Carol Harris
EC September/October, 2004
Today we find our society obsessed with external appearances. Ancillaries to extremities such as hair style, hair color, shoes, eyewear, skin color, makeup and clothing now have so much emphasis placed on them that there are countless television shows based solely on our external, superficial façade. For many, ‘Extreme Makeover’ is now too extreme and the horse community seems to have tuned into the very same channel. A mythical perception that a hunt seat horse should be bay, a reining horse should have a long mane, a western pleasure horse must have a long, beautiful tail and wear saddles and headstalls dripping in silver, and a winning halter horse is the one who weighs the most and is the tallest has begun to pervade our industry – or so some thought. AQHA is breaking the mold of ‘Extreme’ and getting back to its original function…Form to Function that is.
I n this three-part series, we will thoroughly explore the importance of Form to Function and its impact on the daily life of an American Quarter Horse. In this, the first part of the series, we will discuss the legs. What is correct, popular trends that have become detriments to our breed, why conformationally correct legs are so imperative to our industry and what the Association is doing to make the appropriate modifications.
AQHA President Scoop Vessels is renowned for his expertise on the race track and we all know how important legs are to the racing industry. Scoop shares with us why he feels correct structure of the legs are imperative to our breed, “The legs are as important to a horse’s structure as the foundation is to the Empire State Building. Without a good foundation, the building does not stand and won’t stand for the many years that it has been up. Without a strong foundation, the rest goes away.” Race horses are not judged in an arena by their conformation, they are only judged by a clock for their speed. Yet when owners, breeders and trainers of race horses go to purchase top prospects for millions of dollars, they base their buying decision upon the horse’s conformation, with severe emphasis on the legs. “We put a lot of stress on their legs while racing and they have to be conformed correctly to go through it,” explains Vessels.
For these reasons, AQHA places emphasis on the halter division, as this is where the successful breeding stock is chosen for its desirable conformation qualities to propagate the breed. Scoop Vessels discusses the importance of the halter horse in our industry, “The reason halter is so important is because that is supposed to be the picture of the ideal Quarter Horse and if the structure is not there, that is not the picture of the ideal Quarter Horse. That is why they have to have form to function and structure has to be the leading part of that because that is the foundation of the building.”
While this is a rudimentary concept that appears so logical, we have strayed severely from its roots. Distinguished breeder and owner of Rugged Lark, Carol Harris, summarizes the current state of the industry, “The character of the American Quarter Horse has been described by words such as ‘dependability, durability and agility’. He was absolutely an animal bred to be useful and his beauty was enhanced by his usefulness. It should never be forgotten that the conformation and beauty of the Quarter Horse was dependent on his soundness to perform all jobs. As a breeder of halter horses, I recognize now that many of us chose to forget the purpose of these magnificent animals. We lost no time recreating them to satisfy our personal tastes. We became impressed with our sophisticated, but slightly uneducated, version of beauty but we completely forgot usefulness. We simply permitted our interpretation of beauty to govern our wisdom. Our excessive breeding for elegance and muscle eventually did us in, and left us with a huge, fancy, unsound, brain dead animal. If it hadn’t been for the dedication and growth in the performance horse, the halter horse folks might have totally wiped out our versatile, forgotten gene pool while destroying the heart and soul of the useful American Quarter Horse. That basically is where we are today, but in spite of everything, I do not feel we have messed up things completely. We still have some outstanding halter horses and many great bloodlines to call upon. If we show a little vision, pick the right genes, and wisely use these bloodlines, we can rapidly improve our dilemma. Breeding programs should be carefully studied for purpose and we should definitely replace EXCESSIVE with MODERATION. Through education, our horses will once again be rewarded for soundness, balance, and usefulness.” I believe Carol’s assessment is accurate and her wisdom, dedication and hopeful enthusiasm toward the renovation of the halter industry is a common goal amongst professional horsemen and AQHA officials.
“You tell me how I will be judged and I will tell you how I will perform and I think that is true in any class. Our judges have to define how they want the horses to be conformed and the people will breed for it.” – Steve Stevens, 2003 AQHA President.
In 2003, AQHA accepted a ‘mission’ to transform the halter horse industry as we knew it. Committed halter horse enthusiasts got together, task forces joined and goals were set. Education is the first step, and Walter Hughes, Chairman of AQHA Judges Committee, shares the upcoming agenda for the judges. “This year, in AQHA’s Judge’s Conference, halter is on the menu and one whole day is dedicated to just halter. In the past, we held eight workshops throughout the year on one subject but now they will all be in Fort Worth with half of all judges attending this year’s workshop in December and the other half attending next year. We are going to spend more time to educate them and then hold them accountable for what they have learned.”
Walter shares how the judges will be educated on the importance of the legs, “As far as legs, its rather simple, they either have them or they don’t and if they are not born that way, there is not a lot you can do about it. Yes, there is corrective shoeing but that cannot make a bad leg a good leg. It has to be bred into them or they are not going to have it. It would be like driving a car with flat tires or building a house with no foundation, without them you have nothing. Our judges should look at a horse from the ground up – legs first. That is where it all starts and if they don’t have good legs then they are not going to be good for anything that they do. They will not be halter horses or sound performance horses and, of course, there is always someone who will tell you about a good horse that was not the ideal- legged horse but they are the exception and the rest of them just fight soundness all the time. When it comes to the halter pen, if they don’t have the wheels, they just don’t have it in my opinion and this will be emphasized by the AQHA and this subject will be covered in AQHA’s judge’s conference this December in Fort Worth.” Hughes emphasizes, “Judge’s will be held accountable and reviewed.”
Go to Class before you go in the Class!
With the judges receiving more education on conformation, it is probably a wise idea for the breeders, owners, trainers and exhibitors to do their homework, as well. The diagrams shown in this article are reputable educational tools to assist breeders and horsemen in recognizing proper leg structure. Alex Ross, of AQHA, discusses some excellent tools that are available as well, “The halter case book (Judging Halter, A Standard of Reference for AQHA Judges) was developed in 1995 by an excellent task force. In January of this year, the recent Halter Task Force changed some of the wording and updated the case book and this will be available from AQHA to any member. It discusses the class, the ideal horse, the purpose of the class and even has a section on judging the halter horse. It is a well developed case book that defines the class and how it is to be judged. It defines to the exhibitors how they should be expected to be judged in that class.”
“Why are the horse’s legs most important? Because when one or more of their parts are incorrect, they easily receive injury and stress. Knees, hocks, stifles, cannon bones, ankles, pasterns and hoofs become useless when improper conformation is found on any part of the leg. A blemish can be the first sign of stress. All leg blemishes, their names and locations should be 100% familiar to exhibitors and judges. Education and knowledge will help breeders, owners, trainers and judges to get on the same page so they can better understand problems and their consequences.” – Carol Harris
No Room For Trends
The halter arena is truly trendy and that is not always a good thing. Alex Ross discusses trends that AQHA has observed in recent years, “A trend that we have seen is breeding for horses with post-legged hocks because it tends to show more tie down through the hip and hindquarters when, in fact, it is not a desirable trait due to the concussion it puts on the joints. In fact, the horse is not going to be as good of a mover and will be more susceptible to lameness over a period of time; therefore, it should not be considered a desirable trait. For this reason, I think we want to reward the good characteristics of the horse and that would be those with correct conformation of their hocks, yet still tie down deep in their hindquarters.”
Dr. Barry Wood of Pilot Point, Texas has been practicing veterinary medicine for 35 years. In this timeframe, he has had the opportunity to witness many trends in our industry and he has noted the long-term consequences he now has to maintain on these horses as a result of trends and conformational defects. “There are a lot of horses getting injected; receiving Adequin and Legend on a regular basis. Is this necessary, and if so, why? Are we lacking good structural conformation? Are the horses too immature physically or is the end result we are trying to accomplish placing to much stress on the horses joints? The amount of injections and anti-inflammatory drugs that are used today are phenomenal.” Dr. Wood continues, “If you get a good, sound horse with good conformation, you should not have any problems and you will do a lot less medicating. Thirty years-ago, we didn’t inject hocks and while some of that is caused by immaturity in the horses, a lot of it is caused by incorrect structural conformation.”
Dr. Fred Benker of Ocala, Florida concurs and adds, “Some injections are done when it is not necessary. We could have a conformation problem that puts extra strain on a horse, but the things we ask the horse to do are not things they would do on their own in nature thereby putting a lot more pressure on joints like hocks and stifles. Preventative maintenance in a joint is not necessarily bad, but the reason they need it so often is because we are asking them to do something that they were not designed to do naturally.”
Dr. Wood explains, “The most important thing is the front legs because 60% of the weight is distributed on the front suspension. Most horses have the soundness problem in front due to that fact that is where the weight distribution is. There is basically one condition that haunts the front or rear and that is being too upright or having no suspension. If you start at the shoulder and he is straight up and down, he is normally too straight or upright with no flexion in his knee and then the angulations in the pastern gives them no suspension. The upright position of the front legs and the post-hocked legs, or lack of suspension in both the front and rear, is the number one condition that contributes to unsoundness and longevity of performance.”
Dr. Benker is of the same mindset, “The upright front pastern goes with some of the breeding that is very popular and winning alot today. When the foals start growing, their ankles begin to buckle forward and this is a real problem that affects the halter industry. This is absolutely genetic through breeding not because we selected for that, because we selected for other traits and we let that slip in as a by-product.”
Dr. Benker says the compromised conformational value of the position of the knee is, “my pet peeve. People are just deadly on horses that are shaking in the knees, yet at the same token, if a horse is back in the knees, it goes unnoticed. As a vet, I have not had to treat horses that are shaky in the knees for unsoundness, but horses who are back at the knees I will be treating at some point in their life and they will be arthritic 90% of the time. This is not a trait that we want to pass on genetically.”
Dr. Wood agrees, “Whenever you have a horse that performs, he has to have a good knee. In the race horse business, they would rather have one over on the knees than calf kneed, yet in the pleasure and halter industries, we have a tendency to go the other way on it. There is much less emphasis put on knee placement than there are in race horses. Calf kneed is one of the greatest unsoundnesses in a horse that has to do anything. In the race horse industry, if you had a calf kneed horse, you wouldn’t pay much for him at Keeneland because it would not hold up under the immense pressure. But in the halter and pleasure horse industry, calf knees are very common.”
Dr. Benker discusses club feet and toe-out conformation in the western pleasure horse, “Some of this is hereditary and some of it is acquired from trauma to the feet and some of it is nutritional, but on a positive note, nutrition is improving so we are helping there. Use a little self control to not push them as hard so quick and be more aware of your breeding selection for this genetic trait.”
There’s Four of Them That Need Attention!
“People don’t think about the foot as much as they should. It is compromised a lot. They keep the foot too small and create these monstrous horses who are walking on very little hooves and that definitely causes problems. While corrective shoes can help, if the horse is not structurally correct, it cannot be fixed with corrective shoeing. There are a lot of blacksmiths who do outstanding work and they have done a masterful job, but anytime you start affecting the normal flight of the foot, you will see either changes in the hoof capsule itself or results of arthritis or changes in the joint itself,” Dr. Wood says.
Dr. Benker concludes, “The correction factor has to start in the show ring and if the horse cannot win with calf knees, people won’t breed to it. If their pasterns are too straight and they are penalized for it, that should decrease the likelihood of breeding to those types of horses. This will hold true for horses with post hocks or too much set to their hocks. If they are steep in their hocks or pasterns, it should be a penalty just like when it is not steep enough.” AQHA has developed the curriculum and implementation is scheduled to begin in December, so we will all be observing optimistically with the anticipation of positive repercussions that will improve the breeds future.
As horsemen, it would behoove us all if we adopted Dr. Barry Woods’ philosophy, “I am interested strictly in the health and welfare of the horse. For over 50 years, I have been associated with the Quarter Horse Industry and I think that if our goals are to take care of the health and welfare of the horse, the horse will take care of us, satisfying our needs. The bond between horse and man is great, yet I do not think we have had the horse’s best interest at heart. The horse has not done anything to us – man has caused all these problems with the decisions they have made. Maybe we have not been as good of stewards for the horses as we should have been in our breeding and handling programs.” But through continuing education and heightened awareness, I feel confident that our humanitarian passion for the horse will reveal itself through future decision making processes.
Special thanks to Drew Cotton, Coach of the University of Florida Judging Team, for his contributions to the article. Reference material made available by the Michigan and Missouri State Cooperative Extension offices.
No related posts.
