I recently purchased a sweet ottb gelding my trainer found for me. He had a splint fracture surgery several weeks ago and is sound, but I’m wondering if his conformation looks ok. His back feet looked turned out and I’m not sure what that affect will have?
I also just had front shoes put on him because his walls are thin and sore, but his knees look off to me vs the images in his listing: https://flickr.com/photos/11833417@N05/albums/72177720300569354
Pretty much nothing about much of anything can be seen from this angle.
That said - the left knee looks bigger than the right, but nothing here can be truly compared to any of the pics in the link
Editing to say that my comment was based on a totally different picture of the horse, who was photo’d from a 3/4 front angle.
I think that the photo is a bit tilted/on an angle or the horse is standing with its right leg behind the left leg, causing the knees to look a bit different.
Going to his listing photos in the link. His hind feet look long, maybe underrun heels on them (I’m not a good judge on that) His right hind does turn out a bit but that wouldn’t bother me. However, he does give an overall impression that he is standing ‘under’ himself on his hind end in those photos. That might be muscling, might be just him. But I definitely think the hind feet angles need attention. I think the knee is a photographic accident.
Agree on the hind feet - his hind pastern angle is distinctly different to his hoof angle. IOW he has what looks like a broken back hoof pastern axis and could also have a negative plantar angle. Good idea would be to have some rads done so you can make shoeing adjustments.
In case it wasn’t clear by the former posts, his hind hoof angulation is farrier caused, not conformation. Fix the feet and you should have a much better posture in this horse. When their toes get long, they adopt all sort of postures to protect their bodies because the unbalance in the hoof puts stress on other parts of their body and makes them sore.
Some track folks think longer toe = longer stride, but the good news is that it’s easily corrected. I think he’s a little straight up front, but I also think some proper shoeing will fix that too. I thought he was a lovely horse, glad a COTHer snapped him up!
OP, this seller is very good at selecting nice prospects. Looks like your new horse just needs some knowledgeable farrier work to correct the track trimming.
Good luck and have fun with your guy!
I am super jealous!!! I looked at him online and if I was horse shopping, he would have been top of my list. Shoes, some time off and bodywork, he is going to be great.
He is lovely !!
Does he have small white markings on his body or is that something else??
It is only on one side so I wondered if it was injury related?
With regard to his hind end, I happen to like horses who toe out a bit. The seem to never have stifle issues, at least for me.
And he is absolutely adorable! Good luck!
I think people aren’t used to seeing what’s normal, desirable conformation which is to have the hind leg rotate out just a little, so that the stifle can clear the barrel when the leg moves forward, and actual toeing out due to a flaw.
Slight toe-out is desirable, for that reason of the stifle. But it has to be from the whole leg, so the leg itself is “straight”, not some deviation below, say, the hock.
Of course I’m going to love my Coth namesake horse!
How often does that happen?
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