Conformation fault curb. What are long term implications?
Please see my post below or new threads in horse care for more details about this conformation fault.
Re posted in horse care forum. Originally posted here because I saw a picture here that reminded me of this conformation fault.
If a horse has a “curby hock” as a part of it’s conformation, this is a hock that is “more likely” to pop a curb under the pressure of training or competition. How much that will effect you is dependant on what you want to do with the horse, and luck. They don’t always pop the curb, the hock may remain a “curby hock” without an actual curb. If the curb does develop, freeze firing helps it set up. But once it’s there, it can come back again, and be a problem again.
Mods: please combine with horse care post. Thanks!
NancyM thanks for the info. This is what I posted over there:
Sickle hocks have a relationship with curb, thoroughpin, bog and bone spavin.
Actually, from a breeding standpoint, yes it is a conformation fault. Studbooks recognize this. Horses with this fault are looked down upon as ideal breeding individuals or ideal representation of breed standards. This conformation fault will prevent a horse from obtaining the highest predicate even if the rest of the horse is about near perfect. You will note that there are never any approved stallions with curbed hocks in respectable studbooks.
It is not necessarily a blemish or a lameness. It is an angular limb deformity that horses are and can be born with. It can be a developmental issue or hereditary.
"The causes out of which they arise must be considered under two heads,. viz. predisposing and exciting. Of the former, heredity is a marked factor quite apart from conformation, for it is noticeable that the produce of some horses and mares, against the make and shape of whose limbs nothing can be said, show a special liability to the disease. It must be observed, however, that conformation is a conspicuous feature in the origin of curb. Animals with short calces, or, in other words, wanting in prominence and length of hock-point, are singularly liable to the disease, and the same may be said of others whose hind-limbs slope unduly forward, and are brought more immediately under the weight of the body.
In both these cases the condition generally described as “curby” or “sickle” hocks is represented (Plate XIII, Vol. I). It is also said that hocks, when small at their point of union with the canon - “tied-in” hocks, as they are termed - are specially prone to develop curbs.
The exciting causes of this disease are such as impose sprain or undue tension on the ligaments and tendons behind the hock; hence it results when animals are called upon to carry too much weight, and especially when young or out of condition. In any case, it may be induced by galloping in deep ground, jumping, kicking, rearing, and heavy draught."
