# Conformation of My 24-year old Paint Mare



## PaintedShanty (Dec 28, 2011)

What do you guys think of my 24-year-old Paint mare, ******? She's a retired Gymkhana horse (who set national speed records back in her prime, and apparently some of those records are still standing) who still does low level English and Western Performance classes with no jumping.


























(We're working on getting rid of those cracks in her hooves, so please disregard them)


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## whistler49 (Feb 17, 2012)

While I am not commenting on her conformation I am concerned about how terribly thin she is. The poor girl needs to gain at least 100 lbs-have you had her teeth checked etc-not trying to be harsh but she looks to be in a bad way with her weight. Not meaning to offend....just concerned


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

She's over at the knee and a wee bit tied in behind the knee. I'm not a fan of the way her neck ties into her chest. Her shoulder looks a bit upright, as well. Her back is long and looks fairly weak. Her hocks are nice and low, but her rear pasterns are pretty upright. I do like the slope of her front pasterns, though. Her hind legs look bow-legged to me and she looks base narrow. Her front legs kinda scare me. She's pretty badly knock-kneed and toes out a lot. Again, she's very base narrow.

I do agree with whistler49. I'm not sure how you can be riding her with as severely underweight as she looks. I'd say she needs AT LEAST 100lbs, probably closer to 200lbs. I realize that she's older, but my BO has a 31-year-old gelding on his dude string who looks maybe half the age he really is, so old horses don't "have" to be skinny like that. If they are, there are underlying problems that need to be looked at and taken care of before the horse is ridden. Heck, my friend had a little arab mare that everyone thought was in her early teens...nope, she was in her early 20s. She could out-walk any horse I know, even horses 16+hh (she's was only 14hh...maybe).


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## calicokatt (Mar 5, 2012)

The horse is underweight, but keep in mind that a dirty white horse will look much thinner in pictures (artifical shadowing on spots that are already thin) than a darker horse of the same weight. Can't say anything about conformation though, I don't know squat!


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

Honestly, katt, she doesn't look that dirty. In fact, she looks like she was bathed fairly recently. JMHO, though.


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## whistler49 (Feb 17, 2012)

Looking at the prominence of the backbone from withers to tail it is painfully evident this horse is severely underweight. The protruding hip bones, sunken rump in front of tail bone, thin neck-all the ribs sticking out=this horse needs some serious attention with her feed and I would also assume a good examination by a vet as well as a thorough check of her teeth. It would also be a good idea to stop riding this horse until it gains a couple of hundred pounds-just my thoughts.

PS It looks like this horse has just had a bath and I do not agree about the lighter colored horses showing thinner body weight than dark horses. Thin is thin-regardless of color


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## PaintedShanty (Dec 28, 2011)

While I _do_ agree that my horse is thin, I have to respectfully disagree on _how_ thin, based on advice from my vet. She has an old stifle injury as well as some possible arthritis and having extra weight is detrimental to both of those. She had her teeth done mid-February, and came through with flying colors, and is current on worming (she's due at the end of next month).

My mare is most definitely a hard keeper in the winter and we keep her in a heavy weight full-neck blanket, as well as feeding her 10+ lbs of alfalfa hay, 5+ lbs of alfalfa pellets, 5-10 lbs of local grass hay, as well as 2 oz. of Cool Calories daily, in addition to being on pasture 24/7. And as our grass has been coming in, she has begun walking away from her feed, which, according to my vet is a good thing due to how she balloons up on grass alone by mid-spring.

Unfortunately, due to weather we weren't able to ride much during the winter, so she is definitely lacking in the muscle department - which doesn't help anything.

I'm definitely willing to post pictures in a couple weeks to show her progress weight/muscle wise if anyone wants them. 

AiresMum: Actually she hasn't had a bath since August, I'm just crafty with a curry comb... even if the shedding blade was STILL getting more dirt than hair after a full grooming - and there was a fair bit of hair coming off.


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

PaintedShanty, I need to hire you to get "crafty with a curry comb" on my guy! He's a shedding MESS! I hadn't been out to the barn in a couple of days and when I went out today, I barely recognized him 'cuz he'd lost so much hair. I literally turned to my friend and said "Does it look like Aires has lost weight to you?!" She said "Nope. Just hair." lol

Anyway, her weight aside (thank you for clearing that up, BTW), I stand by my confo critique. The things wrong I see are NOT weight-related. _Maybe_ age-related, but DEFINITELY not weight-related.


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## whistler49 (Feb 17, 2012)

I was able to "adopt" an 18-20 yr old little arab gelding-body score of between 1 and 2. Our vet seriously thought the horse would not live-but we wanted to give it a chance. He had his teeth floated, as well as a couple of wormings. It took about 9 months but we brought this little guy back to full health and found him a wonderful home.

We had a lot of success with adding soaked beet pulp and flax seeds-this was instrumental in his weight gain. That along with soaked alfalfa cubes, senior extruded feed, Recovery for arthritis, and free choice alfalfa/timothy hay.


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## PaintedShanty (Dec 28, 2011)

whistler49 said:


> I was able to "adopt" an 18-20 yr old little arab gelding-body score of between 1 and 2. Our vet seriously thought the horse would not live-but we wanted to give it a chance. He had his teeth floated, as well as a couple of wormings. It took about 9 months but we brought this little guy back to full health and found him a wonderful home.
> 
> We had a lot of success with adding soaked beet pulp and flax seeds-this was instrumental in his weight gain. That along with soaked alfalfa cubes, senior extruded feed, Recovery for arthritis, and free choice alfalfa/timothy hay.


She does get about 2.5 lbs of soaked beet pulp during the dead of winter, mixed with another 2.5 lbs of alfalfa pellets for one feeding daily (since she won't touch soaked feed if it's too soupy), but our vet told us to back off of it once the temps started to come up at around the end of January. 

Due to the results of her feeding program from her previous owners, I'm hesitant to give her any significant amount of a complete feed - her previous owners were giving her approx 15 lbs. of Strategy feed daily, and the nutritionist told us that she was so toxic that she couldn't have anything other than Orchard Grass hay, Orchard grass pellets and whatever pasture she was on for a full 12 months so that her system could detox - but we have been considering it (but only up to 2 lbs or so daily).


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## whistler49 (Feb 17, 2012)

We only fed our boy Senior Extruded feed=he was on 1/2 cup of flax, 2 lbs Senior pellets, 2 lbs of soaked alfalfa cubes, 2 lbs of soaked beet pulp--he got this morning and night. He also had free choice timothy hay with only a marginal amount of alfalfa in it. We had no problems with this regime=of course it was started slowly and in small quantities as he body adjusted to the changes. He did so well with this it was remarkable---he was nice and chubby when all was said and done.

Good luck with your girl!!


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## Chopsticks (Mar 11, 2012)

extremely well put together mare, i see why she won so many titles! i do agree with you that keeping her thinner with her injuries is wise, but as others have said, she has crossed the line into too thin combined with lack of muscle. I would love to see more pics when she's in better flesh after some spring grass!


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