# Conformation question..



## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

I was shopping for horses(just looking, honest!) and ran across this picture. It's not my picture and I don't fancy myself an experience conformation critic. What do you think of this horse? Am I off?
(This isn't to bash or really critique this individual horse, I just want to see how my opinion compares to others)










This is a foundation QH breeding stallion, won't mention breeder or anything like that..

To me, I think the angle of his hip is just off, like it's too steep. I like to see a well rounded hip. The angle of his hip just seems really sharp to me. 

It might be because he's trimmed up, but he looks a little long in the body too.

I like how thick is bone is, it makes him look like he'd be a sturdy mount. (Some halter bred QH make me cringe with their little dainty legs and their massive bodies)

Is he ewe necked or it just the way they took the picture of him. I know he's got his head drawn up, so it might just be the way he's standing.

It's the angle of the hip that really bothers me about this guy. Am I wrong? Shouldn't it be nice and rounded? A matter of opinion?


((As I said before, I am not bashing the horse, just working on "my" conformation critique. Because I plan to purchase a couple of foundation bred QH in the next few years and want to do it right  ))


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## HorseGirl31 (Apr 7, 2010)

I would agree with you on the hip thing, even a newbie like me noticed that!


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## jill.costello (Aug 18, 2004)

I think you're pretty well spot on, but some intresting things of note...

He is long backed with a weak lumbar area, which makes his high croup more pronounced. Also, his shoulder angle does not mirror his hip angle, making it appear too upright.

He is "downhill" meaning his croup is higher than his withers, and for having such low withers, his neck seems set-on a tad too low; but I like the length.

He doesn't seem to have a deep enough heart-girth for his bone and bulk.

I do notice one thing... he has a high tail-set (for a QH) and is holding his tail cocked toward the camera. Although he has a pleasant expression on his face, I'm thinking he has an injury or pain deep in that lower back area that may be contributing to his lack of strength in the topline and accentuating the loin/croup/hip flaws that we see. Just a thought...


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

Best way to look at this is to copy the picture and lighten it to a gray in photoshop. Then you can see what you're looking at. Head, neck and shoulder are good. They've left a tuft of mane over the withers that make the connection at the neck/withers look 'off' but it's the tuft of mane, not a ewe neck. The underside of the neck makes him look a little 'ewe-y" as well but I think that is stud plus not being worked.

He looks a bit back at the knee, but that may be the way he's standing ... it might not look like that if the foot was set just a little further forward.

The drop off from the top of the hip to the tailhead is too steep and the tail is set too far 'up' ... the actual angle from top of him to point of hip to stifle and down to hock isn't really all that bad. But that said, this high top of rump and rather steep croup is something you will often see in the old working QH types. If you look at a lot of the older photos of QHs you do see this quite a lot.

He looks a bit long bodied (rectangular rather than square) but if you divide the body up, looking at where the ribcage starts behind the withers and ends, that section of body is actually fairly short. He is downhill, which most of the old working QHs were and this is likely one of the reasons your eye 'sees' him as long bodied and makes the hip look even higher than it is and the croup further forward. The tailset is odd as well.

Overall ... he pretty much strikes me as what they are apparantly marketing him as ... a working foundation QH stallion. I don't know his age, but if he's an older stallion, some of the issues we're seeing in the photo may be due to age and hard work when he was younger ... arthritis, joint pain ...


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

Here's another picture of a different horse, same bloodlines. I think this guy is gorgeous. He's a bit big for me at 16, I prefer them 15 and under, but 16 is a great height for hubby. 

It's not a super great conformation shot, but it's the best they have. His tail hides his hind leg, but overall there isn't much that really jumps out as a no-no. He appears to be a very well built, nice boned, foundation stallion.

He may be built a bit downhill, but it also looks like he might on the edge of the pen on a dirt bank.

His tail set appears much better(I did notice that on the other, just decided the horse looked excited or on alert and may have had the tail away from his body).

Whatcha think? 

I really appreciate it. I never really had formal comformation training, I really just look at the horse overall and see if something strikes me as too flat or angular or "off". Hearing from others critique the same horses, helps me with my understanding of comformation.



Another foundation QH stallion.









((More pictures of this guy are here. I think he's eye candy and has a gentle look about him. LOL http://www.tufhancockhorses.com/4salesteel.html )) ((None of his pictures are of him squared up for a really good evaluation))


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

jill.costello said:


> I think you're pretty well spot on, but some intresting things of note...
> 
> He is long backed with a weak lumbar area, which makes his high croup more pronounced. Also, his shoulder angle does not mirror his hip angle, making it appear too upright.
> 
> ...


Can you explain heartgirth to me? How does it effect the horses ride or working ability?


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

wolffeathers said:


> Here's another picture of a different horse, same bloodlines. I think this guy is gorgeous.


Very typical of a lot of the Hancock bred horses. I grew up with this kind of horse in Montana (and got bucked off a LOT of the old Hancock horses as well!)

He looks a bit heavy in the front end. He doesn't have the high point of rump or the steep croup, but he is shorter from the top of the rump to the tail head and if you look closely, you can see that the angles are shallower than the angles of the rear end of the other stallion. The angle from hip socket to point of rump, down to the stifle and then to the hock is shallower than I like to see. I think this horse would have a shorter stride than the other stallion.

But again, very typical of the bloodlines.


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

How did you like the Hancock horses SFM? Temperment? Work ethic?

Shorter stride=less comfort, right? Which is more desireable and why?

I have a gelding who is foundation bred on his dams side, you could tell just looking at her. Big thick legs, long body, built like a rectangle tank(with legs to match). My gelding strives to please and looks forward to working/playing. Yet at the same time, not bothered by a thing. He'll investigate "scary items"(trash) and when we shoot in a neighboring pasture he'll come right to the fence with nary a flinch(5 feet behind the people shooting). This is the gelding that plays tag with the goats. I'm hoping that's typical of the foundation horses.


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## jill.costello (Aug 18, 2004)

wolffeathers said:


> Can you explain heartgirth to me? How does it effect the horses ride or working ability?


Lol, I'm not actually sure myself! I'm more like you; I know what looks "right" and do have a bit of learning about it through my breeding program of what *I* wanted to see from a breeding.

What I meant by heart girth is how deep the chest is; the circumference around the horse right behind his elbow.[where you would cinch up the horse]Deeper chest means bigger lung capacity and more lung capacity means more potential for good cardiovascular development (in the right training & conditioning program). I was always breeding for Event horses, so I wanted athletes!

For example:









^ This was my yearling Dalton, a Hanoverian. Even as a yearling, you can see the deepening of his chest down behind his elbow.










^ This is Allie, a Thoroughbred. SHE has a deep heart girth! She has conformation flaws eleswhere, but I wanted you to see what I meant by "deep", lol!

.


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## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

Ah, here, if you want to see a mare with heart girth, I have a picture of my mother's TB from the 70's. 

Feel free to share critiques - no one's feelings will be hurt.


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

So a deep heart girth is a deep indentation where the saddle girth goes? Right? Basically you want a nice indentation there from the shoulders and the ribs behind. Or am I off?


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## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

wolffeathers said:


> So a deep heart girth is a deep indentation where the saddle girth goes? Right? Basically you want a nice indentation there from the shoulders and the ribs behind. Or am I off?


Heart girth is a measurement of the girth (circumference around the horse) at the area of the heart - right behind the elbows of the horse and over it's back. Faithful Linda in the picture I posted had to have an extra long saddle girth to go around her deep chest. It is supposed to indicate more room for heart and lungs for athletic performance. I expect there is something to that. A horse with a deep heart girth will have its underline fall below the elbows and be deep bodied and deep chested.


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

GrannyCarol said:


> Heart girth is a measurement of the girth (circumference around the horse) at the area of the heart - right behind the elbows of the horse and over it's back. Faithful Linda in the picture I posted had to have an extra long saddle girth to go around her deep chest. It is supposed to indicate more room for heart and lungs for athletic performance. I expect there is something to that. A horse with a deep heart girth will have its underline fall below the elbows and be deep bodied and deep chested.


That was an excellent description! Thankyou!


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

wolffeathers, I also grew up with Hancock lines and actually still own one Hancock mare and I find that they generally all have about the same temperament and when SFM says she's been bucked off a few, she likely isn't kidding, they can be a bit opinionated and I wouldn't really consider them passive but when they are well trained, they're amazing, they're pretty tough to wear out. 

If you're looking for foundation lines with a different temperament, you might want to check some Skipper W lines, they're still built solid and tend to be hardworking but I've found that their temperaments seem to range from kind and will to class clowns. I've owned quite a few over the years and have always enjoyed them every bit as much as the Hancock lines.


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

GrannyCarol said:


> Ah, here, if you want to see a mare with heart girth, I have a picture of my mother's TB from the 70's.
> 
> Feel free to share critiques - no one's feelings will be hurt.
> 
> This is the kind of mare I looked for when I was buying TBs to breed to my Oldenburg stallion. For me ... pretty much the ideal type.


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

wolffeathers said:


> How did you like the Hancock horses SFM? Temperment? Work ethic?
> 
> Shorter stride=less comfort, right? Which is more desireable and why


The Hancock horses I am familiar with are the ones I grew up with in western ranch country (much like wr) some 40 years ago. They were wonderful working ranch horses, with all that implies ... plus the fact that they were not always 'willing partners' and they would and could buck! Cowboys liked them. You had plenty of horse under you to do the work. They were tough. They stayed sound. They could work 12 hours a day and wouldn't quit. But a lot of the old foundation QHs, who were bred to do this kind of work and bred for cowboys to ride, were a little like this. Just because they would still buck on ocasionally even when they were 12 or 15 years old didn't get them from being used in a breeding program. Cowboys expected ranch horses to buck on occasion. Most of them did, some more than others.

I don't have a lot of experience with the Skipper W horses, which wr mentioned, but have owned some King ranch bred horses I liked very well. These horses will eventually trace back to a horse called "Peppy" who was owned by the King Ranch in TX and who developed this line of QHs. Good, solid foundation breeding again, but maybe a little 'easier' disposition.

The other thing too, both wr and I are talking about experience with 'ranch horses' ... horses that worked for a living and had a job to do every time they wore a saddle. A good horse and a good temperament for that kind of life can be quite a lot different from a horse that is going to be a backyard pleasure horse that is used for very occasional 'ranch work' and more likely will be ridden out on trails for pleasure 2 or 3 times a week ... or on weekends.

And yes ... shorter stride = bumpier ride.


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## malinda (May 12, 2002)

SFM in KY said:


> The angle from hip socket to point of rump, down to the stifle and then to the hock is shallower than I like to see. I think this horse would have a shorter stride than the other stallion.


Do you mean the angle from the point of hip to point of rump?


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

malinda said:


> Do you mean the angle from the point of hip to point of rump?


Yes, not the highest point of the rump, but the socket where the hip joint joins the pelvic girdle, back to the point of the rump and from there down to the stifle joint. Those angles are shorter (going by the photos anyway) and shallower than the angles on the first horse.


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## malinda (May 12, 2002)

I just meant to point out that the point of hip is not the same as the hip joint/socket.










Also I meant to say in my previous post, point of buttock, not point of rump.


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

Thank you all so much. I have fancied the King horses for a long time. Got to love that King Ranch Red! SFM how did you like the King horses? How is their temperment?

wr, do the Skipper bred horses have soundness issues? A few of the breeder websites I visited presented them as early versions of the halter horses and I saw a few with finer cannon bones and smaller hooves. It may have been I just got done looking at Hancock horses and the comparison threw off my judgement.

I have met many horses that were just "sturdy", it was the only way you could describe them. Big old boxy quarter horses, the ones you don't see anymore. They were built like the old trucks, it seems like you could shoot them a couple of times, run them over, and set dogs on them and they would still be sound and ready to work. They were always ready to work, but they were always gentle and easy to turn on and off like a switch. You almost got the impression they were a plug or slow poke on the ground, but once you were in the saddle it was time to work. 

Then I have met many horses that would colic when the weather changed or 3-5 times a year. I can't remember how many times those horses were on death's doorstep or how many times their owners had to sit out trail rides because "X" was lame again. Or horses that were only good as pasture pets by 4 years old because their feet just couldn't handle the extra hundred or so pounds of a rider or even themselves.


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

wolffeathers said:


> Thank you all so much. I have fancied the King horses for a long time. Got to love that King Ranch Red! SFM how did you like the King horses? How is their temperment?


I liked them a lot. When we were breeding QHs in the 1970s we had a lot of Doc Bar breeding because we were breeding for cutting, reining and snaffle bit, but our neighbor had foundation QHs that were mostly all King ranch background. Her husband had been the accountant for King ranch for years and when he retired and they moved to Wyoming, the foundation of their QHs were all from King ranch. They even 'leased' Peppy himself from the King ranch for several years. The last stallion I remember them having was a really nice son of Peppy San Badger out of one of their mares from foundation King ranch mare lines crossed to Two Eyed Jack.

They were real working horses with a lot of trainability, stayed very sound and didn't seem to have as much of the disagreeable dispositions as you could find in the Hancock horses.


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## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

SFM in KY said:


> This is the kind of mare I looked for when I was buying TBs to breed to my Oldenburg stallion. For me ... pretty much the ideal type.


Thanks, we loved her a lot, but I know that current styles change and she had a few faults. She was a Man O War grand daughter, hence the deep girth. She was a good solid mare, had a lot of basic dressage training by my mother, who bought her off the track at age three and retrained her. We eventually sold her and she went on to be a State Hunter Jumper Champion with a junior rider. I have many fond memories of hacking bridle paths with Linda. My own horse was a half Arab, I wish I had a conformation shot like that of her, I have very few pictures of our horses and I remember them all.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

I've never had an unsound horse from Skipper W lines but I avoid refinement like the plague. Fine bones and small feet do not make sound ranch horses and you have to remember that these lines have been around for a long time but you have to pay attention to what's mixed in there. 

I stopped breeding several years ago and the last time I had to buy a horse it was one of the most frightening things I've been through. I swear, I covered most of the province of Alberta and half of Saskatchewan trying to find a good stout horse that had no Impressive influence and wasn't following the new trend of teeny tiny reiners with teeny tiny feet. 

My now ex husband came home one day and proudly announced that he'd bought my dream horse for $4000 and he was straight Skipper W lines but a diamond in the rough and I'm sure people in Florida heard me scream when he was delivered. My little diamond in the rough was a thin, spoiled 4 year old who'd been recently gelded after breeding mares for 2 and had less than 30 days actual riding time. He is quite honestly one of the best horses I've ever owned after a whole lot of work.


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## malinda (May 12, 2002)

Yes, what is with the teeny tiny feet on reiners? They are supposed to be working horses, not halter horses. The ones I shod several years ago weren't like that. I haven't had any reiners in my clientele for a while, but one of my clients brought one home from college a few months ago and I trimmed it once during her Christmas break. The horse had absolutely tiny feet! They would have been 000 or even 0000, but the previous farrier had 00s on her (and really heavy steel eventing shoes with clips up front, sliders on back of course).


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

One of the farriers I used to use in MT used to tell me not to buy any horse 15 hands or more that had a foot smaller than an 0 ... would never hold up to the concussion for a working horse.

Every halter horse person I ever talked to bragged about their halter horses with the 00 foot (or smaller) ...


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

SFM in KY said:


> Every halter horse person I ever talked to bragged about their halter horses with the 00 foot (or smaller) ...


:hair


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

malinda, those teeny tiny feet and incredibly fine bones don't come even remotely close to AQHA breed standards.


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

I am just not a fan of the whole refinement thing. Granted if you're breeding arabians, they are suppose to be refined and dainty, but a quarter horse?

I guess it just goes back to the whole German Shepherd breeding too. You have people who breed for show/refinement/extremeness and you have folks who breed for performance and work. It's scary to see how many breeders who brag foundation bloodline and have brought in questionable bloodlines.

I don't know, it's just frustrating trying to find the bloodlines and comformation you want and then on top of all that a good temperment. It'll be a few years before I'm ready to buy, but I have a feeling it's going to be one heck of a roadtrip(and check!).


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

wolffeathers said:


> I don't know, it's just frustrating trying to find the bloodlines and comformation you want and then on top of all that a good temperment. It'll be a few years before I'm ready to buy, but I have a feeling it's going to be one heck of a roadtrip(and check!).


I don't know where you're located, but I still know a couple of QH breeders in MT and WY that have always bred primarily for the 'local' market ... working ranchers. I haven't been there for 12 years now, of course, but I can't imagine they have suddenly switched to the show horse market. The biggest number of buyers they had were either young trainers/cowboys buying 2 year olds to train and get started for the roping circuits or ranchers buying replacements for their ranch horses. You had a few show horse people but the biggest number of horses went to the 'using horse' people and the minute a breeder started producing something with a small foot and light bone, they lost those people.

I suspect you can still find plenty of that kind of horses in areas where there are still working ranches, ranches that still need horses to do the work with. I suspect that breeders closer to the more urbanized areas and big cities, where there are a lot of shows and way more people showing, you're going to find the show type horses rather than the working type horses.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

In keeping with SFM suggestion, there are quite a few ranch horse sales throughout Canada and the US. The good ones don't come cheap but they are out there.


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## farmergirl (Aug 2, 2005)

GrannyCarol said:


> Thanks, we loved her a lot, but I know that current styles change and she had a few faults. She was a Man O War grand daughter, hence the deep girth. She was a good solid mare, had a lot of basic dressage training by my mother, who bought her off the track at age three and retrained her. We eventually sold her and she went on to be a State Hunter Jumper Champion with a junior rider. I have many fond memories of hacking bridle paths with Linda. My own horse was a half Arab, I wish I had a conformation shot like that of her, I have very few pictures of our horses and I remember them all.


No wonder I like the look of her! My TB who is built very much like she was is a Man of War decendent. To me your mom's mare was well balanced front to back. 
The first horse shown on this thread looks like his body is made up of three different horses. The shoulder from one, the back from another and the hip and hind end from the last. It looks to me like someone bred for particular traits, like a chunky hind end, without seeing the horse as one entire unit made up of body parts that flow nicely together.
Most of the quarter horses I've known have been downhill (in other words lower at the wither than the top of the croup/hip) and long backed.
I always look for horses that are deep through the girth. That area is where the horses lungs expand, so if you think about it a horse with a deep heart girth should have more stamina and better breathing while working hard than one that is very short in the girth.


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