# long backs and downhill vs. uphill questions



## Chiilaa (Aug 12, 2010)

Pretty sure that the 'ideal' back should only take half of the body length (not including neck). It is measured from withers to the point of the croup. 

In the first pic, he looks really down hill. See where his hip is, and compare that to where the top of his shoulder blade is. Note that the shoulder blade is not his withers, but below them. In the second pic, he looks fairly level to me


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## natisha (Jan 11, 2011)

Just wanted to clarify how the back is measured


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## NdAppy (Apr 8, 2009)

Chiilaa said:


> Pretty sure that the 'ideal' back should only take half of the body length (not including neck). It is measured from withers to the point of the croup.
> 
> In the first pic, he looks really down hill. See where his hip is, and compare that to where the top of his shoulder blade is. Note that the shoulder blade is not his withers, but below them. In the second pic, he looks fairly level to me


Normally you divide the horse into thirds... Shoulder (front) is one third, Barrel (back) is one third, and hips (rear) is one third.

I am going to dig and see if I can find my pics I have to explain it better.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

I think when people speak of the back, the loins are included. I mean, I think the back is measured from the point of the withers to the point of the hip.
More specidfically, it would be the back of the withers to the sacroiliac joint , where the spine enters the pelvis. 
I think downhill is when the sacroiliac is higher than point of the withers.
That horse looks downhill to me, but have to measure on level ground, squared up. Is he the only horse you've been riding lately? If you've only been riding Qh's you may be so used to the downhill feel that you consider it normal. 
The Appy I ride is downhill and he was the first downhill horse I ever rode and he felt really wierd to me. It still bothers my back to ride him for long stretches on trails going downhill. 
Being built downhill is advantageous for sprinting and doing quick manuevers such as cow horses do. It is not so good for working in collection or for long distance running at speed.


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## twogeldings (Aug 11, 2008)

My pony is built uphill, his withers aren't higher than his rump, but when you look at him, he has a higher neck set and carries himself in an arched, forward motion. He's a Friesian cross and certainly acts like one  

I often ride a down-hill, though not severely, Foxtrotter gelding when I go trail riding at a friends place. Fantastic horse, really a joy to ride, but it kills my knees and back to ride him too long. That slight extra angle does a number.


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## QHDragon (Mar 6, 2009)

First picture he was standing square on even ground, second picture he's still on the same ground, but standing kind of weird. Before this I was leasing a Anglo-Arab and I don't notice a difference between the two, ah well.

Thanks for explaining the two thirds, though to me I would think the normal horse would have less than a third in his rear, and more than 2/3rds in his back, shoulders, neck, and head...


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## NdAppy (Apr 8, 2009)

lol I think you misunderstood. Head and neck is not included in the front 3rd. Just shoulders and forelimbs.


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## candandy49 (Jan 16, 2011)

The way NdAppy explained how to evaluate how a horse is put together is the way I learned also. The front, middle and rump for the ideal build, confromation will be of equal measurements.

The downhill horse is rump/coup higher than the withers. Quarter Horses are usually built downhill while the Thoroughbred is built uphill in that their withers are higher then the rump/coup. I use the QH and TB only as examples.


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## slc (Jan 30, 2011)

There are many ways in which a horse can be 'downhill'.

In most riding sports, it's sufficient if the horse's back is 'level'. This means that the back does not slope downward toward the withers. Some of this depends on the shape of the withers and croup, how well conditioned the horse is, etc. People often will, instead of looking to see if the back slopes downward toward the front of the horse, just look to see if the point of croup is higher than the withers. That's not quite as good as just being able to see if the back slopes down to the front.

The most obvious 'downhilled-ness' is that the horse's hind legs are longer than its forelegs. If you look at the horse from the side, stood on a level surface, you see that the stifle is much higher than the elbow.

ALL horses have the stifle very slightly higher than the elbow. The horse that has longer hind legs than forelegs, has a stifle that is markedly higher than the elbow. 

In other words, his hind legs are, literally, longer than his front legs.

A lot of people will tell you that looking at the 'top line' is deceptive, and what you need to do to really tell downhill-ed-ness, is to look at and compare heights of stifle and elbow.

Every different riding sport has an amount of 'not so uphill-ed-ness' that it can work with.

For other riding sports, the amount of 'downhill-ed-ness' described above, would not work. For example, upper level dressage, a person goes into a lot more detail to see if the horse is even some much slighter amount of 'downhill' or even, if he is 'functionally downhill'. 

This is a lot more subtle. For example, if a horse has heavy, loaded shoulders and a very small narrow hindquarter, he may have serious problems working at top levels of dressage, even though he passes the 'withers are taller than croup' test, even if he passes the 'stifle not too much higher than elbow' test. 

Say he has a very long, heavy, low set neck. He may be 'functionally downhill' when he's in motion. - enough that being an upper level horse would be a really serious strain for him. 

So in that sport, they will look a lot more, at how the horse functions in motion, to see if there are much more subtle types of 'not quite enough uphill' or 'not working uphill enough when in motion' are going on.

What is 'acceptable' really, really depends on what sort of work the horse is going to do. I see a great many 'downhill' horses in some horse show classes, and then not in others.


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## wakiya (Feb 7, 2009)

It also varies by breeds the correct conformation for a CS horse requires the back, neck, hip, and barrel to be about the same length...









From the Center for America's First Horse

Downhill conformation is considered a fault as it can lead to problems down the line


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## slc (Jan 30, 2011)

The length of the back is a separate issue - and most people don't have a good eye for length of back.

There are two parts of the back that make up its total length - the saddle piece, and the area behind the saddle. The saddle piece is the area behind the withers where the saddle is/will be. The area behind the saddle is far less supported, and length there, can be more of a problem than length in the saddle piece.

The 'length' of the back (overall) is relative to the other proportions of the horse - leg length, neck length. All 3 need to work well together. While there are rules for various systems of evaluating horses, there is room in sport for some variation in these proportions. 

For example, a slightly longer backed horse may gallop rather well and do very good lateral work - as long as he doesn't have other faults that might add up and cause an issue, such as weak, narrow or stiff hind quarters. A shorter backed horse might be easier to bring together and balance, thought it might be harder for it to stretch out and cover ground - again, if it has other conformation faults. Each type has advantages and disadvantages.

It's important to remember that conformation faults tend to occur in groups, creating an an overall weakness. For example, a weakly muscled, long area behind the saddle, plus hind quarters that push out behind the horse, and straight hocks. It's important to learn to see the overall picture.

Too, each horse always represents an overall type - heavily boned, heavily built, vs very tall, leggy and fine. It is not so much that there is any specific 'conformation fault', it's whether the type is suitable to the intended use. For example, a draft horse can have a very good type - for a draft horse. But you probably wouldn't enter it into the Kentucky Derby. Type doesn't have to be that extreme to affect the use. People need to learn to see the overall type, and instead of criticizing every horse because it doesn't fit, say, for Western Pleasure or Reining, see what it IS good for.

To get a better eye for these proportions, you can learn to squint at the horse to blur out all details, and you will see more the overall proportions, instead of the details.

Keep in mind that it's very hard to evaluate a photograph. Photographs tend to distort proportions. A photo taken from below makes the legs look longer, a photo taken from above makes the legs look shorter. If the horse is stood up at an angle to the camera, his back can look overly long or overly short. In Quarter horse pictures, there's a tendency to pose the horse with its hind quarters at an angle toward the camera, to emphasize the hind quarters and make them appear larger. This angle makes the back look short when it is not.

The biggest error I see is people (esp on the bb's) declaring a horse has a 'short back' when it does not. This is probably the commonest error when people try to critique conformation. Often the photo angle, a deep chest or long neck wil fool the observer into thinking the back is 'short' when it isn't, but there is no real pattern to what causes people to not see the length of back.

Comparing the length of the horse's body overall, to leg length, can help. With a lot of practice and being corrected by a more experienced person, eventually a person will get an eye for this proportion.


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## QHDragon (Mar 6, 2009)

slc said:


> The length of the back is a separate issue - and most people don't have a good eye for length of back.
> 
> There are two parts of the back that make up its total length - the saddle piece, and the area behind the saddle. The saddle piece is the area behind the withers where the saddle is/will be. The area behind the saddle is far less supported, and length there, can be more of a problem than length in the saddle piece.
> 
> ...


Wow, thanks for that in-depth post. I agree that I think sometimes people get so caught up in looking for one flaw that they fail to put everything together as a whole.


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## Strange (Jan 11, 2009)

I agree with slc. To put some basic guidelines for numbers on length of back, I was taught in one of my equine science labs that in general the back should be 1/2 the length of the underbelly (I believe it's 1/2). And the back length is measured from the withers to the croup, like so.


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