This is a possible purchase. Nothing is known about his history other than he was in a kill pen. He is approximately 10-12 months now (around 9 months in these photos-younger in the first photo). He has been brought back to health but curious what others think on his conformation, breed, what his mature height may be. He seems to have a good mind and learning quickly. He would be my trail/possible endurance or competitive trail horse.
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He is cute. It’s anyone’s guess on breed. At 9-12 months he is not at his best age to assess future ability, generally they can be gawky and ungainly and go through growth phases that make them appear unbalanced or conformationally assembled by committee.
The video is too short to get a good feel of what he is like, but generally any horse can be a trail horse so long as they have four legs and are servicably sound. If you want a competitive endurance or trail horse, I think you would need more video to get a feel for how he moves and how athletic he is.
My impression is that he’s a pretty decently built colt, a good “using” horse. But none of the pics are suitable to really critique his conformation.
I DO think he’s sickle-hocked, based on the angle of his hocks AND the straightness of his pasterns combined. In other words, not just that he’s got a hind leg pulled under him
The front view shows legs that look nice and straight and are appropriately turned out for his age, so no real concerns there.
He appears to stand square and balanced. If he is a Smart learner who remembers the tasks that is a plus for competitive trail work
We used our “show” horses in NATRC competitive trail, it took them a Very short time to learn the in and outs of the competition like hold their breath during P&R checks
This was my concern as well with back legs.
He’s certainly cute enough and a good mind is important. As for his general conformation, he appears to be quite sickle hocked, as @JB already pointed out.
Is it just me, or is he consistently holding the hind left kind of funny? As others have mentioned, he does look sickle hocked. Didn’t watch the video. He has a super cute face!
He seemed to walk/run/move fine when I saw him the first time. He’s currently with a friend who runs a rescue. I’m going to go look at him again this weekend. What are the concerns with sickle hocked horses as trail horses? Soundness issues?
the more SH’d they are, the more extra stresses there are on the hocks, which means the more work they do, the sooner they are liekly to develop arthritis and to the point it retires them.
The good thing is his front end, and his hip/rump conformation look pretty good, as best I can see, which is a bonus, and that helps make up for some of the SH issues.
I’d want another video, and a decent conformation shot, to really tell much more.
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