[leilatigress]

Well written article posted on the Horse today.
http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=17033

For the clicky impared

"According to Newton, prospective owners should first carefully evaluate the mental and physical condition of the horse, including previous injuries, mental acuity, and strength and flexibility. Owners also should avoid horses with injuries and conformation faults that might predispose them to conditions that could impair their future as performance horses.

Newton listed several conformation faults to avoid when choosing a Thoroughbred for a sport horse career, including severely underrun heels, severe toeing in, dropped fetlocks, severely back at the knee, severe sickle hocks, and horses with long backs. He did, however, say that he can live with mild cases of bench knees, cow hocks, knock knees, and club feet."

[onthehill]

Nice article Leila - hope people over on the H/J and Eventing forums will read this.

[danceronice]

So...treat it like buying any other horse?

[Go Fish]

So...treat it like buying any other horse?

One thing not mentioned is many of them are built downhill. That's something I can't tolerate in a sportshorse. I also see a lot of them with wonky necks, set level, too low, etc. That doesn't help, either.

I really don't expect ex-racehorses to be built like a "sporthorse" as it's defined today. The jobs are entirely different.

A couple of months back I pulled out some photos of my Dad's racehorses from the 70s. They look nothing like the racehorses of today.

[danceronice]

I've never noticed their being especially downhill (except the butt-high babies.) Or more likely to have an odd neck--just skinny when set next to the overdeveloped warmbloods. They don't work with their chin on their chest so they don't build that huge muscle. (They don't get as huge even with saddle work, usually, either, but then the warmbloods are getting really ridiculous, especially the dressage lines. If I wanted a beef cow or a draft horse, I'd buy one of those.)