Function Follows Form. Who Knew??

You know those Conformation Clinics they do in just about every equine publication?  The ones where you have to pick the horse whose confirmation best suits a particular job?  I suck at those.  Never fails.  I never pick the right horse.  Worse yet, I simply cannot see half the stuff the author tells me is wrong with the horse.  She'll say one horse has really long pasterns, and the horse that beat it has great pasterns, but the winner's pasterns will inevitably look 2" longer to me. 

I bring this up because confirmation faults have bitten me in the tuckus in both my equine life AND my personal life.  It comes as no surprise that Sug's upright pasterns predisposed her to osteoarthritis in her coffin joints.  She's a bit tied in behind the knee, which could have contributed to our current issues with suspensory branch  inflammation.  If we ever decided to breed her (she's very well bred and was a broodmare in her past life) we'd have to choose a stallion with excellent leg conformation in hopes of getting a foal with better legs.

What is surprising me at the moment is that recent events with my kids suggest I should have put more thought into my own stallion selection.  My stallion  husband has lousy stifles knees and hooves feett .  Oh, yeah, and a slight curvature of the spine. Both my kids are in physical therapy for knee issues that are directly related to poor knee structure.  Both also have faulty foot alignment that leads to uneven gaits that cause heel pain in the one and compounds the knee pain in the other.  Thankfully their backs are strong and straight.

I am currently in physical therapy as well (cue Sly and the Family Stone's, "It's a Family Affaaaaiiiiiiir...) but my problems stem from old injuries, not poor conformation.  As a broodmare, I bring crappy teeth and poor eyesight to the gene pool.

The stallion in question, for all his conformation issues, is in great shape, active as heck, and is the only one of the lot of us that is not in PT, mainlining supplements, or getting regular massages and/or chiropractic.  Unless you count the cats.

Go figure.