Great upper level Hunters have the conformation that can do Jumpers as well. At that point it’s mostly about the mental game. There are so many UL Jumpers who have amazing form for the Hunter ring. Some of them also move in ways that can win the hacks, some don’t. It’s not always possible to see that as they’re on a course because of how they are packaged together, which is much more engaged and “up”. But many of them do move with too much knee and hock action for the Hunter ring. Some of them could easily have gone the Hunter route, but their people are Jumper people, and that’s why they can easily sire Hunter foals
In the old TB-dominated days, the shoulders were really sloped, which is what allowed the longer daisy-cutting movement, and also led to good o/f form. But trends moved more towards “knees to eyeballs” form, which means shoulders are a bit straighter now so there’s more room to rotate back in order to get the knees up that high. It also means the daisy-cutting movement is a little less so, and there’s more suspension in the gaits.
You can’t just look at the conformation to see how their legs will move though, unfortunately, not in ways you can see how their confo will likely shape their jump in front. But in general, for Hunters, you need that scapula slope to be closer to 45* than to 55*, and you need the scapula-humerus angle to be more than 90*. The front legs need to be well in front of the withers for all that - can’t really have a good enough shoulder slope with the withers stacked on top of the front legs.
Eq horses are much more like Jumper-bred horses. Not that all Hunter-bred horses actually jump round enough to be UL Hunters, and there are a lot more Jumpers who have a flatter jump than rounder, which is probably partly about time conservation. Eq and Jumpers are more likely to have a bit straighter shoulder and a neck that emerges higher out of the shoulder, more like Dressage horses. Hunters tend to have a lower neck emergence.
Note that all of these higher/lower/straighter/more sloped STILL have to fit within the parameters of functional conformation. A 60* shoulder is not a good thing for anyone.
Here’s a great article on this very thing, and keep in mind that in general, Eq horses are the “same” as Jumpers, Note that she’s only talking about the front end here, because that shapes the form over fences
conformation.qxd (jwequine.com)
And if you want to get into more specifics about more disciplines, scroll through the list here
What is Functional Conformation? - JW Equine
so there’s no separate breeding program there.