Well-said Mary Lou. I am very happy though, when a see a strong backend, legs well under, and a swingy body – but there is so much variation, in the same animal, over time (minutes and weeks).
[QUOTE=Forte;5669150]
Personally, I find it very hard to judge foal movement, especially the hind leg. I think it’s pretty hard for a foal to show great engagement and a hind leg that steps well underneath the body when their hind ends are 2 inches higher than their withers and they are all legs![/QUOTE]
I totally dis-agree with all these “excuses”. The foal either has it or it doesn’t , simple as that. Might this foal get better as it matures and lengthens out ? Sure , but it has a flaw in the hind end engagement.
This is my buisness. I have to look at lots of Holsteiner foals every year and if I heem-hawed back and forth like you guys are doing , I would wind up with a bunch of horses without proper movement.
The reason these type of Hannoverian foals were continually bred was greed. They had people willing to pay huge money for young horses like this with huge trots and this made them breed more and more of them. Alot of those people came from here.
[QUOTE=Cartier;5668816]
As always Bayhawk, I love your subtlety. :lol: And as is often the case, I agree with you one hundred percent. :yes:
Not making any comment at all on the lovely foal referenced in this thread, :no: don’t know him/her and make no comment.
But in general, we too wonder how people can gush over such obvious faults, like weak ineffective engagement behind, that does not come under the horse and does not lift or carry the horse. A friend used to describe that sort of movement as, “he moves like a rooster across a barn yard.”
After watching the “experts” falling all over themselves over horses with obvious faults (like poor movement), over the years we’ve come to the conclusion that it is simply about sales, often auction sales, which are about perception. In my opinion no one can be missing how incorrect and ineffective that movement is, and I do not believe that anyone with a brain in their head would pay top dollar for that sort of movement, most especially not for dressage or jumping.
I suspect this all gets back to a mentality that says, “We’ll make this high profile sale today, regardless, and weed out this mistake in private in the future.” It reflects a rational for putting someone’s private agenda (usually centered around the almighty dollar) over quality.
Years ago we saw a stallion approved that we knew the registry thought was mediocre. When we asked the inspector how they could do that, the response was that the stallion’s owner made them a lot of money, and they would “weed out his foals in the years to come.” It turned us off of one high profile registry in this country.
In the context of breeding, if you put other agendas over simple quality, over the years you will reap the rewards… and it is a mess for everyone but the guy at the slaughter house.[/QUOTE]
Thanks Cartier ! I thought this was a perfect foal video to start a breeding , movement conversation about. Maybe some folks will learn something and demand a better quality foal when they are ready to buy ?
Hey now, lets not pick on all QHs, there are some very nice moving QHs out there.
I’ve always looked for a scoop like action in a horses hocks to see if he is engaging his back end and powering off the hind.
It is hard to judge a youngster in an awkward butt high growth spurt.
I wasn’t thinking about the nice qh’s when I typed that. Lol.
Bayhawk, can you post a video or two showing a foal with nice hind end engagement?
I think this is a good example of a well put together foal with even, solid, push and lift. No, I don’t work for them nor am I trying to advertise for them. I just think this is a nice video of a decent foal. 
[QUOTE=back in the saddle;5669294]
I wasn’t thinking about the nice qh’s when I typed that. Lol.
Bayhawk, can you post a video or two showing a foal with nice hind end engagement?[/QUOTE]
I did some digging and found one about the same age from last years foal branding. This is a Canturo / Acord II colt . This video is not as close up but I think the difference in hind end movement is clear.
The first and most important thing to state in this thread in my eyes is: the price of a foal paid in an auction can not be taken as a measurement for the quality old a foal. Fullstop ! Conclusion: looking at videos and price lists at an auction doies not give any really clear idea whether a foal is good or not. It is a hint, but often not even that. So if one wants to leanr how to evaluate a foal, forget about prices for them.
The video that is posted in the last post not allow an evaluation for people that are not trained to look at foals in my eyes. That does not mean the foal is good or bad, just that with this video it is hard to tell if you are not used to spot movement within a few steps. So I am sorry for me this does not help. I would need to find better ones, maybe I dare to step forward and post videos of our foals just so that people can have a look and decide themselves. But I need to think about that (as said whether I dare in this thread).
I -coming from the hanoverian breeding- am quite interested in a trot evaluation from/or of holsteiner bred horses. Interesting because the purpose of the horses is quite different and a good trot in the sense of a dressage horse is not the breeding goal in the holstein breed. I do not mean that the holstein horses can not trot well and I also do not want to state that only hanoverians can trot as this is not true. But the general breeding direction is a bit different. And I have to agree - a lot of people pay more attention to the front than the hind and especially the back.
For me a good trot is not how much a foal is under (stressing the how in this sentance). For sure I do not want them completely out as this will never change as Bayhawk also stated (they have it or not), but I am not as hard: if they are moving into the direction under the body and are loose, balanced and elastic with a lot of rhythm - for me that is already more than good. I think that this is a very very good base for a future dressage horse. The rest is man made under saddle (if the mind set fits the physical abilities). Having seen foals at auctions making notes into the catalogues and seeing often the very same horses later, or having seen foals at their breeders and later under saddle has shown me that this kind of evaluation is not completely wrong.
In my eyes a trot can change a lot during the first months of lifetime of a foal. Never from out to under, but so so under on one day can be very much under another day. I have not seen a foal change from out to under. The form of the day decides whether they are considered exceptional or very good because movement under the body can be influenced by the growth spurts because that is pure physics. Stepping under is also something that some people define in a different way. Some people just look at the over reach compared to the front. If you do that you happen to define a foal as well under. Explanation: as soon as it has a short body, it can seem as if it is under, but if you also take the full ankles and movement into evaluation you can come to the conclusion, no not under because the hock do not move in a direction under just more in an up and down type of movement.
Coming back to the OPs questions HOW to evaluate a foals movement.
- watch as many of them as you can. Just watch and do not try to find out whether others think this is good or bad. You will come to a conclusion at one point yourself when you have seen a whole bunch and will get the picture yourself. (guess that means watching 1000 foals…, but that’s really it)
- watch as many as you can when they are foals and later ! (much more tricky in the US than over here)
- make notes where you describe what you see. Noting helps to look much more and more concentrated.)
Try to figure out a system for yourself to take notes or evaluate. Some people I know try that with the scores that they mark in their personal notes and jzust have a score, others just mark down what comes into their minds. and some have a list of criteria that the go through in their mind in the very same order for every horse and mare down notes for each of those points. Everyone has to come to a system that suites ones personality. - Try to look at horses/foals together with one other person and describe your impression immediatly after you see it to each other. Often the other person has spotted something that you did not fully realise or are not able to put in words, sometimes one disagrees, sometimes one agrees. but this kind of discussion hepls a lot in becoming better at evaluating.
- Do not have prices of auctions determine your opinion
And now I think I will post videos of foals without any comment whether good or bad - ´jsut look yourself and try to evaluate.
(need to save my post first and change it later with the links to make sure my writing does not disappear…)
the same foal - much younger:
http://youtu.be/HGeeZYThTFM
Pony foal:
http://youtu.be/vuWggmi1nfo
I am going to work on getting some footage of my filly for you guys to critique. She is about ten weeks old now and I think I have yet to see her trot more than a step or two so it won’t be easy. She gallops or stands still! Maybe I will try having someone lead the mare at the trot.
I think the problem is that people expect it to look like a mature horse’s hind end (and they don’t ). I personally like if they flex their hocks well and step with a quicker movement behind with decent push (Bayhawk video). I think the educated eye can identify a good hind end even at a fairly young age. At a few months it should be fairly obvious but still you cannot expect it to look like a mature horse. My first Hanoverian filly had the BEST hind leg, super sit, super electric and you could see that at about six weeks old (just trying to think about what age I first saw her).
I want Divine. Want.
[QUOTE=Bayhawk;5669330]
I did some digging and found one about the same age from last years foal branding. This is a Canturo / Acord II colt . This video is not as close up but I think the difference in hind end movement is clear.
http://youtu.be/9E8zW7pBJk8[/QUOTE]
I agree that this foal uses himself better than the previous foal.
Seems that we have seen some really great moving foals over the years, I have memories of some, but can’t find any video at the moment. I’ll keep looking. Btw, Bayhawk is this you in the video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-PDEGYYLK4
So what about foals that just won’t trot? My last few foals have been ones that only have two speeds, walk and canter. what does that say about their future movement ability?
[QUOTE=Forte;5669736]
So what about foals that just won’t trot? My last few foals have been ones that only have two speeds, walk and canter. what does that say about their future movement ability?[/QUOTE]
Well - having had such. I can tell you they will trot at some point… even as a foal. You just need to find out what makes them tick
So what about foals that just won’t trot? My last few foals have been ones that only have two speeds, walk and canter. what does that say about their future movement ability?
Then you know you have a dressage horse I had one like this (weirdly enough it was a Friesian ) and she decided to trot for the first time at her Keuring. It was one heck of a trot, she was site champion. I don’t know, I’m semi joking but it is nice to see a preference for canter I think?
[QUOTE=Forte;5669736]
So what about foals that just won’t trot? My last few foals have been ones that only have two speeds, walk and canter. what does that say about their future movement ability?[/QUOTE]
It means that they will never trot… never in their whole life :no: so you might as well give them away.
:lol:
Okay, possibly that is not even slightly funny.
Our 2003 Feinbrand daughter had rather nice movement, right up until the day of her Inspection, when she simply would not trot a single step. Any of you have have been through this know how your heart sinks when you realize that your precious baby won’t take a single trot step. 
Looking back it was almost entirely our fault, we had scheduled the farrier for a few weeks earlier, but he had a conflict and ended up coming the night before the inspection. Our filly’s feet were sore for a few weeks, and then she bounced back. Of course by then the Inspection was a distant memory.
I was doing a search for one thing, which led to another, which led to this link http://www.arkive.org/blackbuck/antilope-cervicapra/video-06.html
I hope this is not some new COTHer’s breeding colony. If you watch this video you will see a downhill frame, with a rear strung out behind, a walk - with no impulsion what so ever, which shifts to a canter that is heavy on the forehand… and in terms of conformation - these guys are breaking just about every rule of anatomy I cherish… they shouldn’t be able to jump a 6” cavalletti, but if you keep watching, these guys have the best jump mechanics on the planet. Why aren’t we breeding show jumpers that are built like these guys? Or these guys? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ba3UxqXiXU
[QUOTE=Cartier;5669735]
I agree that this foal uses himself better than the previous foal.
Seems that we have seen some really great moving foals over the years, I have memories of some, but can’t find any video at the moment. I’ll keep looking. Btw, Bayhawk is this you in the video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-PDEGYYLK4[/QUOTE]
No. This is the breeder presenting his mares and foals at the Holstein branding.
The gray mare is full sister to Acorado. She got 10 on jump and ride. The little bay colt is being looked at as a stallion prospect.
I would be more worried about foals that prefer to trot and show very little canter. Many of my foals show very little trot in the first weeks. Below is a short clip of an eight week old filly, who showed me very little trot intially, but IMO, it was worth the wait.
Overall, when judging foals, I am most interested in the first few steps of the trot - is it pushing from behind with good bend in the hock and uphill in the transition? Especially if the foal is in an awkward growth stage, it may not be able to maintain this balance, but I know it is there.
The more foals you look at the better your eye should become, and as someone else said, look at early foal pictures/videos of horses that have already proven themselves as adults whenever possible.
[QUOTE=Bayhawk;5669800]
No. This is the breeder presenting his mares and foals at the Holstein branding.
The gray mare is full sister to Acorado. She got 10 on jump and ride. The little bay colt is being looked at as a stallion prospect.[/QUOTE]
When I look at the gray mare I see an animal that uses her rear, each step has clear intention and purpose, regardless of the gait she is pushing off the ground.
As a baseline, for me, a good moving animal has to be sound, and by that I mean the animal has to come and go cleanly, with no twisting or weakness at any joint as the leg carries weight.
To some extent I like to see exaggerated angles and exaggerated movement in a foal. I have seen animals grow out of extreme movement (towards something more moderate), but I can’t recall a young animal who was dull, flat, lacking elasticity and impulsion etc., that suddenly got better movement as an adult (unless there was some injury or illness).
:yes::yes::yes:
