Evaluate and place these junior Paint geldings. Then see how your choices compare to our expert judge’s.
HERE WE have a class of geldings. My expectations of sex characteristics may be slightly more demanding from mares or stallions, but I still judge these horses based on balance, structural correctness, breed and sex characteristics, and muscling. Balance is considered the most important of those, but I want a horse that best combines the most positive characteristics from all categories.
I try not to get carried away with the pieces, but rather to look at the big picture. I’m looking for that horse that gives me the best first impression—one that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up in a positive way. When I’m walking around the horses in a class, I make mental positive checks or negative checks in different categories. If my first sense is that a horse has a positive profile, then I ask myself why. That horse often has positive checks in most of the categories I’m looking for. If the next horse strikes me as having a negative profile, I ask myself why, and analyze the components. The reasons are in those components.
1 st
Gelding C
This story is from the December 2017 edition of Horse and Rider.
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This story is from the December 2017 edition of Horse and Rider.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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