Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Good feet were important to me after dealing with a line of horses that were prone to laminitis. I wanted good feet AND a good body.

 

My little Zab horse has been the best horse in the world for our family. He takes care of my grandson, gives riding lessons, does parades, horse shows, and distance riding. His body looks like the front and back halves don't match. It didn't matter. He holds up well in distance and has the most awesome metabolics, which is really good for CTR. He's never placed less than 2nd in a CTR event.

 

BUT, his feet are crap. He has no hoof walls, there's nothing to nail a shoe to. He has to go barefoot or in easy boots. If he goes barefoot, his feet are a chipped mess by the end of the ride.

 

He's on a regular hoof supplement and excellent farrier care, but genetically, he has crappy feet. There's only so much we can do to help him with supplements and hoof care.  It's going to limit what I can ask him to do, even though the rest of him seems to be suited to distance riding.

 

 You are right, we shouldn't judge solely by feet, but dang it, they have to have good feet to get us down the trail.

 

chris

heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

I started out my horse "career" that way, too.  But I've done a complete about-face.  I now start with the bodies.  After vetting 20,000 some-odd endurance horses, it has amazed me how quickly poor bodies can trash the most beautiful sets of legs, and how horses with good bodies stay sound for miles and miles and miles even if they have leg faults.  This doesn't mean that I condone poor legs--far from it.   But I think we have our priorities backward. 

 

The Bedouins are amazed at our obsession with legs.  They say that they don't judge a man's character by looking at his feet.  I think they have a point.

 

Anyway, now, if I don't like the body, I just walk away and don't look any further.  I'm talking about balance--how close the horse is to three-circle conformation, long hip, long well-laid-back shoulder, short back.  (I've yet to see a back "too short"--but I've seen many horses that people claim have backs "too short" that actually are lacking in hip and shoulder.)  The neck should fit the body.  The depth of body should be proportional to the length of leg.  There should be sufficient humerus to fit the shoulder.  The forearm-to-cannon ratio should approach the ideal of 2:1 and in any event should not be less than about 1.7:1.  If I get that far without walking away, THEN I start worrying about leg faults....

 

Heidi

Exactly! When I went horse shopping for my first distance horse, I started from the ground up. I looked at feet first, then legs, then the body. A pretty head was a bonus, as far as I was concerned.

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