Re: [RC] Define Good Back Conformation - Heidi Smith
>fads in breeding for the show
ring. Anybody care to comment?
Meant to comment about this aspect
in my last post. The fad in the Arabian show ring has been to breed
"sausages"--long "scopey" horses. And one can easily follow this trend as
it spins off into endurance by making note of the increase in back pathology in
our horses in recent years, and watching how so many fairly decent-legged horses
go lame, simply because they cannot round, and hence beat their legs up going
hollow down the trail. The frustration in saddle fit is a fairly new
thing--not that saddle fit hasn't always been important, but I thnk we are
seeing a lot of horses that are very difficult to fit now, that we didn't used
to see, simply because backs have become so uniformly poor.
BTW, QH backs have pretty well gone the same route,
if one really looks at their show horses, too....
