When you're looking for an event horse, what do you look for? What are the lines supposed to be, and the proportions? Well, I've drawn up a visual using Logan, her faults and good attributes, and how they relate to eventing.
So, to start at the top, you can see that she has a bit of a dip in her back, which is rather long in comparison to her underline. This has resolved itself as she's gotten older (this pic is as a 2 year old, I believe), but in a fully matured horse this may be a weak point in their conformation, leading to back issues down the road. Ideally, the line from croup to withers should be shorter than the underline.
Moving to her shoulder, she has a really lovely sloping shoulder. This will help her get more reach in extension work, along with jumping. You can almost think of the shoulder as a wall- the leg cannot extend further than the shoulder will allow. If that line is very steep, you can picture a brick wall impeding the outward reach of the forelegs, whereas the more slope you have to that line will allow for more ground covering strides, and neater jumping form.
Proportion-wise, she has a very good length of neck. Ideally, the underline of the neck should be about the length of the head (poll to nose). This allows the horse to get more power when moving forward in jumping, and just helps to keep the body balanced. Also, there needs to be enough substance in the neck. If you have a thin Arab neck on a big Warmblood or Draft Cross (like a lot of people are getting with the American Warmbloods), and a huge head at the end of it, you're not going to have a very good mover, they'll have a hard time getting on the bit, and won't have as much front-end power. On the other end of the spectrum, if you've got a bullnecked horse, they won't be able to tuck their head at all without having breathing issues (due to the fat at the throatlatch), and they also won't be able to flex to either side.
Both her back and front legs are quite straight, as you can tell from the plumb line going from the point of the buttock, through the hock and cannon, and down to the heel of the hoof in the back legs, and the line all the way down the back of the legs in the front. She could use more muscling in her gaskin and hind quarters, but the basic skeletal outline is there.
The pasterns are a good length and 45 degree slope, which will help to add the strength and stability she needs for jumping. She has incredibly wide pasterns too, to help spread out the shock. If you look at many Thoroughbreds bred for racing today, you can see that they have overly thin, long bones due to race breeding. With time and hard work, these bones will break down considerably faster than, say, a Quarter Horse's, due to the width and density.
Overall, with more muscling, she has very nice conformation. As she's gotten older her back has lifted, she's gotten more proportionate, and gotten a more feminine look. All horses have deviations, some in higher degrees than others, but loads of horses that have a bit of a cowhock, sprung knees, etc, do just fine in lower-level eventing. Conformation isn't everything, and the horse's personality has an enormous part in it, but in looking for a good competition horse, the way the horse is put together can be the difference between last place and first.
For more reference, some excellent conformation websites are:
http://www.jwequine.com/pdf/Conformation-Eventer.pdf
http://www.jwequine.com/pdf/conformation101-dressage.pdf
http://eventing-draft.blogspot.com/2008/06/drafts-as-sport-horses.html
And more that I can't think of right now...
Moving to her shoulder, she has a really lovely sloping shoulder. This will help her get more reach in extension work, along with jumping. You can almost think of the shoulder as a wall- the leg cannot extend further than the shoulder will allow. If that line is very steep, you can picture a brick wall impeding the outward reach of the forelegs, whereas the more slope you have to that line will allow for more ground covering strides, and neater jumping form.
Proportion-wise, she has a very good length of neck. Ideally, the underline of the neck should be about the length of the head (poll to nose). This allows the horse to get more power when moving forward in jumping, and just helps to keep the body balanced. Also, there needs to be enough substance in the neck. If you have a thin Arab neck on a big Warmblood or Draft Cross (like a lot of people are getting with the American Warmbloods), and a huge head at the end of it, you're not going to have a very good mover, they'll have a hard time getting on the bit, and won't have as much front-end power. On the other end of the spectrum, if you've got a bullnecked horse, they won't be able to tuck their head at all without having breathing issues (due to the fat at the throatlatch), and they also won't be able to flex to either side.
Both her back and front legs are quite straight, as you can tell from the plumb line going from the point of the buttock, through the hock and cannon, and down to the heel of the hoof in the back legs, and the line all the way down the back of the legs in the front. She could use more muscling in her gaskin and hind quarters, but the basic skeletal outline is there.
The pasterns are a good length and 45 degree slope, which will help to add the strength and stability she needs for jumping. She has incredibly wide pasterns too, to help spread out the shock. If you look at many Thoroughbreds bred for racing today, you can see that they have overly thin, long bones due to race breeding. With time and hard work, these bones will break down considerably faster than, say, a Quarter Horse's, due to the width and density.
Overall, with more muscling, she has very nice conformation. As she's gotten older her back has lifted, she's gotten more proportionate, and gotten a more feminine look. All horses have deviations, some in higher degrees than others, but loads of horses that have a bit of a cowhock, sprung knees, etc, do just fine in lower-level eventing. Conformation isn't everything, and the horse's personality has an enormous part in it, but in looking for a good competition horse, the way the horse is put together can be the difference between last place and first.
For more reference, some excellent conformation websites are:
http://www.jwequine.com/pdf/Conformation-Eventer.pdf
http://www.jwequine.com/pdf/conformation101-dressage.pdf
http://eventing-draft.blogspot.com/2008/06/drafts-as-sport-horses.html
And more that I can't think of right now...
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