Confirmation Critique 15.1h Arab gelding

Hi Everyone,
Here is my guy I am leasing. He is a 15.1h arab gelding. I only use him for trail riding and some light arena work and very light jumping (less than 2'). I have no aspirations to do shows, I just wanted to have a horse I could work with so I could learn more in the event that one day I will own my own.

I would like your thoughts on what you see that is good, and what is less than desirable. However, since I am learning, can you please elaborate when you give a critique. For example if you say, he has long pasterns, can you say why that is good or bad, or how it will affect him in riding? I would appreciate it!

The last couple pics aren't for confirmation, those are for fun He was being too cute I couldn't help take our pic and the view was great on our trail ride so I thought I would share. Thanks everyone for taking the time to comment!

Ok, here goes . . .

First of all, he is totally, too, too cute! Irresistable! Thought I'd get that out of the way first.

He has a good porportion of neck to back to hind end , something that is just good for the horse and best for good balance. His front legs are a bit close together in front, which for the rider can mean a smoother ride, but can also mean they might clip each other when he is moving and may mean a little less balance in rough terrain. The front legs are free at the elbow, which kind of counteracts the narrowness, allowing him the ablility to reach sideways more easily. His knees are great and in fact his legs have good bone and his hooves are nice and large in porportion to his body (critical for a horse to not have hooves too small to carry his mass). His shoulder is nice, but strangely undermuscled and it looks like he may have lost some muscle mass just behind the withers. Makes me wonder if the saddle is really a good fit or not.
Something for you to check on, no?
The way his neck has a dip right in front of the withers tells me that he may have been ridden in some sort of tie down, like a training fork or a maringale or draw reins, at some point in his life. He has built up the muscles in his neck that are used for holding the neck in this forced head set, and the muscles used to raise the base of the neck , which are at the base and just in front of the withers, are a bit attrophied. I would be very curious to see a video of how he moves.

He seems very sweet and I think you are probably a rider he appreciates.
I like him a lot and I bet he is very versitile.

Hi Tiny,
Thank you for your thorough explanation. I know very little of his history as does his owner. He is 8 or 9 I believe, but she got him from a rescue shelter a couple years ago. He was severely underweight, I think she said he was close to 200 lbs underweight when she took him in (poor boy). They think he was abused, one of his front teeth has a chip and he will have moments of severe head-shyness. I've been using some of Clinton Anderson's methods for working on his head/ears and he is to the point that I can handle them and scratch them.

As for the area behind his withers, from what I know, it's always looked like that. My saddle has only been on him for a month and when I take it off, there appears to be even sweat marks. I've not had a professional saddle fitter out, but the barn owner has some experience fitting saddles and she said it looked to be a good fit.

He's a great boy though, love his cute little face. Very willing, although he is very inflexible right now. Doing carrot stretches, he can only get a couple inches behind his girth, but we've only been at it 1 week, so there is room for progress. He made it a few inches farther back today with his stretches, yay!

I plan on having a friend ride with me Thursday. I will try to get her to video tape while I lunge him.

That is just what I thought I might hear. Stiff and protective. However, you sound like a great person for this horse and he is really a dandy boy. I bet he will become a really good ride. Do a video when you can and good luck with your slow and sensible efforts to bring some flexibility back.

Here is a video of him at the trot and walk. Forgive the shaky quality, I was by myself and was trying to lunge and video at the same time! Can you tell any more from this small snippet?

Just to help yall out I placed the dots and drew some lines ;)