Long forearms, short cannon bones: Sir at age 4
Anita Westfall has asked me to post this photo of Sir (Tripoli x Dharebah) at age 4, which was taken by Miss Ott at Craver Farms in 1962. Charles is in the photo. She wanted to use the photo to illustrate a comment in a comment she recently posted, which I quote below:
“My very favorite photo of the perfect foreleg is one taken of Sir as a youngster. Perhaps Jeanne has a copy handy?? Long forearms, broad flat knees, and short cannons with broad, flat bone.
Anyway, long legs on Arabians are usually the result of long cannons (combined with ‘normal’ forearms), while those sturdy horses with short legs often have short forearms.”
WOW.
Ah, now I get it! And very helpful to know that it’s a long cannon bone that creates the long legs. Thank you AW for thinking of that photo and thank you Jeanne for sending it.
Sir was so spectacular.
speed Horse
Short distances Only
Great photo — should be a shot for the text books on what proper legs should look like from the side.
Thanks for sharing.
Height also comes opening the angles of the joints. A more upright pastern and a more open angle at the point of shoulder adds height at the withers, although it does not make a “bigger” horse, just a “taller” one.
Pure Man, I would be very interested in what you feel indicates speed rather than distance. Our horses have done some endurance and some racing on the flat and over fences, but not enough for us to make generalizations. We did have an owner that endurance raced two stallions from us. She said one was faster on the flat, and the other was faster in the hills.
Thanks for the photo!
That was the photo that sent me on a search for a Davenport of my own.
And of course, right after I posted re legs, the lovely photo of Julep was posted. Another great example of loooong forearm and short cannon.
And re height, a prominent wither doesn’t hurt a bit either. 😀
AnitaW whose favorite riding horses are around 14 hands. ;>
Oh, my, I wouldn’t like “flat knees”. Well shaped broad shield like knees, as suggested by Bennett in her conformation materials, are potential “saving graces” for minor misalignments.
Terms such as flat bone and length of hip are bones of contention for me. The cannon bone is round, it has separate supporting structures, some of which are referred to as tendons ie not bone – there’s nothing “flat” about the cannon bone; a total misnomer. Ps… hip is a either a joint or a point – there’s no length about these. Length of buttock / hindquarter is basically what should be referred to. Uhmmmm, am I being too pedantic here?
I’d disagree with the thoughts that it’s a good overall shot. To judge a horse it should be stood square. A leg out the back dips the hip, relaxes the croup amongst other issues. The spacing on the front legs again isn’t ideal. The saving grace on this shot is that there’s nothing being asked of Sir except patience.
Looking at this photo, should it really be held up as an example? Sir’s hind offside is noticeably turning in. His nearside hind, due to the leg positioning, looks (and I stress looks) marginally sickle (cannon isn’t perpendicular to the ground). This would be the penalty / advantage for scissoring the hind legs (show ring stance) – disguising any potential non alignments. Which I might add, I don’t think this individual has!
Height, like anything else, if bred for with a targeted objective, may not involve opening up joints or just having long cannons. Some breeders can and do do it right; most don’t
Pure man: good reasoning, concur with your thoughts.
Diane, flat bone, though a misnomer, is (I’m sure you know) the traditional horseman’s term. My copy of Every Horse Owner’s Cyclopedia (1880) uses it. I do agree with you on another matter: although horses have a hip joint and a point of hip, they cannot be said to have a long or short hip — they have a long or short hindquarter.
I have never before heard anyone complain about the “hunter pose,” which Sir is demonstrating here. It was standard for photographing horses for decades, and in the 18th century for paintings. There are portraits of dozens and dozens of the famous Thoroughbreds standing in the “hunter pose”: Bend Or, Eclipse, Cobweb, Phantom, Pot8os, Whalebone, Comus, Vaguely Noble, Sea Bird, Northern Dancer, Nasrullah, Bahram, Hyperion, The Tetrarch — I hardly think it’s fair to single out Sir, even if you do like to see a horse standing square to judge it.
Horses can be said to have rafter hips, though.
Ah, yes, the challenge of photographs.
Remembering Sir, I think any hint at turning in in the back leg would be due to the “fleeting moment of attempted patience.” Getting him into a pose for this shot would not have been in the interests of his magnificently noble, and alive spirit. To see him in person and observe his body language and agility would swiftly diminish any attempt to analyze him decades later from a photograph. In my mind he was a great horse and one of the most completely agile Arabians I ever saw. Even as an aged horse he was so clean and sound and free in movement. And he lived to be a very old horse.
When I watch the Picture I feel there is something wrong May be in Shoulder Or neck Or face
May be I true
I don’t agree with pur man, I think that sire is better for long distance, shoulders are not long enough to do it a sprinter.
Sire has a very nice model to go fast, far with heavy rider. Sire looks like Marboob halab, Jean-Claude Rajot stallion just imported from Syria!…
Hello Joe, yes, I’d agree with you. I think it was an opportune photo. I was hoping my post wouldn’t be taken as being disparging about Sir – it’s not.
Thanks RJ, with all due respect, ‘horseman terms’ are letting all horses down especially now that we know so much more about horses in general A book that I have, Horse Conformation: Structure, Soundness and Performance Equine Research – Juliet Hedge DVM and Don Wagoner Editors, 2004 (US) states:
Part of the reason the cannon looks flat and wide from the side is due to the presence of the flexor tendons and suspensory ligament at the back. (emphasis is mine).
And for a similar reason, no one’s complained before… there’s always a first time! The photography pose (attempt to show all a horse’s legs; allow the illusion of 2D) was enhanced for the Arabian’s show pose and my thoughts are for the above reasons. Is it any wonder that the emphasis is now for head, neck and topline!
I think Sir is a gooood horse !
and we don t have to found Faults on him.
Because when you searches you find it .
Thank you
and sorry for my bad English
Hi Diane 🙂
I’m afraid that with the reaction against “politically” correct language in these times, that attempting to change the horsemen’s language is a lost cause.
re good ‘flat’ bone, I remember when some, after a visit with the Davenports would use the term ‘coarse’. I eventually figured out they were used to looking at “pipe” bone, or round bone (cannons), and weren’t use to the lovely broad, flat “bone” of most of the Davenports, so instead of seeing flexor tendons, suspensory ligaments, and the cannon bone itself, they “saw” solid bone. 😀
If you could get them to ‘see’ the well-defined “dry” tendons etc. that were standing _well_ away from the cannon bone itself, then the horses no longer looked so coarse to their eye’s. ;>
Here is a ref. to ’round bone’ (have also heard it referred to as ‘pipe’ bone, but can’t find a reference to such on google. Perhaps this was in translation from another language?) vs ‘flat bone’:
If the tendon and bone are too close together (a condition called “round” bone), there is too much friction between the moving parts, and the leg will not hold up as well. (from the Throughbred Times: http://tinyurl.com/o4wtzo)
and here is another interesting discussion of flat bone and “Quality” (from page 80 of Adams’ Lameness in Horses Ed.5 pub 2002) http://tinyurl.com/nrhg3d
“Quality is depicted by “flat” cannon (third metacarpal/metatarsal) bones, clean (unswollen( joints, sharply defined (refined) features, smooth muscling, overall blending of parts, and a fine, smooth hair coat. “Flat” bone is a misnomer because the cannon bone is round. “Flat” refers to well-defined tendons that stand out cleanly behind the cannon bone and give the impression, when viewed from the side, that the cannon bone is flat.”
Intriguing is that during a google search, I kept coming across refs to “stout round bone” in descriptions of the Bashkir Curly horse…
The Shire was also mentioned for ’round bone’ via google, and in trying to find a good ref., stumbled on this book, http://www.archive.org/stream/heavyhorsesbreed00bidd#page/20/mode/2up
(or in TinyUrl form: http://tinyurl.com/qttkut
(5th ed., published 1910, “Heavy Horses Breeds and Management” (number of authors given credit)
which, in Chapter one starts with a detailed history, then by p 20 is discussing the negative impact of breeding for ‘quality’ and ‘prettiness’ for the show ring on the ‘purebred’ Shire. 😀
AnitaW
“rohrknochen” (“pipe bone”) is a German term.
I think it’s easier to teach people what “flat bone” really means than it is to erase the term from the language. It’s been used too long in too many places for it to be abandoned.
thanks, Anita.
RJ – I’m more or less self taught in conformation from books and the few I have, then again the many that I can get to look at as well along with the few I’ve ridden. I had never heard of flat bone until someone mentioned it in 2005! I couldn’t believe they were referring to the cannon region but also using the term for the cannon bone itself. It is so misleading AND, the term was only being used because some big-wig in the US used it prior to this individual. uhmmm.
Joksimovic, yes, when looking anyone can find many issues with any horse, any photo. This is so true. But if done in an educational way, that no horse is perfect, then there is the potential that we all can learn so much