Conformation is the Question Through a QH breeders eyes

Your stallion might pass for a QH but for his shoulder that lays back a good bit more than a QH would. He has a lot of hindquarter but is appears to miss a bit in the hip length. He looks pretty good in this photo regardless of breed.

The mare OTOH not so much. Her shoulder is laid WAY back and her point of shoulder is quite high (why she gets the action she does in the videos.. along with the built up shoes). She is actually too flat in the croup (for a Quarter horse or for my liking) and her hind legs are a bit too long to fit under her correctly (cannons behind are a bit long). Her neck is too long and more Arab looking that Quarterhorse. She lacks sufficient hip and length of croup to be a Quarterhorse and I find her length of croup short for any breed. She is also back at the knee.. and this is a fault I do not like at all as it can lead to unsoundess. The back at the knee shows up in the website photos as well.

The reason I ask such an odd question is I am looking for any information I can get about my breeding. When I talk to my friends in the morgan community they tend to gravitate more towards some of my other horses with really flat hips and extremely open sholders. I am not just looking for a critique but for a why you would want that part of the horses conformation changed. I come from a world of flat croups and Open shoulders and arched necks and I want to know the advantage of having a slightly less open shoulder or any change. I go back and look at black and white photos of morgan and quarter horse stallions and see very little difference up until about the 60's then there is a radical shift to more of the quarter horse we know today (kinda like the shift in the 80's to 90's in the morgan breed to more of a saddlebred look). I am trying to get information is all. I am trying to voice my question with out looking bias. I like both breeds but I have drifted more into morgans because it was easier to find the type of horse I was looking for. I decided to post on here because it is so hard to get answers out of people face to face. Well I am rambling so I will stop there. Eric

Well Eric, if they want SB's let them have them!
I do love the looks of your stud, please keep the classic alive! I'll be shopping you one of these days if you do. I love the classic form of anything, especially horses. What people have done to the TW's, and the foundation bred QH's (halter) is a shame. Especially the Appaloosas, I've always wanted a nice one for myself but more often than not I go look and find a Quarter Horse with spots!

Kuddos to you and do your breed a favor and protect it!

The Quarterhorse was a horse designed out of a mix of range mustang and Thoroughbred. Originally small and with a lot of "cow" and very fast at short distances. The rounder hind quarter and steeper croup allows the horse to curl back over himself to cut a cow. The less open shoulder allows the horse to lower his head more readily to face the challenge of a cow. The large hind quarters allow for a solid stop at the end of a heading or calf rope as well as a powerful sprint after that same calf or cow to get her roped (or turned).

An open shoulder is usually coupled with a higher head set.. and a cow can get under the neck (more easily). A flat croup interferes with curling the hind end under the horse to make a fast turn or a fast get away. There is less power in starts, stops and turns in a flatter croup.

The Quarterhorse has changed.. becoming more refined and many have NO "cow." The halter Quarterhorse has developed into an animal that has too little bone, too small feet, too large a body and is bow legged behind (and often camped under). These are faults.. not something to breed for!!!

The Morgan has gone through a similar transition becoming a smaller version of the American Saddlebred (open shoulder, arched neck, high head carriage, flat croup).

Not sure this is any help or what you are looking for. It is the what and why that I see. JMO. No one need agree.

Love love love the stud! He has a much more classic look about him, his angles are superb (maybe a tiny bit more in the hind end, but overall good) and he looks like a tight sturdy package, just the way a morgan should be. The mare, like you said, you can tell she has a more park horse type breeding- her shoulder is a little outrageous, but I bet it makes her super fancy in the SS ring! Same goes for the sickle hocks- something you would want if you are breeding park horses, if you are going for classic, she isn't very close to that ideal.

Both are beautiful though!

She was just to pretty to pass up we have not had a foal out of her yet but (fingers crossed) she in in foal to Irish Raven. Shine (the mare) defiantly hails from park lines her great grand sire on top and bottom sides of her pedigree is Noble Flaire. But yet again Raven's sire is a park champion and I believe his mothers sire was a park stallion also (Waseeka's Moonshot). Shine ranks about number 5 on my personal list of my mare band. But I put her on here because most people like her. My favorite mare out of our little band is out of Stonecroft Byzantine I like more of feminine mare than what shine is.

And the kids like her way more.

thank you for your insite into croup and shoulder angle. I did like what you said about the morgans I am so glad that they caught a saddlebred in the breed some time back, not because I want anyone kicked out of the breed but to show that to win you needed that look. After crowning a half saddle bred world champion it changed the way the judges judge or atleast for now it did.

I do have to disagree with the origins of the quarter horse breed.

I think most people put the cart before the horse. I know when you read of the breed origins you feel they started a breed and in a couple short years it just blossomed. What I have found is that in 1930 the horse population was 13,510,839 and the number of registered horses was 67,378 with over 33,000 being Percherons. Now if that doesn't give someone an idea when only half a percent of horses in the us were registered to start a registry I don't know what would? I am not trying to pick on the Quarter horse. I don't think it really matters how the breed started or what bloodlines were involved. I believe there was a real void and I am glad it was filled in the 40's. That is what makes America great, supply and demand, the supply was there. I remember talking to my grandpa, before he passed away, who owned a ranch 20 miles north of North Platte Nebraska about when the registry came through in the late 40's early 50's and wanted him to register his horses. He told them no way he was paying $.25 per horse for a piece of paper. They said he could register everything but his drafts. So technically he never owned any quarter horses but he did breed to papered stallions once in a while. I hope you don't take this the wrong way this is what I have found about the origins. It's not that I haven't ridden or researched different horse breeds I just wanted to know why certain conformational traits are desirable for certain individuals. I like numbers and I like history but I find with history you have to be careful because all history is someones viewpoint. And everyone has an opinion.

I will leave "cow" alone and my feeling about cow horses coming west for only my close personal friends.

I never meant to imply the the origins of the QH took a few simple years to develop. I was in the breed for a number of years (though the Thoroughbred is really my main interest). The foundations of the breed took a long while to come about but the horses started from Feral Stock when the horses still had a lot of Spanish Barb look about them. The horses were small and short coupled.. rugged and range bred. Look at some of CM Russel's drawings....

This was in the middle 1800's when cattle farming started in the west and carried through to after the Civil war to the brief period of cattle drives.. to ranches and eventually to the present. The small horses that were working animals were crossed to Thoroughbreds (look at the influence of Three Bars) and so the foundation began.

You are correct.. not every good ranch horse or bred ranch horse was registered.. but eventually it all came together when some of the large ranches bought into breed development (remember years ago that a horse with the Running W of the King Ranch was a significant "find" if you obtained one!).

History is always an interpretation. Always. Even by those who lived it.

Things have changed for the breed.. horses are used less and less in real work and more and more for sport and competition. BTW this is also true of a lot of dog breeds (especially mine.. the German Shepherd). Most started because you had a good one that worked well.. so you bred that one to another that worked well with the idea of producing more animals that could work well.

I agree with Elana's assessment. I am very drawn to your stud though, he looks like a very solid horse. I'd welcome him in my pasture. I know nothing about Morgans aside from the one Morgan mare owned by a friend of my grandfather that he bred for them to his son of Poco Dell many, many years ago. The resulting filly turned out to be a gorgeous level headed mare that could really work a cow and looked beautiful pulling a cart.

I guess what I'm trying to say is now days we breed as a luxury and we try to think of past horse owners with our beliefs and thought processes. I don't believe it was a luxury horses were a necessity. A Ranch owner in the late 1800 would have brought in any stallion that he thought would fix his mares....regardless of breed. I do agree that there is a ton of Thoroughbred in the Quarter Horse but was it out of necessity or want to use Thoroughbred Stallions? I think if those same ranchers were alive today they would not go and get mustang mares only to try to fix with registered stallions I believe they would start with the best they could find and were available now if all they had available or could afford were mustangs they made do and bred out imperfections. What i'm trying to ask (and I know no one can really answer it just a thought for the day) did they breed the mustang mares (the cheapest most readily available mares) to Thoroughbred Stallions (largest registery larger then all the other light breed registries put together) out of standards or necessity?



Elana you have been great to talk to thank you so much for taking time to share your research and opinion with me!! I do agree with you about dogs, I am an Australian Shepard fan and it seems most just get to catch a Frisbee any more people don't even refer to them as working dogs.

MHFoundation Quarters be careful saying you liked a cross between a quarter horse and a morgan....you are going to get both sides mad at you. I have only bred on QH mare with Raven and I think it look better than the mare it was out of. I have talked to alot of people with crosses like that and all I have heard have been happy people. We live in an age where in order for me to be right you have to be wrong so alot of inter mingling of ideas has been lost. Even in the morgan breed we have atleast two factions, and there is always the english vs western faction. I can only imagine in a breed the size of the QH how many factions there must be. Like buck says the horse world can be a clicky one but we don't go for clicks around here.

Again I want to restate I know breeds are a touchy subject please don't hate me for sharing my research and opinion. If I say something wrong drive up to Idaho and we will go on a trail ride or more cows and talk about it til we are friends again.