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Conformation Tutorial

86K views 174 replies 57 participants last post by  QtrBel 
#1 ·
Since there's so many of you who seem interested in having their horse "disected" I was thinking maybe it would be best if I did a tutorial which allows you to see how to do it yourselves... might be more educational that way.

What you'll need :
A Paint Program, or any photo editing program which has an option to "draw" on photos. I'm using a freeware program called Paint.NET
A good conformation shot - for now lets use a side shot, we'll cover front and backs later. (I think there's a sticky on here somewhere about what makes a good conformation shot)
A Ruler and Protractor. I'm using two computer programs for this, but "the real thing" will work too. It doesn't really matter what measurements you get - it's their relationship to each other that really matter. The ones I'm using are BitRuler (Freeware) and Screen Protractor 4.0 (it's a bought program... I think there are freeware ones though!)

Step 1
Open your photo in the paint program, and draw a box around the horse.
Your box should touch the top of wither, the point of buttock, the bottom of the hooves and the point of shoulder. Like this : (I've tinted the inside of the box... just for creative kicks)


What we want to see is the general shape of the horse. The "ideal" riding horse is a square.

Tell me what you see about the shape of your horse.
 
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#4 ·
Your horse or mine? How about we have everyone post their steps as they complete them... that way I can help if someone's stuck. (Use photobucket or attach directly to post... doesn't matter I guess)

Yes, mine is bum high - or "downhill". In this photo she's 3, and in the middle of a growth spurt... so I'm not going to hold it against her - we're 3 years in the future (I just couldn't find any other decent confo shot on my computer) and I know that "weakness" goes away :D
 
#3 · (Edited)
Step 2
Now that we've seen the shape and how the horse is balanced, we're going to make some spots on our horse.

Place Dots (I've color coded them so I can more easily see which are which) on *the Point of wither, the point of shoulder and the point of elbow.
*Center of Knee joint, center of fetlock and center of coronet
*LS Joint (it will be that slight depression just before the croup.. on the horse you'll find it because it's a little squishy spot)
*Point of hip, Point of Buttock, and Point of Stifle
*Center of hock, center of fetlock, center of coronet

 
#9 ·
Step 3

The Body Length Line. This line is going to be pretty critical to the rest of your critique. You will join the dot at the point of shoulder to the one at the point of buttock with a line - most horses this will be a slightly downhill sloped line.


Step 4
The shoulder.
Join the dot at the top of wither to that at the point of shoulder. Then join the point of shoulder to the point of elbow with another line.

Now, measure the first line - it should run along the scapula of the horse (the shoulder bone).
What did you get? :
Divide that by the body length - and turn it into a percentage. :
We now have the shoulder length, the ideal shoulder is no less than 1/3 of the body length.

Measure the second line.:

This is the humorous length. we're going to divide that by the shoulder length... and turn it into a percentage :
The ideal humorous is at least 50% of the shoulder length, longer is better.

Now, Shoulder slopes and angles.
The shoulder slope is found by measureing the angle between the scapula and a horizonal line (don't use the body length line, because it's usually slightly sloped, but a straight line running horizontally from the point of shoulder across the photo.) The "ideal" is between 45 and 50 degrees, though some sources will say between 40 and 55.

The shoulder angle is found by measureing the angle between the scapula line and the humorous line. The "ideal" is 100 degrees.

What do the angles mean? They will tell us if the horse is going to be more prone to having short choppy strides, how high it'll be able to lift it's knees... the scope and flexibility of the horse's front end.

They don't stand alone though - a horse is the sum of all it's parts, so we're going to connect the angles with the lengths. The longer a scapula and humorous the more compensation there is for less than ideal angles.

What can you tell me about your horse's shoulder?
 
#10 ·
equiniphile - the point of buttock is the "longest" point of the buttock - you can see the end of it with the orange body length line. My Point of buttock dot is green - to match the other hindquarter dots I'll be using in a little while

I'm going to have some lunch, and I'll check back in a bit
 
#11 ·
Thank you for such an amazing tutorial! I have a question, I have a friesian and it's a bit funny with their withers. How do I find the top of the withers for example on this horse?



A friesian cross, another example



Thank you for your answer. I've always wanted to measure my horse but never knew where exactly to do it (where to put the tape).
 
#19 ·
Thank you for such an amazing tutorial! I have a question, I have a friesian and it's a bit funny with their withers. How do I find the top of the withers for example on this horse?



A friesian cross, another example



Thank you for your answer. I've always wanted to measure my horse but never knew where exactly to do it (where to put the tape).
You'll want to follow the slope of the scapula and use the "tallest" point of it. It'll be close enough.

Equiniphile, you'll want to move your LS dot back, just a little. Use the freeware program "BitRuler". I think it also does angles... I've never used that part of it before, but if it does, yippee!

To the others - that's great!... now... what are you "seeing" when you look at your new, doodled, horse?
 
#18 · (Edited)
I'd say you can just create one out of a piece of paper, a pencil, a ribbon or something like that. Make marks there that would represent centimetres (or other unit, doesn't matter how far away from each other they are as long as they are all the same far away from each other, if you know what I mean, you can use... have no clue... pen cap or some other small object to measure where to make the next mark) as the actual measurement doesn't matter (as long as you're using one and the same measuring means for the whole process), the thing that matters is the relation between the final measurements (numbers). At least that's what I understood. I hope I expressed myself well and you can understand what I wanted to say.

But then again I think searching for the real ruler would probably be easier :lol:
 
#21 ·
Step 5
Forelegs.

So, after the shoulder we move down the leg. The shoulder and leg move in relation to each other, always, so the measurements we get here can alter measurements we found higher up too. I didn't bother drawing lines on my horse for this - I find the dots easier to measure

We want a longish forearm, I like it to be close in length to the humorous or longer. Forearm helps the horse reach forward and "swing" for each stride. The longer the forearm, usually, the smoother the horse.

We want a shorter cannon - no more than 75% of the forearm, 50% is better. The cannon should be short, with ample bone (I think it's 7" for every 1000lbs) to ensure strength to hold the horse up and stand up to wear and tear.

We want a Pastern which is no more than 50% of the cannon length. Pasterns too long will be weak and prone to soundness problems, and pasterns too short (no less than 30% of the cannon) will create soundness problems as well as a rougher ride. I'm less concerned about pastern slope than I am length... primarily because if you change the slope of the hoof the pastern slope is also going to change - often horses with a poor angle to their pastern are really showing a poor trim or shoeing job rather than any real conformational issue.

Straightness is also being taken into consideration, we want the horse's knee to be flat, and we want a nice straight cannon. The leg is going to be part of what determines the overall long term soundness of our horse. We want to make sure there's enough "bone" to suit the mass of the horse as well.

And lets take a look at foot size, while we're here too. We want to see a hoof which is balanced for the horse's body, the bigger the foot the better.
 
#23 ·
Step 6
Hindquarters.

Now for that triangle on the rump.
We want to draw a line from the point of hip, to the point of buttock
another from the point of buttock to the stifle, and then another from the stifle to the point of hip.

The first one we'll measure is the illium (hip) - so measure from point of hip to point of buttock. This measurement should be no less than 1/3 of the total body length. The illium length is an indicator of the amount of "thrusting" power the horse will have, but, like everything else it's entirely connected to the rest of the hind limb conformation. The longer the hip the better, but only if it's paired with equal partners when it comes to the femur and pelvis.

The next measurement will be from the point of buttock to the stifle - the femur length. It should be close to equal to that of the illium/hip.

The last one will be the pelvis. It too should be as close to equal to the hip as possible. The length, and therefore the angle of the pelvis is going to greatly effect a horse's ability to change gaits smoothly, stop suddenly, "sit" in collection and make sharp turns without injury.

Tell me what you notice about your horse's hiney!
 
#29 ·
Equiniphile - the Shoulder angle that you can't get is about 96 degrees :)

You should also move the point of hip dot - you're going to get a shorter hip measurement if you don't. You want it placed right on the part of the "hip" that sticks out

Now that you have the front end measurements, can you put into words what they mean to the horse? (by all means use any of my other posts to help you :)... if you still can't understand the relationships I'll help you out when I'm done feeding my horsies )
 
#31 · (Edited)
Joe - your horse's shoulder slope is 50.36 degrees, shoulder angle is 74.93 degrees.

I might be wrong, but I think your point of hip is a little too far back.

Equiniphile, I've made a change to where the point of hip is on your horse, and left your triangle there (just drawn over it) so you can see the amount of difference it makes :)
 
#32 ·
Thanks! Let's see.



230--shoulder
598--body line
38.4%
131--humerus
56.9%
61.9--shoulder slope
96--shoulder angle
123--forearm
78--Cannon
37--Pastern
191--point of hip to point of buttock
31.9%--ilium length
187--femur length
181--pelvis length

Lemme have a go at this. Pastern is very good length in comparison to the cannon bone, and the cannon bone is proportionate to the forearm. The shoulder length is correct in being more than 1/3 of the length of the body line. The humerus is good in being more than 50% of the length of the shoulder. The shoulder is a bit on the steep side, correct? And the shoulder angle at 96 degrees is somewhat closed, off of the ideal of 100 degrees. I think the long scapula makes up for this, correct?

The forearm is only 123 compared to the 131 humerus, but I'm not sure how I was supposed to measure the forearm. I used the point of the elbow to the knee. The cannon is okay in proportion to the forearm. The pastern is great in relation to the length of the cannon.

Looking at the rear end, the line from the point of the hip to the point of the buttock is a bit too short in comparison to the length of the body line at 31.9%. Not so much, however, that it impedes upon the amount of thrust the horse has from behind. Femur length at 187 is close to the measurement of the point of hip to buttock (191), so they're equal there. The pelvis length is a bit short and doesn't quite favor the idea of the equilateral triangle, but at 181 it's close enough. Arthur seems to have a powerful rear end.
 
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