Today, to talk about how balance, structure and overall conformation effects performance in
horses. And so we are going to start off today talking about this horse right here and evaluate his
balance. Generally speaking when we evaluate a horse for balance we are basically looking to make
sure that all of their parts fit together. We look that a horse can equally divide into sections of 3.
In this particular horse what I would like to go through and do with you is talk about how you can
start off determining whether a horse is balanced and how you can break down each individual section of the horse
and evaluate that correctly.
Anytime we talk about evaluating balance, you are going to start off talking about the angulation
of a horses shoulder. The angulation of a horses shoulder determines many things in terms of
that horses performance ability. We like to start off and talk from the mid-point of that horses wither
to the point of his shoulder. We look at this line right here in relation to the point of the horses elbow
and we are looking for a degree of approximately 45 degrees.
We can certainly see some varying degrees there, generally thought to be 45* - 55*.
Obviously, the smaller that angle (40-45), the more laid back that shoulder is going to be
If we start off first and evaluate a horses shoulder, we can then go ahead and talk about
first of all their neck, and I like to evaluate horses from a ratio standpoint and early on when
you are evaluating horses you may actually stop and divide out each section of that horse.
So, if we go from that same mid-point of that horses wither and work form the poll, right directly
in between that horses ear to the mid-point and then we measure from the throatlatch to where
their neck ties into the point of their shoulder we would like to see that be a ratio of 2 : 1.
And so your top length here should be a length of 2, your bottom length should be a length of 1.
You can see with this horse that he is fairly close to that, short of pulling out a measuring stick we're going
to say that he has an adequate ratio in his neck area. As we move on back we're going to go on
and talk about the horses topline or his back and we're going to measure from that main mid-point
of his withers to the point of his loin, where his back ties into his croup.
We are going to measure that area, and then we are going to go from right behind the point of the
elbow to the flank. Those two areas should also measure as a ratio of 2:1.
The only difference here being is that we are going to flip-flop those.
You should see a length of 2 on the horses underline and a length of 1 on the horses topline.
With that being said, what I would like to do is stop and just quickly explain what would happen
if we started with a shoulder angle that deviated from that normal or desirable 45 degree angle.
When we do that, if we were to take this horse and change his shoulder angle, lets say first of all
the most common thing that we see is a horse that is a little more upright in their shoulder angle
or a horse that is going to approach say a 60 degree shoulder angle versus a 45 degree angle
That's going to be a horse that we would term to be somewhat straight in their shoulder angle.
When we do that, that is going to change several things about that horse.
First and foremost, it is going to make their neck shorter than our desirable 2:1 ratio.
We are probably going to see something that is a little more close to a 1.5 or in extreme cases a 1:1 ratio
in measuring the length of that horses neck. Because we would essentially be moving this point right here
and this point right here this direction and we have some examples of horses later that we will
talk to you about and show you how that affects that horses overall conformation.
From that point, if we straighten that shoulder angle to that degree the other thing that you are going to see
is a difference in the length of that horses topline. Obviously if we move the mid-point
of that horses wither forward we're going to lengthen that horses topline and your going to
see a loss of some strength over that horses back.
So, you can see that there are some effects from a horses shoulder angle in just simply how
you view their overall balance.
We're certainly going to address here a little bit later how that shoulder angle effects their ability to move.