An American Classic

**Shadow** · **Shadow** on Mon Nov 17, 2008 6:55 am

Here are some photo's of Quater Horses. . . I've owned an Appendix Quater Horse. He was a Hunter/Jumper horse and loved it. I'm sure later on I'll be sharing more stories about him.
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gallop · gallop on Mon Nov 17, 2008 3:58 pm

I've owned and known a whole lot of quarter horses over the years. For all around use, you can't beat a good quarter horse. They aren't as bonded with humans as Arabs, as I've realized since now owning my first Arab, but they are so capable of just about anything you ask of them that they are my old standby when anyone isn't sure of what they want to pursue....a quarter horse usually fits the bill. One thing that I'm very fussy about is conformation. From the tips of their ears to the heels of their hooves, they have to be as close to perfect as you can find. I know the whole attitude people have about this kind of fussiness, but the longer you are around horses, the more you realize the fact that conformation is everything when it comes to horses. I'm not saying you can't make a useful mount out of a conformationally challenged horse....I'm just not the one who is going to do that.

**Shadow** · **Shadow** on Tue Nov 25, 2008 8:25 am

I hear that about conformation. . . My Appendix was far from perfect and the bills that we had from the vet reached into the thousands just to keep him alive for 3 more years.

The prevous owners jumped him, over jumped him really. I wanted to jump, so we jumped for a year before he finally showed signs of how lame he really was (the vets told us he was a pretty strong horse to work thru and not show sings of how bad he really was). When I was jumping him in a lesson after about the middle jump in the coarse I pulled him up, he felt funny. Like he landed wrong. My trainer came running over with my mother, I guess they saw something that I couldn't from the ground. Lesson ended there and the next day we got him to Ohio State. It took them 3 hours to find out what was wrong. They'd block his one knee, lunge him, nothing, block his other knee, lunge him, nothing. 3 hours they kept this up, until they found out that the problem was in his hoof (i forget the correct term, I had cried myself to sleep in the trailer at that point). Well, there is no way to solve a hoof problem, instead they suggest that they could nerve his knees and he wouldnt feel the pain, that'd give him about 3 years. In that time we could again decided to bring him back and they'd renerve him. The nevers grow back according to them, so the pain sensation would come back as well. So we agree to the nevring and the scrapping out of aurtitis (yeah, he had that too). Afterwards he was as good as new. The price tag was about 5,000+ dollars.

So for me, Conformation is priceless.

~shadow~

An American Classic

An American Classic

quarter horses

Walter. . .