Conformation
by John Tuckfield | February 25, 2011
From time to time people give me stuff they have torn from newspapers, sometimes
many years earlier. I keep them in the hope I can distil something for these pages. As I
seemed to have built up quite a collection on the subject of people's opinions on what
physical attributes go to make up a winning thoroughbred, I thought I should summarise
them and find what consensus there is.
The earliest article I have seems to have come from the mid 1970s as a 30 odd year old
Maria Bueno was beating a young Australian lass in a Wimbledon warm up. The most
recent was from a few months ago when Bart Cumming's was explaining why he bought
a particular horse for a Newspaper.
Bart seems to have three 'golden rules'; a big girth, a short cannon and a long length of
rein. The desirability of a good length of reign is the only attribute that appears in all the
articles that I have on the subject. In short, the further the horse's head and neck extend,
the better balanced it is when its hind legs, the engine room, stretch
out to the rear.
Depth of girth also figures prominently. Again in short, the rationale is that there is plenty
of room for a large heart and a good set of lungs. The average heart weighs between 3
and 3.5 kgs. Phar Lap's was 6.2 kgs. Unfortunately Secretariat's heart was not
measured, but the pathologist who carried out the autopsy estimated it at 10 kgs! A
horse can take 180 millilitres of oxygen per kilogram of body weight. At full gallop a
horse exhales air from its lungs at every time its lead limb strikes the ground. When
running at maximum speed the respiratory rate can reach 150 breaths per minute or 2.5
breaths per second and each breath can exceed a volume of 12 litres of oxygen. So it
seems pretty obvious that there need to be plenty of room for heart and lungs.
The size of the cannon bone was not as well canvassed by the various experts. The
logic seems sound; The shorter the cannon, the closer the knee is to the ground and
therefore the longer the stride. Various other points include that the tendons behind the
bone should not be meaty and it should sit directly under the knee.
There is consensus that the forearm should be long in comparison to the cannon bone.
This also relates to the length of stride and the forearm - cannon ratio is said to be one
of the real keys to athleticism.
Other attributes are said to be a well muscled shoulder, angled at about 45 degrees - too
straight and it will result in a short choppy action.
The gaskin (thigh) should be long and strongly muscled as this is the source of speed
and drive. The back will be shorter for a sprinter than a stayer, but never too long; long
backed horses often lack loin strength and real action. Even though relatively shortbacked
the horse should still stand over ground, the length coming from the length of
reign and hip, not the back.
I have more problem with the head. I accept the logic that big round nostrils to take as
much air in as possible and a wide jaw to suck it into the lungs sound like advantages,
but what have the eyes got to do with it? They seem to need to be big and round and set
in a broad forehead, which shows intelligence. I have difficulty seeing the connection
between speed or staying power and intelligence (some of the fastest people I know are
as thick as a brick), but I suppose that the smarter horses might learn to settle better and
save valuable nervous energy before and during races. They might also be quicker on
the uptake as to just what is required of them.
No doubt everyone has their own ideas, but I leave it too the Cups King, who finally
suggested that "the hind quarters should wobble like Marilyn Monroe when she walked".
