Ottb
Is this your horse? Are you doing AQHA or open hunters? What level is horse jumping now?
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Cute! The downhill build is generally more appropriate to the long, low frame of a hunter rather than the more collected bearing of a jumper. It’s hard to tell much about the front end with the odd angle of his front leg in this picture.
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Look up how to set a horse stood up to judge sport horse conformation. The way your horse is standing makes her look much more downhill than she probably is.
The cannons closest to the camera should be vertical, the cannons away from camera should be closer together with enough space to see the cannons to the knee.
Your horse’s head in this photo is so low that it makes it very hard to judge it’s point of origin. The poll shouldn’t be lower than the withers.
All of that being said, your horse does look to be more of a downhill type. Her stifles are quite a bit higher than her elbows… But it also looks like you even have her pose so that her front feet are lower than her hind feet on a little slope. Why don’t you reshoot this and put another shot in here?
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The legs closest to the camera need to be vertical, and the off legs should be a half step or so under the horse. The head needs to be in a natural position, ears more or less even with the poll
As this horse is stood up, we can’t tell much of anything about the main components of functional conformation
That said, my impressions are that the shoulder slope (point of shoulder to middle of wither) is quite upright, more than the steeper end of ok at around 55*. The front cannons look longer than desired, with longer pasterns, but the pasterns look to be also a bit upright, which actually helps mitigate their length.
The point of the shoulder is low, and the shoulder angle (point of shoulder to elbow) is barely 90*, and you really want that to be greater than 90*.
These things suggest the horse probably doesn’t have good front end form over fences, as there’s not a lot of room for the knees to come up and move forward,
The neck is probably pretty good emerging from the shoulder, but only because the point of the shoulder is low.
The pillar of support - vertical line through the crease in the forearm - is not very good. It needs to come out well in front of the withers, and this appears more or less right under the withers It also needs to bisect the rear of the foot, and while this looks like it may do that, based on the position of the RF, it’s because the longer pasterns are more upright (but that’s still good, it means less strain on the back of leg structures.
Overall, this horse looks functionally front-heavy, harder to ask to work off her forehand, harder to engage the hind end.
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This is my very fast drawing of how I was taught to look at conformation in person, when picking out horses. You can certainly go more in depth than this and there are good books on that, as well as some really good articles out there on the internet. I’d also remember that conformation is not the end all of how a horse will preform. I have photos of my phone of successful 1.60m jumpers that I’m personally surprised made it over 3ft.
First off, he/she?? is quite downhill. If I draw a straight line from the top of her rump to over her wither, there’s a pretty significant gap. This may make it so getting her on the contact and light in the forehand will be difficult.
She also has a very upright shoulder. Usually, you want to be able to draw a line from the elbow to the point of shoulder, then to the top of the wither, and have the angle of that be less than 90 degrees. She’s probably at exactly 90. This may make it so she has a hard time folding up her legs for larger fences and doesn’t have quite as long of a stride length.
You also want to be able to draw a line from the cannon bone up, and have that line pass in front of the wither; it’s hard with this photo but that appears to not be the case (I was generous with the line, because I think she’s standing a little camped out under herself). This is seeing how heavy on the forehand she’s going to feel. The further forward the line, the lighter she may feel. It also is a prediction of how easily she could clear larger (probably 1.20/1.30 and up) fences.
Behind, you want to draw a line from the stifle point to the point of the butt to the hip point. Ideally this should be an equal triangle. She’s quite close to equal, which means she should have good pushing power from behind. She should have nice power over the jumps.
She also has her SI point directly over her hip point, which some people think means the horse is less likely to have a back injury.
Lastly, her pasterns are a little long and upright. Some people think this has zero impact on anything, except maybe making the sitting trot more bumpy. Some people swear that horses with long pasterns have more leg injuries.
3ft jumpers will probably be no issue for this horse. In hunters, she may find it difficult to keep that ‘easy’ look to the jumps once she gets to 3ft. There’s a pretty big difference between a 3ft jumper oxer and a 3ft hunter oxer in the amount of effort required. However, I wouldn’t count her/him out; Instead I would use this information to think about what parts of your training you need to focus on. The conformation is only one piece of the puzzle to determine what a horse is capable of.
If this was my horse, I would spend a lot of time working on getting the most uphill, light movement I could get.
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The dip in a back doesn’t have anything to do with up/downhill-ness. It’s only value is determining if the horse is butt-high or not. A horse can be butt-high and still be functionally uphill, but all else equal, less uphill than a horse who isn’t butt-high.
You want 90* minimally, and ideally MORE. The greater than 90* it is, the more room there is for the forearm to fold
This isn’t about back injury per say but it does speak to how well, or not, a horse is able to flex the SI joint and engage the hind end. The SI should ideally be directly over the point of the hip. The farther behind it, the less able the horse can engage the hind end, and the longer and weaker the loin which yes, does contribute to back issues. The biggest problem is that most people have nooooo idea what’s going on, and try to force the horse more and more either to “sit back” by pulling on the face, or continue riding them on the forehand, both of which cause and worsen hock, stifle, and back issues.
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Awesome thanks for the recommendation!
Exactly. Draw a line from the point of the elbow to the point of the stifle. This will show whether the horse is built uphill, level, or downhill. The horse in question is quite downhill.
As others have pointed out, the shoulder angle is upright, which limits its mobility. I would prefer to see a lot more angle in the hind legs, as well.
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This is also outdated and not useful. Yes, it can tell you something if the line is pretty slanted, but it’s far less useful than looking at the Big 3:
1 - Pillar of support, where the front leg is in relation to the wither, and the foot, and tells you how much weight is on the front end, relative to the rest of the horse
2 - LS gap, tells you how well the SI can flex and allow the hind end to come under the horse and carry more weight
3 - neck emergence, where relative to the point of the shoulder it attaches at the bottom, and then how it attaches at the top, giving you more insight into how well the horse can elevate his front end.
If all 3 of those are as they should be, and the horse is still butt high with a higher stifle than elbow, he’s still a functionally uphill horse. He’s just not AS uphill as if he weren’t butt high and/or had a more level elbow-stifle line
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