Crested Neck in Horses

This photo is from Wikipedia and is an excellent example of a horse with a crested neck. This is not an extreme case of a crested neck but you can definitely see the extra muscle and development of the neck from the withers to just before the poll.

The crested neck is common in stallions, [...]

Buying a Horse: Looking at Conformation

Conformation is perhaps the most important aspect to consider when you’re purchasing a horse. If a horse has bad conformation, he is usually going to have some sort of lameness issues or other physical conditions later on down the road that will inhibit its performance. However, there are those poorly conformed horses that do make [...]

Preparing Your Mare For Breeding

Breeding is a complex subject and there is a lot to talk about on the subject in general.  Because of this, there are going to be several posts on breeding in the next few months.  This is the breeding time of the year for many mares in the US and some mares have already been bred [...]

Conformation Faults

When you purchase a new horse, you want to be sure that the horse has the conformation that is appropriate for its breed.  Each breed has special conformation characteritics that they are know for and should conform to.  A horse that has good conformation prevents you from having to deal with lamenesses and other structural [...]

Horses 101: The Complete Guide to Buying & Caring for Your Horse

The price of Horses 101: The Complete Guide to Buying & Caring For Your Horse has been lowered on Lulu.com for a limited time!  You can now purchase it for $28.78!  That’s almost $10 cheaper than if you purchase it through my website!  This means that you get a full-color, 120 page paperback book for [...]

Conformation Faults: The Knife Neck

Okay, since I’m on this neck comformation kick and Wikipedia has great photos of these, you have to look at this horse.  Now, he just has a skinny neck. If this horse wasn’t looking at the camera you could really see the neck gets very thin at the throatlatch.  I would think that these horses have balance [...]

Conformation Faults: The Ewe Neck

On the other hand of things we have the horse with a ewe neck.  You wouldn’t want to pass this trait on either.  These horses just look uncomfortable and I would also think that they are probably hard to control as they probably don’t take the bit very well.  These horses have thin and upwardly [...]

Conformation Faults: The Bull Neck

After 5 years in college, majoring in Equine Business, you would have thought that somebody would have mentioned this odd conformation fault.  But nobody did and I ran across it doing some research for another book I was writing.  I also included it in Horses 101.  A horse with a bull neck has a very [...]