Conformation Critique Time!

First, a (horrible, spur of the moment, dusk) photo of Anatolian just a couple weeks after I got him. This is a compare & contrast thing I've wanted to show you guys for a while now. When I first went to look at him, he had a slight bump over his loin area. I believe this is probably the sacroiliac joint. Anyway, the trainer that was examining him for me agreed with me that it looked like a very slight hereditary roach back. It was very slight, not in the saddle area, and there was no pain/discomfort, which would suggest it to be a trauma issue rather than an inherited anomaly. At the price he was, I decided to chance future unsoundness issues related to that or to his racing history.

The really odd thing was that after several weeks here, I noticed the "bump" was disappearing. I don't think it is completely due to his being wormed and thus rounding out a bit more on top, and it is not totally accounted for by general roundness. He has a normal back now! Being me, I'm not sure whether to be happy or not. If it was an injury type thing, it could recur. If it doesn't recur, though, then it is very cool that it went away, and I'll just chalk it up to not having had his feet trimmed in a YEAR before I got him. Anyway, if you have any knowledge or similar experiences, please let me know!

And now, for a photo with lines drawn on it. Hopefully it is done correctly - this is my first time doing this kind of diagram myself!

The blue lines on his neck: The top one is not quite twice as long as the bottom one, which would be ideal. His neck is not perfectly positioned in this shot so it looks short, but the ratio is about right. He has a decent neck, but not great.

The middle black line on the shoulder is not quite at 45 degrees, meaning his shoulder is a bit more upright than is desired in a riding horse. That can affect athleticism and comfort in riding somewhat. However, I don't think it's bad. On his front legs, his legs look behind at the knee to me. Experienced horse people: Am I right? To me, that is his worst fault. I didn't buy him for jumping, though, so I'll just keep an eye on his front legs to prevent soundness problems!

He has a nice deep heartgirth, and his back is a good length. His hindquarters have plenty of muscling and are angled about right. He does tend to park out behind the vertical a tad, but I don't think he will have too much trouble doing medium collection.

The green line, and light blue line going from knees to hocks, show that he is slightly downhill, also making it harder for him to achieve high levels of collection.

Overall, I still think he is a lot better than a lot of OTTBs I have seen, and has potential to be a very useful mount.

I welcome your comments on what you see in his conformation! I mean, try not to rip him to shreds, (tee hee) but do give me your thoughts. If you look at his sire, Rahy, there are a lot of similarities...

L