Uphill - Downhill Conformation

General horse conformation (article under construction)

A good eye can quickly assess a horse’s suitability to varied disciplines by its appearance, & quickly provide an indication of a horses way of going, by assessing its conformation characteristics such as bone structure, levering and muscle shape.

Horses are used for all types of purposes such as flat racing, jumping, stock work, hunting and fine dressage. For this reason the required conformation for such a wide array of disciplines varies greatly. As an example, let’s look at the racehorse that simply has to gallop at speed over distance regardless of style, and compare that to the slow, but refined and collected movement of the dressage horse. We also have a large number of breeds that vary greatly, including the big heavy draft horses, hot tempted, but fine Arabian horses, through to the smaller, stockier and mannered Quarter horse. Certainly many traits will cross between the breeds and types of horses. However, when assessing a horse’s conformation, there are obvious and subtle, but important variations, which can be assessed, together with its breeding, as an indication of the horse’s best suited discipline.

Generally conformation-wise horses fall under two categories. Up and downhill types. The usual method of assessing a horses type is not clear. The majority will rate a horse as being either down or uphill by the comparative height of its wither and croup. A horse with a higher wither is often said to be uphill, a horse with a higher croup downhill. Slightly advanced on this, a imaginary line can also be drawn between a horses hip point and the mid of its neck set, and the slope of this line is used to determine the outcome.

Most show type horses ideally require an uphill build, while many speedy racing types will have a downhill build. However when someone is looking for a horse regardless of which type, they are generally also looking for related traits that go along with the type, whether they realize it or not. A quality type of horse by conformation will possess traits throughout that consistently match its own particular type.

.We have thrown away the old text books, and used computer software to analyze the two types in detail, and from scratch, to determine the obvious, and subtle conformation variations that go with each. This has been accomplished by measuring key vertical and horizontal lines, bones lengths and angles. Traits that go with each type have been assessed, and the information collated, to successfully identify horses that are best suited to disciplines that require specific up or downhill traits. Against the old text book standard, when all the related traits are considered, we have found an uphill horse, can in fact have a higher croup than wither, just like the downhill can have a higher wither, than croup, although this is rare

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