RPSI Inspection

I've been planning on getting Jetta approved by the RPSI ever since I got her. Don't ask me why it's taken 8 years to finally get her there, but there was always one reason or another that I couldn't take her. She went through a terribly ugly 3-year-old year, I sprained both my MCL's, she was too skinny, I was too busy, I had no money, etc., etc.

This year there were no excuses, especially since she's gonna have a baby! The inspection was also super close to where I live, about 40 minutes away. I'd never heard of the barn before, but the host was incredibly nice responding to all of my questions. I researched it to death - how to present your horse, how to do the triangle, what my horse should wear, etc.

Luckily Jetta's mane is roached so I didn't have to worry about braiding. I trimmed her mohawk up a bit to make it look a little bit neater and not so floppy. I trimmed her tail, washed her legs and braided her forelock.

First off, all horses (except foals) are shown in a bridle. I didn't have a Newmarket lead (the Y-shaped lead chain with two clips) but luckily I own a leather lead so I found a cheap Y-connecter through Stateline tack (the actual leads are so expensive!) and used that. The reasoning being that you could keep your reins on the bridle, but you have to unhook them to let your horse go free, so it's a huge hassle if you don't have clips.

Jetta is very good in hand for the most part, so I didn't worry too much about working on that. She spent the night in her stall instead of out in her paddock due to the rain, which wasn't bad because she's supposed to be a little hot so she could show off her moves.

At the inspection, I finished filling out any paperwork that I hadn't submitted online beforehand. The North American RPSI manager was there and the judge from Germany. There were both incredibly nice. Seriously, everyone I met was so nice. I was kind of nervous my Thoroughbred was going to be looked down upon by the Warmblood people, but that was definitely not the case. Jetta was complemented on her manners because she stood tied to the trailer the entire time, I was congratulated when she passed her inspection, people discussed different stallions that would cross well with her in the future, etc. It was a very welcoming environment.

The first thing they did was explain a bit of what they're looking for. Horses are scored on a scale of 10 for 7 different areas. An average score of 7 is required for a horse to be considered "premium status" (basically they need a minimum score of 49). They explained the difference between books I and II, the German Riding Pony side, and the fact that now horses registered with RPSI is considered a Deutsch Sport Pferd (aka German Sport Horse or DSP). This is new because previously, every region of Germany had a different name for their warmbloods (for example, Zweibrucker), but now it's just DSP (there are still a few regions that don't conform to this, but over half of Germany agreed to the DSP change).

Getting her height measured

When it came my turn to go (single mares went first, then mares with foals), I stood Jetta up in front of the judge while he looked over her conformation. She was pretty impatient and while she stood nicely for the most part, she had to do her signature impatient head bob. The triangle portion went well, and then it was time to let her off the lead. I thought she was pretty good for the free portion, she did just kind of want to zoom around in the canter, but she did show off some nice trot, though I wish she had slowed down and gave a little springier trot instead of her Standardbred impression.

Love this one, she actually looks warmblood-like!

But she listened well and was easy to catch afterwards, which couldn't be said for some horses, so I was happy with her. And we passed!

Presenting my German Sport Horse... Mule

The judge's comments were that Jetta has good conformation, with nice size and good amount of bone. She had a good shoulder and fairly good neck. Her head was unfeminine (lol, she got a 6 on sex/breed type). He really liked her walk (7.5) and said she had good engagement in the trot (6.5) and canter (6), but could be more uphill. Quality of conformation, correctness and overall impression all got 6.5. She scored a total of 45.5, so not terrible, we were only 3.5 points from being premium! Her average score was a 6.5, so she was pretty close.

Overall it was a great experience and hopefully I'll be back next year with a little baby in tow!

Conformation Clinic: Part 1

First off, sorry this took so long! Thank you so much for sending photos for me to use in my project. I think it turned out really well and I had a lot of fun analyzing these horses.

Secondly, I wanted to do a little review of the program I used. I had the On Track Equine program as a trial. They are upgrading the system so it was a one-shot sort of deal and I had to download it for class. My first impressions of the program was that it was awesome. All sorts of tools to edit photos and videos, measure stride length, angles, distances, make straight lines, curvy lines, etc. I barely got to brush the amount of tools that this program has.

Despite all of that, I thought that the program had a lot of flaws and design issues that need to be remedied, which I'm assuming is what they're doing by re-releasing the software. For instance, saving the edited photos was very difficult and out of the 15 different photos I did, only 9 of them got saved. I have no idea where the other 6 went :( I'm going to see if I can borrow my teacher's copy of the program that she purchased and we'll see if I can do those other 6 again and get them posted.

In the meantime, I'm going to break these conformation clinics into groups of 3, comparing horses and "placing" them as if they were in a competition. Grouping is done randomly, just by the order that the horse's photos were saved to my computer. If I got multiple pictures, I tried to pick the one that I thought showed the horse to their best. Keep in mind that conformation is a fairly subjective field and I am judging for dressage here. Here we go!

Horse 1: Penny

Stats: 7 year old, 16.2hh Thoroughbred mare

Horse 2: Simon

Stats: 8 year old Thoroughbred gelding

Horse 3: Paddington

Stats: 15.1hh Haflinger gelding

Placing: 2, 3, 1

First Place: Simon


I chose Simon because overall, he is the most balanced horse of the group. While at first glance, I would say he is quite front heavy, in using the program I was able to determine that all of his "parts" were actually quite equal in length: neck, shoulder, barrel and hindquarters were all approximately equal.

His neck ties well into his forehand with the junction being above the point of his shoulder. He has a nice long and laid back shoulder, which means a longer stride.

His neck is well-muscled with a good length and nice clean throatlatch so he shouldn't have any issues flexing at the poll or bending.

He is a touch more downhill than ideal (his topline is nice and level, but when you look at the angle formed from his stifle to his elbow, he is one of the more downhill horses in this group).

Additionally, he is slightly sickle-hocked (his cannon bone doesn't line up to a straight line dropped from the point of the buttocks) meaning there will be additional stress on his hocks.

Another flaw is that he is slightly tied in behind at the knee, which is common in ex-racehorses though I'm not sure he ever actually raced?

His stifle is fairly low-placed, being below his sheath, allowing his hind leg to move freely without interfering with his body. His lumbo-sacral (LS) joint is ideally placed directly above the point of the hip which is considered very important for dressage horses, while both of the other horses have an LS joint slightly in front of the point of the hip.

Second Place: Paddington

Paddy placed second under Simon because he isn't quite as balanced as Simon and has several issues in conformation which will make dressage a little bit harder for him.

First off, he is fairly straight through the shoulder, which will limit stride length. He does have a nice long and upright humerus which can help, additionally making it easier for him to fold over jumps, but will not aid in dressage.

He has a long back which does not match the rest of his body parts and can make lifting and rounding the back more difficult than with a shorter back.

In looking at the hind end, he has a fairly sloped croup, which I personally tend to like in horses because it really allows them to use their hind end well and get beneath themselves, however, in dressage we tend to like a flatter croup which will mean a longer stride behind so they track up nicely. His stifle is pretty highly placed as well. I'd rather see it sit below the sheath, where it will allow a greater range of movement. Even with the higher stifle, he is not too downhill built.

His hind legs are slightly camped out, which could just be how he was stood for this photo, making his leg straighter. This is considered ok for a dressage horse, while in a jumper you want more angulation. His neck has a nice shape to it and ties in well to his shoulder and is a good length. He is slightly thick through the throatlatch, which could limit flexibility through the throatlatch and poll, however what is more important is the "space" behind the jaw that you can measure by feeling with the fingers. Ideally there should be at least 2 fingers of width behind the jaw. It's hard to evaluate through a picture, but it looks like he does have that "space" so he shouldn't have much trouble flexing.

He has a nice flat topline that could use a little bit more muscling. And he has nice large nostrils which aid in air intake and good slope to his pasterns (the "ideal" is 45 degrees and he is at about 53) which will mean a smooth ride and less predisposition for tendon/ligament injuries.

Third Place: Penny

 
Penny overall was the least balanced of this group and overall I would say is more ideally suited for jumping than dressage.

She has a short neck (could be partially due to the fact that she's slightly looking towards the camera) and longer back, we'd ideally like to see all four parts of the horse equal. The short neck could limit flexibility, but is actually better for dressage than for jumping. It is quite developed on the underside of the neck, which is because, as a jumper with a short neck (ideally a jumper would have a longer neck to use as a lever to propel over the jumps), those muscles are needed to help propel the horse over the jumps. The long back makes lifting and rounding the back harder (not impossible, just more work) and she has a weak loin that will require conditioning to keep it from developing a hunter's bump or sagging through the back as she ages.

Of this group of horses she is the most uphill, making her lighter on the forehand. She has a nice low stifle, which again is ideal especially for jumpers as it will allow her to easily clear wide jumps and get her hind end out of the way over larger jumps. Her hind leg is well positioned for soundness and her pasterns have a correct angulation for good movement and soundness.

Her shoulder is not quite as straight as Paddy's but could be more sloped, then again she has a very long and upright humerus which counteracts the slightly straight shoulder so she will still have a nice long stride. She also has large nostrils and a deep heart girth which should contribute to a large volume of air intake making her more athletic.

So there you have it. Stay tuned for part 2!

I hope I wasn't too hard on any of the horses, I tried to cover their strengths and their weaknesses. If you need clarification of anything, let me know. If you'd like to use photos of your horse on your blog, feel free, just link back to my blog please :)
Conformation resources:

I really like these articles by Judi Wardrope

Conformation Clinic - Request

I have a proposition for you. In the past I've done conformation analyses of my horses and there seemed to be some interest in having me analyze readers' horse's conformation.

For my equine exercise physiology class we're using a neat program called On Track to look at conformation and movement. It's much cooler than my little MS Paint pictures that I did for Jetta's conformation. It can do angles and lengths, all sorts of nifty things.

We have to do a final project for the class and I've decided to analyze conformation for dressage. Basically modeling it after the conformation clinic you'd see in Practical Horseman. I'd like to compare 5 horses. I have a limited amount of time with this program and free time in general, so depending on how many pictures I get I might not be able to do them all. But, hopefully I can!

Requirements:

• Horse must be set up properly (square or "open" stance), preferably on hard, level ground. Ideally not standing in tall grass or deep arena footing.
• No woolly mammoths. A little fuzz is okay, but the furrier they are the harder it is to analyze.
• I don't care if they're braided or in a halter or really if they're all that clean.
• You have to be ok with me potentially using the picture in my project. Only my teacher is going to see it. I'd like to share some on the blog (I promise I won't tear them to shreds!), but if you don't want it to be, specify that in your email.
• Good quality photos only, no cell phone pictures.
• Include name, age, height and breed.
• Doesn't have to be a dressage horse. I'd like to get a range of body types so jumpers, western, endurance, whatever!

Good photo except for the grass!

I'm really hoping people will take me up on this. I'm definitely not an expert on conformation, but I like to think I'm well educated, though everyone will have their own opinion on conformation.

Let me know if you have any questions and if you'd like to help me out, send a picture with the horse's information to skybluequestrian@aol.com

5 Day Challenge - Day 3

11. Critique your horse’s conformation

This is sadly the most recent "conformation" photo I've got of Jetta and it was from almost exactly a year ago. It's definitely not the best for analyzing conformation, but I'll do my best. I did a full markup of her conformation in 2011 if you're interested in reading that. Also, a comparison shot from later that same year, the summer of 2011:

 
She's filled out a lot in the hind end and over her topline, especially in her loin area, but everything else is basically the same. I use the second photo for looking at her shoulder since it's not very apparent in the first photo, but all other statements are based off the first photo.

Faults: 

• Her huge honkin' head. It's just barely too large compared to her body (you "measure" this by comparing the length of the slope of their shoulder to the length of their head). It's also not very feminine and she could use larger nostrils for better air intake.
• She slightly sickle hocked. These pictures above don't show it, but if she stands with her leg directly under herself and drop a line straight down from the point of buttocks to the ground, the line doesn't perfectly match up with her cannon bone, leaving an angle from the hock down. This will likely cause more stress to her hock joints in the future. 
• I also think her front pasterns are a touch too long and angled. The "ideal" angle is 45 degrees and she's at more like 35 degrees. But, I'd take longer/more sloped pasterns over shorter/straighter ones. Long pasterns make a smoother gait but predispose the horse to tendon injuries while short/straight ones make a more jarring gait and can lead to concussive injuries.
• She has massive withers. Super uncomfortable and hard to fit a saddle to. But at least there's no side-to-side saddle slippage. 

 Strong points:

• She has a nice clean throatlatch that's "roomy" enough to allow enough flexibility to make doing on the bit easy. Horses with really thick throatlatches can have a hard time going on the bit. 
• Her neck ties into her chest well. It's not too low, so she shouldn't be too heavy on the forehand. Her neck is a good length, but I'd like it to come out of the withers a little more upright, but it still has fairly good curvature to it. 
• She has a really nice shoulder. A long sloped shoulder measured from the withers to the point of the shoulder means a longer stride. Her humerus is nice and upright which will allow nice folding of the front end over jumps. 
• She has a nice short back, which I really favor. Her loin is strong and closely coupled.  Her body fits in a square, as opposed to a rectangular box. I prefer square horses over rectangular ones, that's mostly based off of personal preferences but there are articles about why "rectangular" vs. "square" horses are better at certain things and vice versa.
• She has a fairly balanced body. Her shoulder is still slightly heavier than her hind end, but they're more equal now than they were. The slope of her hindquarters and of her shoulder matches up quite well.      

Sorry for the novel. But I really like conformation. I should get a new nice conformation photo and do another full markup with all the lines and everything...


12. Horse’s favorite riding exercise

Jetta's favorite riding exercise would be a 10 or 15 mile trail ride where she's allowed to go any speed she wants and have some jumps thrown in there (but no logs, because those are scary). She loves trail riding. Really, she likes any jumping exercises, except those which require for her to get really collected or slow.

13. Favorite spa day products

Canter Mane & Tail Detangler - Love this stuff. It smells awesome (think roses), unlike the original Showsheen scent (which smells like glue to me). It also lasts a long time and I think it works better than showsheen on detangling hair. 

EQ Solutions Shampoo - Best. Shampoo. Ever. It attaches to the hose so it's very simple to use, can just spray it on. It doesn't smell fancy, reminds me more of a car wash than anything, which is funny. But, it's really neat that you spray it on, wash it off, then spray it on again and leave it. So no leftover residue, no itchiness if you accidentally leave some in, etc.   

14. Three best things about your horse

She's got tons of talent. (The problem is me figuring out how to unlock it). She can jump higher than I ever thought I could and TS thinks that she could someday be my FEI level dressage horse. We'll see.

She's cuddly on the ground. My favorite thing to do it to hug her head. And she won't budge. Grady hated having his head handled and I had to teach him to let me kiss his nose. But Jetta totally tolerates it and seems to actually enjoy it.

When she's working with me, I feel like we are an awesome pair and that she will do anything for me. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I feel so lucky to have her.

15. Favorite picture of your horse

This is seriously one of my favorites of Jetta. It just embodies her dorkiness.

My favorite riding picture is actually from this summer and just now I realized that I've never shared it on the blog! It's been on Instagram, but I forgot to post it here. 

This was taken at Jetta's first recognized HT at Inavale. And it's jumping that dang trakehner that we both hate! She didn't even refuse it. And I actually look like I might know how to ride (despite my swinging lower leg) which often isn't the case when I look at pictures of me riding cross country.  

Untitled

Lots of little things happening this week and I completely lack inspiration for a relevant post title. Oh well.

I decided on a spur of the moment to enter a dressage league show on the 20th. Hope we'll be ready for it by then! It's fairly close and even though I missed the closing date they still had room for me. I've never been to this facility so I'm just hoping the footing is nicer there than at the last place I went to.

I'm just so excited for this spring and summer. There are so many shows I'm hoping and planning to go to, I can't wait! I'm doing a jumping lesson with KO on the 21st after our dressage show and I have possibly two or three shows that I want to attend in May. Hopefully I just don't run out of money - shows are such a drain on the finances.

Short toe, long toe. Looks so much better trimmed now!

Both ponies got their hooves trimmed. Queenie was in desperate need of a trim, her hooves were quite long. My trimmer AC could only come out Tuesday or Thursday this week and since I didn't want to wait, I decided I could squeeze in on Tuesday in my hour and forty minute break between classes right? Not a very smart decision on my part - it's a forty minute drive both ways and trimming Queenie took longer than I thought it would since her hooves were so long, whereas Jetta just needed her back feet rolled with the rasp and her fronts trimmed a tiny bit. Luckily, my twenty minute tardiness went unnoticed for my class so it worked out ok :)

My two girls had the big grassy pasture all to themselves

I rode Jetta and lunged/bathed Queenie yesterday. Jetta was very good. I did Queenie first and so when I left Jetta in the big pasture by herself she stirred up the geldings next to her and pranced/galloped back and forth along the fenceline. It was pretty funny - she was having a grand old time and the geldings were huffing and puffing to keep up with her. She was barely warm when I brought her in :) But at least she got all her excess energy out.

Queenie was also very good. I cross tied her for the first time in the wash rack. I've just been having her ground tie since she was scared of the hose touching her so every time I needed to wash her right side she'd panic. We've been working on that a lot so I felt that she'd be fine for today and she was! She eyed the hose whenever it touched her but there was no spooking. I also clipped her bridle path for the first time. She was perfect up until the point that I thought "Wow! She's being so good for this, I bet she wouldn't mind me doing her ears." Ha. After that she didn't want me touching her poll period so we'll need to work on that a few more times. 

I tried to get a nice conformation picture of her, but taking pictures by your lonesome isn't the best way to go about it...

This one would be my favorite, if her nose didn't get chopped off.

"You want me to pose?"

"Hey look, a penny!"

"Don't I look purdy?"

"Meh. I don't like this whole picture taking thing."

"Om nom nom"

I'll take it! Ears forward and mostly standing normally.

Even More Pictures!

Here's some more pictures for your enjoyment from the photo shoot that I did with my friend a week or two ago:

I'm toying with the idea of sending one of these in to a magazine, such as Practical Horseman, to be picked apart by a professional. These pictures I think make her look very elegant, but at the same time it's easy to spot her weaknesses. Hmm, we'll have to see!

This is my favorite! Such a goof ball.

Mmmm, food?

"But I don't want to back up!"

`

Conformation Markup

So I had ML take a conformation shot of Jetta, though I've really been wanting to get Jetta all braided then take her outside with a bridle and get some better pictures, but you can see what she looks like.

Here's the original before I marked it all up. I know she's too stretched out, but this is the only picture I got until she moved! She was convinced I had treats...

Then here's the markup. I'll try to explain what all the lines mean to the best of my ability. I am by no means a conformation judge of any caliber, but I did learn some from showing on the Hippology Team in 4-H and through reading various articles on conformation.

Ok, If you want to see a larger version, just click on it. 

So the red lines are her shoulder angle. She's a little straight in this picture, but largely because of how much she's leaning forward. The humerus is nice and upright and would fold nicely over a jump, it is about half the length of her femur.

The light blue line is connecting her withers to the top up her croup, so you can see that she is very level.

Dark blue is showing her pelvic angle, the smaller the angle the more "uphill" the horse is built, so I am pleased to see that she is pretty uphill compared to other horses. Though please note that I didn't draw the line correctly - it's supposed to end at the chest, approximately where the pink line of the box hits it.

Purple is a line from the point of her buttocks to the hock on down. She is slightly sickle hocked, which I knew, but it is also cause by her awkward stance. She does sometimes stand so that the cannon bone lines up with the purple line, the problem is just catching it in a picture.

The pink box shows that she has a square body type.

Orange lines compare the length of her back to her underline. In mares, the "rule of thumb" that I learned is that the underline should be twice the length of the back, for optimal broodmare capacity :) Jetta's just about there, but not quite.

Yellow shows the angles and length of her pasterns. Her front are slightly too long in my opinion, but not terrible.

The white dot is her stifle, it's pretty low, which is good, but could be a tad bit lower to be even better.

Black dots are her LS joint and point of hip, though the LS joint is in reality a little farther ahead of where I marked it. Optimally her LS joint should be directly over the point of hip, but hers is only about an inch or two apart so not too bad.

Grey line is the length of her head - it is really long but comparing it to the red line of her shoulder it is proportionate. It could be more feminine and triangle shaped, but she has a good sized muzzle but I wish she had larger nostrils.

I can't really evaluate how long her neck to shoulder to midsection to hip length because of how stretched she is, but her neck is a good length without her stretching that far with a nice, clean throatlatch and a very good tie into the shoulder. Not too low, just perfect so she theoretically should be able to carry herself without being heavy on the forehand.

Of course she does need some more weight, still a little ribby and can use the muscle over her topline but she has a very shiny coat, even while shedding out her winter coat. So there you go, that's my amateur evaluation of her conformation, but of course conformation is so subjective, everyone will have a different opinion.

The markup isn't very good because I had to use Paint to do the lines and if I messed up too much I couldn't undo it and would have to start all over again to please excuse the mistakes. I'm still learning too!

Jetta's Turn...

**Edit** I'm back! I just figured out that you can click the tiny dots where the pictures are supposed to be and they'll open up so you can actually see what I'm talking about! That is, if your browser is being as stupid as mine and not showing the pictures in the first place.

Ok, so Jetta was after Tanq. Of course I first notice that she is filthy after getting her bath on Tuesday. Oh mare. I groomed her really well (bonus for being highly caffeinated = I am very motivated to get things done, even grooming for 15 minutes when I would normally spend two). You can tell she's been bathed because she's really soft (softer than usually) and she just feels cleaner, but still. Why does she have to always be so dirty?!

She got tacked up and I got on, warmed up on a loose rein at the walk. She is doing a lot better at walking on contact. She has been bobbing her head too much so I've been working on that and am pleased to say that it is much better. Then came our trot. She was super forward so I just let her go on a relaxed rein and we trotted around the arena at least five times before I sat back and made asked her to slow down. Quite a few half halts later she was much better, except now she was being really pissy about me putting my inside leg on her. Sigh. She was being really bad about my leg, to the point of kicking up and trying to bite me at the same time. What is wrong with this horse? I put my inside leg on and left it there, making her do a shoulder-in all the way down the long wall. Bonus of being highly reactive to my leg was that we had an awesome shoulder-in. Then I took my leg off and straightened her out for a few strides, then bent her around my inside leg for the corner. No reaction. No ears, no nothing. Weird horse. More trot work and then we cantered. Usually if she's having issues they'll be in the canter, not the trot, but the canter was great today. Perfect speed, light on the forehand, balanced in the corners, no reaction to inside leg.

We switched directions and went through the whole pissy about the inside leg thing again but she worked through it more quickly and had a great ride. I got off feeling very puzzled. Is she sore? Maybe ML rode her with spurs or got after her with her heels and she was sore from that. There was no sensitivity when I girthed her up and she didn't mind my poking and prodding and it worked out after a minute. She was fine on Tuesday when I rode. She isn't in heat any more, that passed just recently so it couldn't be that. I palpated her back, no soreness anywhere, except maybe a touch above her withers. I poked and prodded all over her back and sides with no reaction. Hmph.

Thinking back to when I first started riding, her favorite tactic for trying to get me off was reaching around (while in motion, mind you, cantering even) and trying to bite my feet. So maybe this is just behavioral, after all she's been stalled the past couple days, though I could tell by her tail (she had a giant blackberry branch stuck in it) that she'd been outside. Knowing that TB's have notoriously sensitive digestive tracts I'm also thinking of ulcers, but there's no way that I can pay for a scope and I'm sure my parents would have a fit and fall in it if I asked them to pay. I'm saving up for a chiropractic visit in a couple weeks, so maybe that can shed some light. Any other thoughts? It's not a consistent behavior - sometimes she has the sensitivity, sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes it's really bad, and sometimes its just a slight pinning of the ears. Sometimes she is sensitive through the whole ride and sometimes just for a minute or two. I'm thinking of treating her for ulcers, any recommendations? I know there's GastroGuard, U-Gard and UlcerGuard (I think) that work for ulcers, though one of them is prescription only, but another one has the same active ingredient. Does anyone have something that worked for them? I've heard that there's something else that also helps, I think it's Aloe Juice or something similar? Any advice?

While examing her back I notice with growing dismay her spine configuration. It's something that's developed over the past few months and it's really worrying me. I thought it might disappear as she gained muscle over her topline but it is still there. Red is lump one that worries me, followed by green hollow, and blue lump which is a pretty average lump as far as lumps go that I've seen in a horse's back.

Can you see it? It's barely noticeable in this picture, but there's a lump, hollow, lump. I was reading about it in the most recent edition of Equus and now it really, really worries me. Not good...

Above you can see a really obvious divet, but I think that's just the light being weird. It doesn't look that bad. And does she look a little pot bellied to you or is it just me? Compare that to this picture below that was taken last summer, where there is almost no lump hollow lump.

Then there's this next picture taken two summers ago where there's absolutely no hint of a lump hollow lump. If it's a conformational thing, shouldn't it be obvious from birth, not just as a five year old horse?

Am I being too worried or not worried enough? This horse is going to give me ulcers. Any advice would be appreciated. She is otherwise in very good condition, AC, my trimmer, said her feet are looking a 100% better and that obviously her supplement is working. Her coat is super shiny and soft even before the bath and when turned out in the arena she loves to gallop around and play with Katy. Sigh... What am I going to do with you mare?

Tomorrow we're just going to do a lunge session in side reins over some trot poles (which will now be a regular once weekly thing) to try to improve those topline muscles and hopefully miraculously make that terrible lump go away.

If you can't see the pictures above I am going to be very frustrated. Why can't I see them when they're published?!

Conformation

I found this great article on Equine Ink. I love learning about conformation, one of the reasons why I was on the 4-H Hippology Team last year (hippology: the study of horses). There were links to articles by Judy Wardrope which I think are fantastic. She doesn't just say "This is good and this is bad" but instead "This is good for this discipline because..." Love it. Here's all of her articles that I read:

http://jwequine.com/pdf/Conformation-Eventer.pdf

http://jwequine.com/pdf/hunter_or_jumper.pdf

http://jwequine.com/pdf/conformation101-jumper.pdf
http://jwequine.com/pdf/conformation101-dressage.pdf

So let's compare Jetta's conformation. This picture isn't the best because she's standing under herself in the back for some reason (that's not how she normally stands) but it's the best I have.



Based on Judy Wardrope's articles, I think Jetta looks as if her conformation is leaning more towards jumping than dressage, or maybe both for eventing? Her LS looks as if it's directly above the point of her hip (I think), her hind leg stands inside of an imaginary line dropped straight down from her point of buttock (a jumper trait). It seems like she has a pretty symmetrical (equilateral) triangle from point-of-hip to point-of-buttock to stifle, though I can't be sure if her femur is slightly longer than her ilium or not (a dressage trait). She has a pretty cat-like walk which makes me think that she does have a longer femur which means a longer stride, though she'll have more difficulty in the piaffe, passage and pirouette. Her stifle is nice and low. She has a pretty high point of shoulder with a long sloping shoulder and an upright humerus which is relatively long meaning she has a long stride. Her pillar of support comes out in front of her withers meaning she's not super heavy on the forehand. Her neck does look like it ties in a little lower than would be ideal, but she has a clean throatlatch and in this picture looks as if she has more muscle on the underside of her neck, so we're working on that right now. I just wish her head was a little smaller and daintier :)

Wait, I found another picture! This is Jetta when I first bought her.

So yeah, she does have slight sickle hocks, but overall I think she has pretty good conformation, not anywhere near perfect, but not too shabby.