Riverdance, on the flip side, it does not take decades of national championships to know what good conformation is. While I respect longevity and experience, it doesn't necessarily dictate one's knowledge. I know people in their early twenties, and even late teens that I would go to for advice way before others who have been in the business for years and years.
While I agree that a horse can not be picked apart completely with a winter coat, you can still tell something decent from something poor. I have seen plenty of hairy minis and then seen them again clipped, and while there are always some pleasant surprises or minor disappointments I have never been shocked by what I've seen. In other words, I expected something good or something poor, by what I saw in it's fuzzy counterpart.
As I wrote before, longevity does not nessesarly mean that one can see conformation in a horse. Experience and a willingess to learn and ask questions is what counts. There are many wealthy farms out there today who have many World Champions, but they themselves can not breed one because they can not tell conformation and just breed one World Champion to another and think that they will produce a World Champion. Not realizing that they are breeding together some of the same faults. They breed for pedigree or color rather than conformation.
I also stated that a dog judge has to put their hands on a hairy dog to see the finer more subtle aspects of conformation, because they can not see through all the hair. Anyone with some grasp of conformation can see basics through a hairy animal, but they can not see the"minor" aspects that make up a good horse. When buying a breeding horse it is the"minor" faults that I want to know about. All horses have flaws, and when looking for a mare for my stallion, for instance, I do not want them to have the same flaws my stallion has.
Whether a horse is well balance or has straight legs, or is up headed are all somewhat readily apparent in a hairy horse. But, the lenght of neck, whether the neck comes out of the chest or the shoulder, is the throat latch clean and thin or is it thick, is the neck heavy or slim, where is the true shoulder layback (which can be hard to tell in hairy pictures depending on the color or markings of a horse, hard enough on clipped pictures with some of the markings), does the horse have a pretty, pleasing head with a good jowl (not too much, not too little) and a bit of a dish between the eyes. Were is the tail set? With 4 inches of hair on a horses back, the tail set tends to look like it is halfway down a horses butt, is it really that way or is it just the hair? You get the picture, without being able to see through all the hair, I would want to put my hands on the horse to feel their conformation. or, get clipped pictures of a horse.
Now saying this, I will again say that the average Mini owner can not see the basic conformation on a clipped horse, let alone try to guess what a hairy horse would look like clipped.
Too often I see people ask conformation questions on Lilbeginnings on a really poor quality horse that should not be bred, only to have people say it is cute, or nice, or talk about only some of its more blantant flaws, or point out the few good points rahter than be honest, just so that peoples feelings are not hurt; or perhaps they do not know. They are alwys quick to say what a pretty color pattern they have or color. ONE SHOULD NOT BUY FOR COLOR OR BREED FOR COLOR. You will loose the conformation. Where is one to learn if no one is willing to teach or if they really do not know the answers, to help.
I really think that someone on Lilbeginnings, who knows what they are doing, should start a thread for the winter, to point out conformation flaws in horses so that the public could really learn. Unfortunatly, peoples feelings will be hurt when the horse that they think is so great is torn appart, but they will learn. It should be a learning section just like the dwarf section, where just perhaps three people respond to all of the questions, and most of all, the people who are doing it should be totally honest. Both on the good aspects as well as the bad. NO HAIRY PICTURES. Any judges interested in doing this?
Perhaps if people breeding these horses were more educated, we would have less pet quality horses flooding the market.
Again, I could not agree more. However, I consider myself a conformation junkie and a constant student of the conformation of the horse.
Annabellarose,
That is just it, you and I and a few others are always asking questions and are always trying to learn and improve our breeding stock. The eye gets better and better over the years as long as one is willing to learn. Trying to learn on a hairy horse , or try and improve ones herd by buying hairy horses is not the way to go for the average Mini breeder.
