The first horse. He is very, very short strided, especially in the front, which is to be expected given his conformation.
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I just love Huntin for Chocolate
http://www.rodrockquarterhorses.com/hfc.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8bh5b9dqIU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLuejUCg5AI
I like how they actually let Zip lope instead of crabbing sideways.
These are big time stallions, but they are good examples of good conformation.
He almost looks gaited, with that high knee action and hind end dragging way back there.
I appreciate your perspective.
I acknowledge that you are in all likelihood far more experienced in judging conformation, but I have to say, at the level of knowledge and experience I have, I am very disheartened to see that type behind held as an ideal.
I fully admit to having a bias for mustang-type traits the tend to produce horses of soundness in the body and mind, if not always the best builds for the higher levels of all disciplines. However, I think it is extremely sad that a horse with toothpick cannon bones is idolized at any level as an example of what a horse should be. When the athletic ability at the highest levels is valued to the extent that basic survivability is disregarded I think horsemanship has started growing mutations of what it ought to be. If you can breed a quarter horse that is extremely athletic, has a pretty face, but is also sensible, sound, and has hard, healthy feet, then I would respect it. The same goes for warmbloods that can dance their hearts out in an arena but cannot survive turnout without sustaining an injury.
I apologize for the rant-ish nature of my response, but I am extremely disillusioned with the quality of analysis I might find here.
I would genuinely love to hear why you think, in detail, that specific horse should be what breeders strive for. In all seriousness, if you can convince me of why I’m wrong, I would have a world of respect for you.
It will do good to remember that feral horses are domesticated horses like every other out there, not so far removed from the same genes those horses we ride carry.
The difference, the extremes seen in feral horses tend to be random, no one bred them the last few generations with an eye for any characteristics or culled for unwanted ones.
Like all domestic dogs, if turned out to bred randomly, no matter what breed they are, in a few generations end up being your basic medium to smaller brown dog, those horses revert to small, compact horses that many don’t make it to old age.
The wonderful feral horse we had, we never could ride hard, because, according to our vet, he had rickets in his knees, probably from growing his yearling year into two years old, as his knees formed and closed, in a drought and so with those kinds of malformations brought on by malnutrition from that.
We had to retire him at mid teens and his knees gave up by 20, even with the best possible management.
To define domestic horses by “toothpick cannon bones” is silly, just as calling all feral horses scrubs.
Horses, domestic or feral, come in all kinds, we can pick one apart, but the next one may just be different.
All our domestic horses can and do survive just fine out in pastures, our broodmares lived and raised their foals in the canyons, the same foals that then went into race training and did well and later retrained for ranch horses and spent a long life working cattle.
Don’t know where you get that domesticated horses can’t survive in the wild?
Where do you think feral horses come from?
Then arabians are known for very small bone circumference, but is happens to be some of the most dense also, so for those horses, that is not a disadvantage.
I think that putting feral horses on some kind of pedestal and bashing domestic horses is really not knowing where feral horses come from and missing what all is out there.
Feral horses have a high incidence of founder, because no one is taking care of them when they start getting foot sore, as that same horse would be taken care of if he was under proper management:
http://www.thehorse.com/articles/28325/foot-type-and-laminitis-incidence-in-feral-horses
In live organism, perfect is meaningless, being the best for the task at hand and adaptable is what makes anything alive find it’s niche.
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Thank you for your thoughtful response.
When I criticized “toothpick cannon bones” I was referring specifically to the horse that Palm Beach referenced as one she loves, and thinks exemplifies good conformation.
I admit that my response was probably bigoted, in that I swept pedigree domestic (by domestic, I mean horses bred by humans, whose dam and sire were bred by humans, and granddam and grandsire were bred by humans, not designating a distinct species) horses under the same rug.
I have worked at a barn full of very expensive quarter horses that were managed in a relatively healthy environment (by wonderful people, who I remain very fond of). What I mean by healthy, without going into extreme detail, is the horses were turned out over varied, hilly terrain (that wasn’t overly rocky, muddy, sandy, or anything else) at night, brought into a well ventilated barn with very few flies during the day, fed balanced, individualized diets with an emphasis on quality forage, and had their feet regularly trimmed by a very capable farrier. They were patient animals with generally good sense, athletic enough for most work asked of them, extremely skilled at reigning and other western classes, and each one of them would come in lame at least once a month. Lame as in had to be taken out of regular use for at least a week and catered to with various methods to recover. There were some other horses at the barn, an unusual looking draft gaited hybrid, a trakehner, a welsh pony, and many others, you get the picture. None of them were lame nearly as often.
I cite that in part as a response to the interesting (and educational, I definitely gained some perspective on the impact of the environment on a horse’s hooves) article you shared, and in part as (admittedly anecdotal) data, to try to help illustrate my perspective based on my experience.
I don’t resent ‘domestic’ horses or their owners; I have a world of respect for horse people who keep their horses in environments that mimic how the species (!) as a uniform whole is designed to live, particularly those breeders and owners of horses that are very competitive high earners, because that type of management and breeding goes against the grain of the vast majority of horsekeeping I have come across in my entire experience in the industry.
What I resent is idealizing animals (and I will generalize a bit here, forgive me) in the arena of horsemanship where the horse’s ability to perform at the highest levels of specific disciplines is given much more attention than preserving the aspects of a horse that are necessary for survival outside of a stall in any environment required.
There are many, many horse people with ‘domestic’ horses who have the hardiness required by a world outside of a cushy facility, and are also very sensible, sound, athletic mounts. But there is, in my opinion, far too many of us horse people on the other side of the spectrum.
When talking about horses in very physical training to become competitive in their discipline, like any other such, humans also, there will be some injuries and unsoundness all along, hopefully not serious ones.
The ones just cruising along in life, the human and horse couch potatoes, those are not training hard and competing where they may get injured, so you won’t see those kinds of injuries in those horses.
Then, as life goes on and times start catching on, the ones that had athletic lives, humans and horses, may have problems from those activities.
On the other hand, they will weather age considerably better, with bodies that have been tuned by the very active life into optimal bone density and cardiovascular systems, compared with the problems that the couch potato individuals will have in later life, when their less nicely tuned bodies start having to struggle.
There are plenty of studies out there showing just that.
Of course, we are not talking about some trainers, of humans and horses, that are bad trainers and cause unnecessary trouble to those training and competing.
A little common sense goes a long way in any we do in life.
I don’t know about the stable you mention, but in many well run stables today you will find plenty of oldsters that were top flight competitors when young that still are sound and teaching new riders, the well loved, old schoolmaster type horses, now a bit slower with age, that are still going strong, even after all those years competing hard.
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That’s certainly worth thinking about, as well.
I’m not an ace at ascertaining the sentiment behind typed messages, so I can’t really tell if you understand where I’m coming from in terms of certain breeding and barn management methods and goals that I disagree with.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I felt you were angry and felt I was attacking domestic horses earlier. I can’t tell if you still feel this way…
Sorry, I’m not being sarcastic, just trying to feel out if I’ve explained where I’m coming from in a way that makes sense to you, and if you’re still irked.
Thanks for your perspectives on my posts! (Again, being genuine here)
I don’t get angry, I am explaining my thought on this, as everyone does, no need to take offense.
I type and then edit several times, to be sure it comes across as clear as possible.
That editing at times makes the post come across as short, truncated here and there.
That is because some has been left out, that seemed unnecessary to the conversation, to help with comprehension and avoid misunderstandings.
I wonder if, since you vented and still seem to think so much is wrong, maybe that, with other information offered, that may contradict that opinion of all that is wrong, that would make someone defensive and expecting controversy, not just discussion?
I was not saying that there is no wrong out there, but adding that there is plenty right also and why.
Ahh, I get you. Thanks for the explanation.
One of the difficulties in forums, I find, is that the format often leads to disjointed communication between two people once the discussion takes a conversational route.
I’ve noticed that sometimes it seems us horse people spend so much energy dealing with horses that the way in which we deal with people becomes warped/unusually individualized/ disjointed.
Thanks for sharing your perspectives!
Zips Chocolate Chip lived to age 30 and Huntin For Chocolate is 21 and still going strong. Call me an idiot but I’d look at their show records and ages and the show records of their progeny and conclude that both horses are sound and healthy. And I don’t “think” they have good conformation, they do have good conformation.
I’ve been in racing for decades and have been around other disciplines and have never seen entire barns full of horses go lame once a month. I would question management if every horse in a barn was going lame once a month.
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Plus, there is no such thing as lame once a month, unless it depends on the phases of the moon, maybe?
That would be an interesting diagnosis, similar to moon blindness, perhaps?
I do think we know better today.
The problem with mixing up subjectivity and objectivity is that you lose the logical grounds for using the word “know”.
Oh, I see how that sounded confusing. On average, they seemed to come in about once a month, but it varied between several months and a couple weeks, rarely severe, though.
This one is standing still, so it is easier to see his build, I would say he is a little straight through the hind legs, Also despite his thick neck, he might be conformationally ewe-necked or “upside down,” Or perhaps a little hammer headed?
The hind legs would matter for soundness overall. The neck would matter more for performance.
I don’t mind a big head or one with lots of character :). I don’t see that as related to functional conformation at all.
Interesting article! But it says that a high percentage of the horses were laminitic. It did not say that they had foundered. Laminitis is the inflammation of the hoof wall. Founder is when the hoof capsule rotates around the coffin bones. He also says that horses were overtly lame. It is possible that the tightly worn feet of the wide horses protected them from foundering even in a laminitic episode. Certainly my farrier beleives that a horse with a good tight barefoot trim is less likely to founder even in a lamninitic episode than a horse that has the heels and toes already run forward, making the rotation much easier.
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If the horses are coming in lame that often, I would look at the overall management and training practises to see what the stressors were.
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Laminitis is the inflammation of the laminae (hence the name), not the hoof wall. When the damage to the laminae is severe, it no longer can support the pedal bone which then rotates.
Yes. I miss spoke. But my point was that laminitis isn’t the same as founder, and horses can have laminitis without foundering. There is speculation that a tight mstang foot can protect against foundering during a laminitis attack, and a run forward foot can make a horse more likely to fpunder.
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Regarding the first horse:
a) what experience you have with assessing conformation
I am not a “judge” by any means; just have a lot of years of horse experience under my belt.
b) the discipline(s) you think this horse could do well in (up to, say, mid level)
In general, mustangs tend to be good “using” horses in terms of ranch work. I think he appears to have a good ground-covering trot so he would be good if you need to cover some miles during the day.
As characteristic of mustangs, he’s got great bone structure in his legs.
c) any potential red flags you see
Nothing serious by any means, but he has what I like to call “a triangular looking head” where his jaw ties in thick with the neck, and then tapers to the nose. (Rather than a “pretty” halter head.) But he appears young so that may change as he grows. My moms QH was like that when he was young and he’s become more proportioned as he has gotten older.
He does seem to be lighter in the hindquarters than I personally like, and his neck is short in comparison with the rest of his body.
d) your impression of this horse’s mind and temperament (strengths, weaknesses)
Hard to assess with the video in question, but I don’t see him looking around with the whites of his eyes, so one could conclude that he should have a decent mind.
e) your overall impression of the horse
He’s cute. I like him. However, would I ever buy a mustang? Probably not. Nothing against them; just doesn’t usually suit what I want to do with my horses.
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