# Can you KNOW what kind of conformation a young horse will have when they mature?



## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

There is an old saying that you should look at a foal a 3 days, 3 months, and 3 years, any other time than that will be an inaccurate view of them. Yearlings are notorious for being downright fugly at times.

An experienced eye _can_ look at a foal and see the potential of the mature horse...most of the time. Of course there will be surprises, like your mare. I see nothing in the foal picture that foretells of lordosis in her future, but with something like that, if it isn't present at foaling, it develops later in life so there would have been _no_ sign of it as a foal. The "bad angles" that you are talking about are the ones that have been directly affected by the lordosis. If her back had been normal, then I'm confident her angles would have been good. She probably would have still be slightly long in the back, but nothing major.

As for the rough gaits, that could be due to the swayback, or it could be from her breeding. None of those breeds are particularly well known for soft, easy, smooth gaits LOL.


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

She always had bad gaits before her back ever swayed. The angle of her shoulder prevents her from stretching forward and her legs move like pistons up and down, her trot is only bareable in a slow jog which took years to teach her. She is also incapable of really jumping, might half jump an obstacle but it is rare to get a full jump.

Neither of the mare's parents had bad conformation, or swayed backs (her dam was not of excellent conformation, was it wasn't terrible). Her sire had classic stocky quarter horse conformation and build. We later bred two other mares twice to him and their foals were of nice looking build and conformation (she was the only foal out of her dam).

I think her back may have swayed as an 8 year old when she was heavy with her one and only foal. Her filly also had a long back, but it has stayed straight, and she has much better movement than her dam (but the sire had really nice movement that he threw into his foals). I really have no idea why my mom had insisted in breeding her aweful moving mare, but alas, the baby mostly lucked out. 

For many, many years my dad believed he was a bad rider, because he was getting bounced around all the time while everyone else on the trail was "floating" along. The problem wasn't him, it was because of the bay mare he faithfully rode. My mom proved it finally on one trail ride by switching horses with him, and got him to ride his mare's half brother (same qh sire). He was amazed by how smooth the gelding was at the trot and canter, and said that he could ride his gaits all day long. So after that experience, he switched to riding the gelding's full sister (also the mother of the bay gelding pictured above) until the fateful day that she had some sort of injury that caused her to go lame. Then he went back to the rough riding bay mare, as she had brains in her head and the smooth as butter gelding was certainly missing something that affected his function to reliable LOL


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

LOL, gotta love those rough traveling horses. Good news is though, if you can learn to sit them and make it look good, you can ride just about anything and make it look amazing.

Yeah, I don't know what it is that causes lordosis, whether it's some genetic thing or whether it has an environmental factor, or maybe it's a combination of both.


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## trailhorserider (Oct 13, 2009)

The 9 year old gelding is a hunk! I love him!

I don't know about the sway back either, but it seems like I've heard it is common is Saddlebreds. Although why she would get that one negative trait when she has a lot of other blood in her I have no idea. Maybe it's just a coincidence.


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## GhostwindAppaloosa (Jun 3, 2011)

usually what you have at a few days conformation wise.. is what you will have at 3 years with correct nutrition etc. obviously there are outliers.


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## demonwolfmoon (Oct 31, 2011)

GhostwindAppaloosa said:


> usually what you have at a few days conformation wise.. is what you will have at 3 years with correct nutrition etc. obviously there are outliers.


Unfortunately we don't all get the luxury of seeing them at three days...One reason it's easier to buy a grown animal x.x


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

Yeah, and a funny thing about nutrition too, it can totally change the looks of a horse just within a fairly small amount of time.

When I brought Dobe home, he weighed maybe 700 and was nothing but a big clunky head, big hairy feet, and a little, narrow, blown out looking body. And that was when he was a 3 year old stud :?.

Then a couple of years later with good feed and solid work, he put on 300 pounds or so and had the looks of a decent quarter horse (minus the average conformational faults, of course).


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## missnashvilletime (Dec 20, 2011)

Angles of the bones don't change (i.e. shoulders, croup, etc) but length does  that's what I've been told and it's held true for all the foals we've had.


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

Lardosis, it shows more frequently in horses of saddlebred breeding and any other breed.


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## GhostwindAppaloosa (Jun 3, 2011)

demonwolfmoon said:


> Unfortunately we don't all get the luxury of seeing them at three days...One reason it's easier to buy a grown animal x.x


 
totally agree. Im speaking from a breeder perspective. When we have foals born. Im always looking to see what I would want to keep in a breeding program for the future. So im constanty scrutenizing foals. and the 3 day thing has always held true for me. 

if you are looking for a horse its obviously easier to know you are purchasing a correct animal so an adult would be easiest. 

If that is not an option and foal pix are not available. Look at parents. Like produces like. If the sire or dam has a conformational fault and it "looks" like the foal does have the same fault. Its probably going to hold true.


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

It is strange that something more common in saddlebreds would pop up in someone that was only 1/16 saddlebred :lol:

I don't have pictures to show the really bad "angle" of her rear end, but it did nearly kill her when she delivered her filly! :shock:

Princess could not push her out without assistance, and then passed out/stopped breathing when the filly finally came out. Long, very hard labor, even with assistance after she couldn't push out more than the front legs and head. I think her shoulders got jammed in the birth canal or something. My mom quickly rushed (from helping pull out the filly) and started slapping Princess' face and neck (more neck than head) quite hard until she came to :shock::shock:

So, that is what has kept my mom from even being tempted to breed her again. What is worse though, her filly inherited that "angle" and amplified it to more of a shelf (her vulva was almost a 40* angle :shock. So, needless to say, she won't ever be bred. Nature's way to prevent the continuation of some bad conformation? :twisted:

Anyways, about the gelding, Diga, he is by the same stallion that Princess had been bred to when she had her filly (her filly and Diga are 3/4 siblings born the same year). Diga has had many admirers over the years. Many of which wished he was a mare to use for breeding, and these were not your "backyard breeders" either. They were large breeding facilities that one of my sisters would board him at while she attended college. He stood 15.2H and had incredibly smooth gaits and movement. Although, if you let him get "bored" during a canter, he would switch which lead his hind end was in but kept the front end in the correct lead. It would end up looking as though his hind end was trying to pass up his front end. :think:

He also had the nasty habit of working latches and gates. One day, we found that he had locked his 3/4 sister into a stall that had been locked open... put her in timeout? :rofl:


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## Cat (Jul 26, 2008)

I'm seeing the same shoulder and croup angle in the foal as in the adult. The only difference is the long back and sway back isn't apparent in the foal but I would have suspected a long-ish back but not *that* long as what she actually got. The sway back is supposedly genetic and effect them later in life so I wouldn't expect much indication of that as a foal.

Love the 9 year olds photo. As to the downhill picture as a yearling - I always expect downhill pictures at that age. If they aren't really down hill as a yearling then I expect a shorter horse or pony. The more downhill, the more height I expect to come. Everything else about his yearling picture is nice and a good precursor of what you actually got.


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## Kayty (Sep 8, 2009)

That is why you take a very close look at sire and dam, and sire and dam lines as well. Usually you will get a pretty good idea of what the foal will end up built like by observing the parents. 

My hanoverian is currently 14 months, and as downhill as the 14monther that your posted in the OP. But he is purpose bred as a dressage horse, with an uphill build in mind, sire was imported from Germany as a dressage sire, mum chosen for her complimentary conformation. 
Looking at Billy now, I would sure as hell hope that he evens out!!!!


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## GotaDunQH (Feb 13, 2011)

To the OP....the first horse has taken on alot of characteristics of the ASB....low backed and long backed. Now low backed and sway backed are not the same thing. This guy has the classic build of an ASB throughout his body.


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

GotaDunQH said:


> To the OP....the first horse has taken on alot of characteristics of the ASB....low backed and long backed. Now low backed and sway backed are not the same thing. *This guy* has the classic build of an ASB throughout his body.


 
Which "guy" are you referring to? I am a bit confused :?

The first horse is a mare that is 50% quarter horse, 1/16 ASB and the rest is arabian

The second horse is a gelding, 75% arabian 25% quarter horse (QH grandsire is also the sire of the above mare, but his dam is a quarab with no ASB whatsoever)

What is really confusing to me though, is the first horse was bred to an arabian stallion and her filly looks (in my opinion) even more ASB than her mother. Grew to almost 16H when she matured and is only 1/32 ASB :lol:

Here is a picture of the mare's 1/32 ASB filly (3/4 sibling to the gelding in the original post) when she was almost 3 months old. 








^^^She is 2 1/2 months *younger* than her lighter bay part brother









I have always thought that she looks so much like a saddlebred, even though her saddlebred blood is almost non existent. She is a teenager now, long back, and slightly choppy gaits. When she was started under saddle, her trainer really wanted to be able to train her for jumping. My mom decided she didn't want to risk the injuries that she could get from jumping.


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## GotaDunQH (Feb 13, 2011)

Sorry....I referred to the first horse as a gelding and it's a mare, my bad. But yep, that was the horse I was referring to. Like I said....Arab/QH/ASB, the ASB is showing through....


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

I guess that it just goes to prove that you can never eliminate the traits of a breed no matter how small the percentage is LOL


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