Conformation crunch

Conformation is one of those things that horse people agonize over, and it's one of the most basic determinations of long term soundness and usability: How the horse is put together.

The problem is, sometimes you have less than perfect conformation on a stellar horse, or seemingly good conformation on an underperformer.

Generally though, good conformation = good horse.

Even a horse with a ton of try will break down without special care and lots of attention when it's in hard work if it has a major fault or two.

Truly serious conformation faults are hardly ever seen in top performing horses.

Here's a comparison of Chev as a 2 year old (I think she was 2 years 2 months), and Sugar (we'll call her), who is 20 months.

I always kind of cringe when I see photos of Chev as a young horse (really, any time before age 4).

She was so awkward looking.

I see, specifically, calf knees (her biggest fault), straight-ish shoulder, and kinda funky looking back legs.  She also had a huge head which you can't see because Keelan is blocking it in this photo.

On the plus side, she has a long neck, relatively short back, and those funky back legs are straight and feature a hugely long gaskin, which gives her a comfortable, sweeping strike in back.  Her hip is a little steep but long.  She tracks up well and straight.  And she has grown up in a pretty nice looking horse.

 Chev at 6 years old

She still has the straight shoulder, although if you look at the length between the point of her shoulder and the point of her elbow, you'll see why she has such a comfortable stride.  Her calf knees straightened a bit but are still a major fault that I think about every ride.  And a lot of the faults that seemed huge when she was a baby turned out to not be such a big deal after all.  It turns out this conformation thing is complicated!

***DISCLAIMER:  the following conformation analysis deals with specifically quarter horses!  Horses are a lot like cars--there's a different style for every need.

I'd like to delve into the nitty-gritty.

A horse is generally considered to be downhill if it's hip (or croup) is higher than it's withers.  Here's a conformation diagram so we're all on the same page with horse terms.

This diagram is supposed to exhibit generalized excellent conformation for the quarter horse.  Both Chev and Sugar are quarter horses, but Chev is of the more modern pleasure type, and Sugar is a reining/cow bred type.

Anyway, see the croup and the withers in the drawing?  Even in this great conformation diagram, most horse people would consider this horse to be "downhill", meaning he's built like he's standing with his rear legs up a hill and his forelegs down in a ditch.

Not so!  I would say.

And do you know why?

Because a horse that actually travels downhill when he moves has a lot more to do with the relationship of the hocks to the knees.

As you can see in the diagram, they are almost level with each other.  This is ideal.

It's also something I really like in Chevy and the little filly.  They both have fairly low set hocks, which allows them to travel in a more sweeping, level way at all the gaits.

I think this horse would feel incredibly downhill to ride.  And it's not just because his bum is about a mile above his withers (which might actually be sort of okay, because based on the length of his tail, he's still a 2 year old)--look at how much higher his hocks are than his knees!  His front cannon bones are nice and short, but unfortunately, his front legs look like they belong to a completely different horse.

Purple line = hip to withers

 Green line = hock to knee

High set hocks are a deal breaker for me.

By contrast, here's an example of a high level reining show horse:

Though she also appears downhill at first glance, her hocks are much lower, almost level with her knees, and her front legs look like they can support her frame without much trouble.  She also looks like she'd be balanced and quick in her turnarounds and maneuvers--and she is.

Here's Chev and Sugar:

Even though a lot of their conformation is very dissimilar, especially overall body type, they both have fairly level toplines and are fairly level from hock to knee, even at 2 years old.  That tells me Sugar is likely to grow up to be fairly balanced, even if she is a little more post legged behind.

This is a pretty good article on Reining-horse specific conformation by Les Vogt, who has really grown on me over the years:  http://lesvogt.wordpress.com/2007/12/21/werent-we-talking-about-prospects/

He mentions something in particular that I was pretty worried about.

I come from the English world, where longish pasterns are coveted.  They help give a springy stride, and, I thought, also help with long term soundness.

Turns out you don't want longish pasterns in a reining horse or a horse that has to do a lot of quick, difficult maneuvers.  I thought Chev had pretty short pasterns, but as you can see, Sugar's are shorter still.

The last thing I want to talk about is shoulder slope.

It's another area of horse conformation that isn't well understood.

Different sloped shoulders are good for different things.  Generally, the more upright the shoulder, the more "torque", and the less "reach".

For example, pulling horses have very upright shoulders:  Clydesdales, Percherons, Draft breeds.

Here's a Clydesdale stallion:

Red line = shoulder slope

Yellow line = humerus length

Angle between lines = ~ 90 degrees

Even though his shoulder is steep (about 55 degrees), which is as expected with his breed standard, the length of his humerus (arm bone) is just about ideal at around 60% of his shoulder length.  The angle is also good between shoulder and humerus at 90 degrees.  This means despite the upright shoulder, he can reach out a bit and get a lot of power out of his strides.  The steep angles also lend themselves to a lot of knee action.*

*Side note:  This is why, interestingly, a lot of draft crosses (particularly when crossed on sloped shoulder breeds like the Thoroughbred) can, ironically, turn out to be good jumpers, because the combination of steep shoulder angle (which gives good knee action and "push") and long humerus (which allows for reach and length of stride) lends itself well to jumping!  Most warmblood breeds that excel in jumping have the straight shoulder/long humerus combination.  If you've seen a horse jump in slow motion, you'll be shocked to see almost all of the push to get over the jump comes from the front end, not the rear.

Let's try Chev, since she has an apparently terrible shoulder angle at first glance:

Shoulder slope = ~50-55 degrees

Shoulder angle = ~90 degrees

Humerus length = ~65%

She has a somewhat steep shoulder slope (between 50-55 degrees) but a long humerus that is very good at 65% length of her shoulder.  This helps to explain some of her sweeping action at the trot, and is the reason she can push out for English classes.  The slightly steeper shoulder is still open enough, with about a 90 degree angle between shoulder slope and humerus.  If the humerus is too long or too short, reach can be limited.  But her humerus is long enough and sloped enough to give her pretty good reach.  She still prefers to jog, though.

Here's Sugar, who's still young and will likely change a bit:

Shoulder slope = 45 degrees
Shoulder angle = 85 degrees
Humerus length = 65%

Because of her mane, it was hard for me to really see the slope of her shoulder, but I know she has a much more sloped shoulder than Chev does.  Her shoulder slope is about 45 degrees, or "laid back".  The angle between her shoulder slope and her humerus is about 85 degrees (adequate), and her humerus length (at 20 months) is about 65% the length of her shoulder.  I think it's likely that her shoulder slope will become a little steeper as she grows, which should give her angles similar to Chev's.

Finally, the professional reining horse:

Shoulder slope = 50 degrees

Shoulder angle = 85 degrees

Humerus length = 80%

Her angles are similar to Sugar's (which isn't surprising, since they're both reining bred): Shoulder slope is about 50 degrees, shoulder angle between shoulder and humerus is about 85 degrees, and the humerus is long at 80% the shoulder's total length.  Historically a long humerus causes the horse to stand more under itself, which is exactly what this horse is doing--but it's also important to consider that photo angles can drastically change the appearance of lengths and angles, and this photo would be much more ideal if the horse was standing more square up front.

Anyway, I'm too tired to know if any of this makes sense anymore--G'nite!

Cardinal Rule #1--My first Ah Ha! Moment

I'll admit, I'm not the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to schooling leads.

In 2009, shortly after her 4th birthday, Chev bowed a tendon twirling like a maniac on turnout in the roundpen.  When I brought her in, she was tender on the rocks.  She was barefoot at the time, and she always had hard hooves.  She was never stone tender.  That got my attention right away.

When I lunged her to assess her better, something was definitely wrong.  Chevy has a lot of head movement at liberty or on the line at the trot.  I've had two vets assess her, and they both said, "It's just the way she moves."  But this time I could definitely see a head bob.  There was the tiniest bit of swelling in her left front just below the knee.  No heat.  Everyone told me it was a stone bruise.

I should probably mention at this point that I have this strange "feeling" sometimes around animals.  When I look at an animal, I can usually tell if something is wrong, even if they look fine on the outside.  It's really strange.  I guess I probably just notice things other people wouldn't notice.  With Chevy, I couldn't explain what it was, but I knew something was wrong.

I called the vet and made an appointment to come out the following morning for an ultrasound of both front legs.  I felt a little silly doing it, since I didn't have much reasonable data to indicate a problem.

Sure enough, her left front superficial flexor tendon was bowed.

A "bowed" tendon technically just means it doesn't appear normal.  This could mean anything from minor swelling to a tear, a hole, or even complete severance of the tendon connection.  Major injuries give the tendon a bowed appearance.  This is pretty common to see in Thoroughbreds.  But it can happen to any horse.

In Chev's case, luckily, the tendon was just swollen without any perforation.

It still meant she was on stall rest for two months.

Imagine confining a three-year-old child to a crib for two months, and you pretty much have how much fun that was for both of us.

I spent many evenings down at the barn walking her in slow, big loops around the barn.  Soon everyone knew us.

After a month of nothing but hand walking, we graduated to a few minutes of trot work.

Eventually she was back on the lunge line again.  I was terrified she would re-injure herself and be unridable.

Anyway, the point of all this is to explain why, at 5 years old, my horse was just learning how to canter under saddle.

I started riding her again about two and a half months after her injury on the advice of the vet, in late August of 2009.  We did a few minutes of trot a day, but most of it was walking, halting, and learning to steer.

I didn't really get her cantering under saddle until almost her 6th birthday, about a year ago.

I mentioned before that my horse is one-sided, like many horses.

I could get her going on one lead, but not the other.  She was completely "one-leaded."

My gelding had one lead, and while I loved him absolutely, I didn't really have to heart to push him into working on both leads all the time.  Before he was retired to a life of trail riding (which he loved), we could do flying changes when he was 23--but it wasn't much fun for either of us.  I decided at that point in his life, he had earned pleasant rides under saddle that he enjoyed.  His show days were over, and he deserved to just have fun.  Plus, he was a real blast out on the trails, where it didn't matter what lead he chose.

Ben at 22 in his right lead canter, me with terrible equitation & a bareback pad

But I was determined my filly would have both her leads.

I worked day after day, trying everything I could think of to trick her into picking up the lead.

I saw our lives unfolding before me:  Megan and her one-leaded horse.  AGAIN.

It was very discouraging.

When you're in this situation, trying your hardest to canter your filly correctly in an arena and not kill anyone or yourself, you tend to solicit a lot of unwanted advice.

"Stop her and back her up hard when she takes the wrong lead," one teenage know-it-all said.

"Get her in a tight circle and then ask!"  Another yelled.

"If she's on the wrong lead just put her in a circle and she'll have to switch!" the first one said again.

"You have to turn her nose to the outside or she'll never get it!!"  the would-be trainer told me.

"TURN HER HARD AGAINST THE WALL AND THEN ASK HER HARD FOR THE LEAD ON THE WAY OUT!!!" someone else shouted.

It was ridiculous.  And very frustrating.  I didn't see the logic in any of these things, but I faithfully tried them in front of my audience, and every one failed.  Repeatedly.

After a while my teenage audience wrote us off as a lost cause, and left us alone.

It wasn't that Chev was trying to be bad.  Chev didn't know she had another lead under saddle.

She was just trying to chug along in the most comfortable and balanced way she knew how.

And I didn't want to punish that.

But I didn't have a clue about how to get through to her what I wanted.

I went home every time frustrated and defeated.

I was reading a lot of mugwump at this time, since her advice seemed really solid, simple and straight-forward to me.

I remember I was reading an entry on stops.

She saw the stop as a reward for the horse.  A chance to get a break from work.

Slowly the gears started turning in my brain.

I had an idea.

The next time I was out at the barn, I tried my theory.

After a long warm up, I asked for the canter.

Chev struck off on the only lead she knew.  It was wrong, but instead of stopping her, I let her chug along for a few laps around the indoor arena before I said "Hhhhho."

She rested a minute, we walked off, I asked again.

Wrong lead again.

I had her keep going around and around until I felt I'd made my point.  I let her halt and air up a little bit.  Then we struck off again.

Wrong lead again.  Around and around and around we went.  Probably ten laps.

We stopped.  She was getting tired.  I could feel her thinking about what she could do to get out of this crazy routine I had invented.

I asked again.  She picked up the wrong lead again.  Around and around and around.  Fifteen laps this time.

Whew!

As she aired up a little, I considered what had happened so far.  This was a lot more pleasant ride than the other ones, even if it was all spent on the wrong lead.

We walked off, I put her in a trot, stopped my posting and clearly asked again.

And guess what?

My little pony picked up the correct lead.

I was so happy I nearly cried.

I stopped her after four or five strides, let her rest a good long while and praised her lavishly.  I resisted the urge (and potential pitfall) of making her stay on the right lead for more than a few strides.

We walked out, she cooled off, and we quit for the day.

The gears were turning.

My next ride started off about the same, but it only took her two times of loping around and around the arena on the wrong lead before she figured it out.  I only had her go a few strides on the correct lead before letting her rest.  That way she knew the difference, and knew she could expect a reward if she did the right thing.

There was no yelling, no thumping, and no stress to this approach.  There was no cranking of the reins, tight turns, loss of balance, or stiffening of her neck.

Even though she's still much more comfortable on her left lead, I never had much trouble getting her leads after that.

This was my first really huge "ah-HA!!" moment with Chev.

So thanks, mugwump, for helping me figure out my first cardinal rule of training.

Rule #1:  Make the right thing easy, and the wrong thing hard.

 Chev on the right lead canter.  You can see the right lead originates from the left hind.

My cardinal rules of training

These are the most basic rules for me in Chev's training, and some of them I didn't learn easily, though they are all simple:

1) Make the right thing easy, and the wrong thing hard.  My number one rule.

2)  Ask first with the cue you want responded to.

3)  Request.  Insist.  Tell.  In that order.

4)  Work is not it's own reward.  Rest is a reward.

5)  Releases for correct responses need to be immediate.

The basic nature of the average horse is very good, and generally quite forgiving.  Since I have the luxury of training only one horse, I'm able to tailor my training methods to her personality.  So, I'd like that to be a caveat.  I believe the above rules to be applicable to MOST horses.

Doubtless I'll amend them as our training continues.