An advert for *Munifan
Below is a copy of an advert for *Munifan, from volume 5 of Here’s Who In Horses of the Pacific Coast, an annual publication compiled by Betty Jellinek. Published in 1949, volume 5 covered the horse shows of the previous year.
A blog on desert arabian horses, past, present and future
Below is a copy of an advert for *Munifan, from volume 5 of Here’s Who In Horses of the Pacific Coast, an annual publication compiled by Betty Jellinek. Published in 1949, volume 5 covered the horse shows of the previous year.
What a conformational improver Munifan must have been! His body balance is essentially level- he has a way strong cuopling being that it is short and strong. I bet he was a fabulous mover. His front hooves may be a bit high and low- which could have been addressed by his shoer. His toes need to be shortened and he needs to be trimmed so that his heels grow down. His finely detailed and chiseled facial features are pleasing too.
Bruce Peek
Bruce don’t you feel the coupling is loose?
No, in the sixties and seventies and to an extent today when posing for a conformation picture handlers try to get the horse to step back with their back foot that s closest to the camera. This is done to make the pelvis look flatter, and more ,”tabletop,’ as well as slightly longer. Munifan has his hind leg tilted toward the camera as well causing that dip in his lumbar spine. The dip makes his coupling look weak. If you look at the point of the hip you see that the top of his pelvis is actually quite close to his lumbars . Measuring the height of the wing of the pelvis which is canted downwards and running a line to his neck in this photo, again because of the tilt of his leg outwards it appears that the base of his neck is substantially higher than it actually is. This would cause his body balance to be super uphill; it is actually very close to being level from back to front. This would make it easier for him to arch his back and bascule and go into true collection which we would like him to do because in true collection the horse re-distributes his and the riders weight equally onto all 4 feet and legs, thus NOT overloading any one specific leg. A horse that cannot bascule and arch his back will overload one or two of his legs and go unsound. Of course there are many causes of horses going lame, not just body balance, but it is the moral duty of the owner/ rider to ride the horse in collection- but NOT in a forced head set, and most certainly not in a roll Kurl, or with the horses head behind the vertical. Riding a horse with a forced head set achieved with martingales, or draw reins, or a rider induced stiff outside rein will eventually telegraph stiffness all the way back to the Psoas muscles underlying the coupling and cause shivers, and stringhalt and destroy the stifles as well as cause other damage.
best
Bruce Peek