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Re: [RC] Mustang Conformation - Heidi SmithI'm not here to defend or castigate wild/feral/BLM horses, or to deny that many have extremely unfavorable conformation, but I encourage folks to revisit Dr Deb Bennett's Principles of Conformation Analysis I in particular Chapter 5, "How to Look at a Horse: Is that really a fault, or is it the reasoning that's flawed?" On pages 72-73 are illustrated "The Four P's" of conformation: Perfect, Primitive, Pathological and Pathogenic. The "Primitive" body type, while not as aesthetically pleasing to the eye as the "Perfect" model, features the following virtues: abundant bone feet in good proportion to the body (neither too big nor too small) straight front legs large, flat joints deep chest deep, strong loins Thanks for bringing Deb into it, Roberta. She has some excellent points. And I agree with her insofar as what we consider "pretty" is not necessary to function. Deb also has good information about the long backs--yes, those with long backs may well be sound, but Deb's own information gives a lot of insight into why they are not efficient athletes and are not well suited to weightbearing. (They do compensate somewhat in this case by the sheer strength of the loin.) The main things I've seen in BLM mustangs have been (in addition to the already mentioned long backs) extremely upright shoulders (again, leading to a rough ride and the need to expend a great deal more energy to cover the same ground), very poor forearm-to-cannon ratios (Deb has good info about this as well--and how this also causes the horse to have to expend a great deal more energy to cover the same distance), and in several cases, some pretty severe angular limb deformities. I can live with the "uglies"--Deb is right that the large head, the coarseness, etc. do not interfere with function. There is a great variation in conformation that will survive in the wild. And there is a good reason why we don't ride cows, or elk, or a great many other ungulates. They simply do not have the conformation to make sustained travel efficient while carrying more than themselves. Survival in the wild has to do more with the ability to skedaddle quickly for a short distance--not at all what we ask our horses to do in this sport. Concussion is not an issue, because the feral horses do not travel at speed in a sustained fashion for any appreciable distances. Metabolically, sprinting is more of a survival skill than going for hours and hours, so there again is another place where "natural selection" does not select for endurance prospects. Depending on the area, bone ranges from downright tree trunks to pretty poor, and everything in between. (If you think good bone is something selected for in nature, take a look at an elk sometime--the bone comes from infusions of draft breeding, as many ranchers turned out draft stallions for years, and rounded up the resulting foals as light work horses. And it isn't generally there in herds where this was not done.) The bottom line here is that the qualities you find are closely related to what sorts of horses were turned loose in the first place--and that is all across the board. Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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