when frightened, they basically play dead by falling over flat on their backs with all four legs sticking straight up