Quick confo. question

Hey guys!

A friend of mine is looking at this horse that is for sale and asked me what I thought about his confo (and his movement.. which is another subject). I don't know much about conformation, so what can you guys tell me?

To me, he looks cow hocked. These are the only two pictures I have of him, so I apologize if they're not very good!

Thanks everyone!

He's a mess. He's more base narrow in the hind and turned out than he is badly cowhocked, but he's also sickle-hocked, camped-out, steep-crouped, roach-backed, downhill, and upright-pasterned. Not an animal likely to stay sound.

He's cute but justdoesnt look right. And his tail looks set wayyyyy too far down.
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The thing that bothers me are his legs- they aren't.... right. Toed out, too close in the back...

Bubba, could you explain the roach back you mention to me? I think I see the others. (trying to learn) Could the camped out appearance be because he seems to be leaning forward hoping for a treat, or do you think it's probably typical for him?

Everything what Bubba said, except I can't see the roachback, but she can so I won't disagree. I can't even detect a hunter bump.

It's not severe, and I could possibly be convinced it's the photo, but combined with the stance and downhillness, I do think I'm seeing some undesirable convex curvature of the spine there.

I do imagine he always stands camped out, judging by his hind limb and back construction.

Thanks so much everyone!! The only thing I could see was the hocks... I'm clueless when it comes to conformation!
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I think there's a fair chance he's base narrow behind & bit 'roachy' *because* he isn't sound. I think horses can adopt that posture(so not nec 'confo') to protect or compensate for weak/sore areas, such as sacro for eg.

What sort of probs can you guys foresee due to the low tail/steep croup? I'm no confo expert in the least, but I had thought that didn't cause any issue?

Loosie it has to do with the amount of power that the horse can easily generate from behind. That tail is WAY too low and croup too steep for any real engagement which sadly will be necessary to decrease the impact of his downhill build and upright pasterns.

Although your theory about posture vs structure does make sense, my horses both develop a rather similar stance when they are extremely uncomfortable. I have only witnessed it a couple of times but they DO do it. HOWEVER, this then leads us to infer that the horse must be uncomfortable or in pain, and therefore probably not sound. In the case of my horses, it was in the middle of nature's fury - and my filly's first storm. My gelding came from warmer climates and so the cold often brings this stance. It is more often pain causing such a 'tucked' appearance, like the horse has tipped his hips underneath him to stretch out (or relax) sore muscles. I would hazard a guess that this horse is either sore in the back or hindquarter, or tends towards a low-grade colic.