> >Do you think anything else should be done to have a greater impact on people > >breeding better legs? > > > Make it count more in the breeding assessments - but saying that, a > lot of the most popular stallions are the ones that do really well in > competition, and many of them do not have really good conformation.
Do any of the horses who have legs and movement (as in the video) get big fat ZERO for their leg scores? Should they? or shouldn't they? I mean, heck, the breeding guidelines are there for a reason; is anyone breeding legs according to the standard? > Handsome is as handsome does, I suppose. There was a talk at the WC > about this very subject - basically, how well do the marks gained in > the breeding assessment correlate with marks gained in competitions, > ie do good competition horses need good conformation? In the competitions, the horses aren't asked to do much other than go straight and fast, right? > My personal feeling is that a horse does not need straight legs/good > conformation to do well in competition IN THE SHORT TERM. That makes > sense to me - however, practically speaking, Icelandic competition > horses do seem to be competing at some ripe old ages, so perhaps good > sense and reality don't come that close together in this instance. Again, straight and fast, so they aren't doing much of anything that requires suppleness, agility, athleticism. Do we think that other people who see the horses don't see the crooked legs, the poor movement? Say we have a gaited horse show with several breeds.... how do you suppose the Icelandic looks compared to the other breeds, leg-wise? Judy
