OK HHO people .... define

I have a 13.3 tank. He's skewbald, lots of mane and tail but not a tonne of feather. He's a rescue, Welsh A/B (it's one of three chestnut mares) x 15hh heavyweight Vanner. This leaves me confused as what to show him as, he wouldn't win in a proper traditional cob class because he lacks lots of feather but he would look very silly hogged. I'd say he's almost a miniature cob though. He has short cannons, good bone and a very short back but he has a Welsh type head.
Lovely horses and ponies shown so far though! Very jealous.
 
annagain said:
I've never really thought of my boy as a cob. He's ID x something (maybe connie, maybe cob?) and 16.3 so I've always called him an ISH, but seeing some of your photos and descriptions I'd probably score him a good 5 on the scale. He's definitely got the hair, the bone and the backside and his bridle is an extra full with cob sized cheek pieces! Maybe I'll hog him, call him a maxi cob and sell him for a fortune :D

ETA - this is him. Thoughts? I know he's not great quality, just overall type?

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He is not a cob in any shape or form, he is a hunter type.
 
be positive said:
He is not a cob in any shape or form, he is a hunter type.
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That's what I've always called him, but he also fits what some people above were describing as a cob. I've never seen a coat like his - Incredibly dense and coarse to the point where if he gets wet in summer it can take about 4 hours (usually of shivering) to dry him off with a cooler on!
 
OP, lovely horse but not chunky enough for a cob IMHO.

I've also put some of these pics on the other cob thread, but I was told by showing peeps that my late lamented 15.1 HW bay would show. He was allegedly an unregistered Section D, but wasn't at all typey.



Here with his bessie mate, a LW ridden cob HOYs finalist.



I reckoned that this chap was a HW maxicob (15.3hh), but maybe he was what AA calls a vanner?




 
Can't do pictures but I describe mine as an Irish bog horse. He's 15.2hh, has full feather, a big head so in a full size bridle but could do with cob-sized cheekpieces, plenty of bone, has tons of coarse, brillo-pad style hair with a mane that splits to both sides and the thickest tail I have ever had to wash, and is piebald.

However, when fit, he is slim and athletic, is forward-going and loves to go slightly faster than I want him to. He jumps, although we don't as I still haven't sorted out the brakes to my satisfaction.

I suspect he is the result somewhere in his ancestry of breeding something like an Irish Draft with a vanner, although there is definitely more vanner than ID in there. However, he is probably a bit slim in the barrel when fit to be a true vanner and his cannon bones are reasonably long. His feet are pure vanner though and he can grow tremendous ergots and chestnuts :)
 
annagain said:
That's what I've always called him, but he also fits what some people above were describing as a cob. I've never seen a coat like his - Incredibly dense and coarse to the point where if he gets wet in summer it can take about 4 hours (usually of shivering) to dry him off with a cooler on!
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Sorry but I can't see a single thing that would lead you to say he fits anyone's description of a cob. He's more like TB than a cob.
 
annagain said:
That's what I've always called him, but he also fits what some people above were describing as a cob. I've never seen a coat like his - Incredibly dense and coarse to the point where if he gets wet in summer it can take about 4 hours (usually of shivering) to dry him off with a cooler on!
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My quality cobs have had normal reasonably fine coats although sometimes their manes or tails have been rather thick and coarse, their limbs are not excessively feathered, the cannons should be short with decent flat bone, a well set on neck and defined withers, they should have a round backside and look as if they could do a good days work in the hunting field.

I don't think the fact that your horse has a thick coarse coat has anything to do with him being a cob, he does not fit the description in any way, some of the others certainly do and a few are very smart types.
 
I Googled vanner not knowing what that was and up popped...pics of cobs :D I have no confusion about it. As far as I am concerned those are what I and everybody I know would call cobs. Maybe showings official definitions are different to layman terms? Like with show jumping it is in metres for the jumps and centimeters for the horses now but to anybody who does not jump competitively it is still feet and inches and hands high?
 
Sugar_and_Spice said:
I Googled vanner not knowing what that was and up popped...pics of cobs :D I have no confusion about it. As far as I am concerned those are what I and everybody I know would call cobs. Maybe showings official definitions are different to layman terms? Like with show jumping it is in metres for the jumps and centimeters for the horses now but to anybody who does not jump competitively it is still feet and inches and hands high?
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A cob is a type as is a Vanner. They are two very different types of horse.
 
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FfionWinnie said:
Sorry but I can't see a single thing that would lead you to say he fits anyone's description of a cob. He's more like TB than a cob.
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Probably not the best photo to show it, he's incredibly wide all over and his neck is much thicker and shorter than the impression that photo gives. A front/back shot would show how wide he is much better. The reason I said it was the description of the hair (freshly trimmed legs in the photo), the backside, the head (incredibly wide but quite short) and the bone - he has a good 10 1/2 inches. As I said, I've never considered him a cob, but wondered if others would given what they had said above....obviously not :D
 
Sam has been called a cob before. I don't regard him as a cob although I'm convinced he does have a touch of cob in his breeding (No breeding info on his passport and registered as an ISH)


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He does have a thick coat, grows a lot of hair on his legs and sports a rather luxuriant moustache if I don't shave it off. He also has a very thick mane and tail.
 
Shortarsed carthorse? Head like a bucket, body like a barrel and legs like tree trunks in Ugg boots. He is as wide as he is high and you can fit a wheelbarrow through his forelegs, not through the back though - he has ploughhorse hocks. :D

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Sorry, obviously no good at photobucket - but how does this stand in 'cob world' would you say? (15.3hh, 640 kg)
 
annagain said:
Probably not the best photo to show it, he's incredibly wide all over and his neck is much thicker and shorter than the impression that photo gives. A front/back shot would show how wide he is much better. The reason I said it was the description of the hair (freshly trimmed legs in the photo), the backside, the head (incredibly wide but quite short) and the bone - he has a good 10 1/2 inches. As I said, I've never considered him a cob, but wondered if others would given what they had said above....obviously not :D
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Where are you measuring his bone to get 10 1/2 inches?, from the photo he looks on the light side of hunter type, I would think barely 9 inches from the photo.,

Deltaflyer said:
Sam has been called a cob before. I don't regard him as a cob although I'm convinced he does have a touch of cob in his breeding (No breeding info on his passport and registered as an ISH)


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He does have a thick coat, grows a lot of hair on his legs and sports a rather luxuriant moustache if I don't shave it off. He also has a very thick mane and tail.
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Another that is certainly not a cob, again light of bone and far too long in the cannons to be a cob, type has nothing to do with their coat, it is their build and conformation that makes them a cob or not.
 
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FrankieCob said:
This is mine, he definitely has the cooks backside! But he also has a small, dainty head, well comparatively speaking

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A proper little cob with the required dash of quality, shame he is not bigger as he could be shown to a decent level if he was 15-15.1, I think I was one who said not to hog but it does suit him.
 
be positive said:
Where are you measuring his bone to get 10 1/2 inches?, from the photo he looks on the light side of hunter type, I would think barely 9 inches from the photo.,
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Usual spot, cannon bone just under knee. He's a lot chunkier than this photo makes him look but it's the only confo type one I have of him. XW saddle and shoulders that will only fit into a few makes of rug!
 
be positive said:
A proper little cob with the required dash of quality, shame he is not bigger as he could be shown to a decent level if he was 15-15.1, I think I was one who said not to hog but it does suit him.
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Thanks :) I think hes fab now hes grown up a bit and stopped being such a nuisance :lol:

This is him when I bought him at 2 and a bit, just goes to show they can change a lot!:

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be positive said:
Where are you measuring his bone to get 10 1/2 inches?, from the photo he looks on the light side of hunter type, I would think barely 9 inches from the photo.,



Another that is certainly not a cob, again light of bone and far too long in the cannons to be a cob, type has nothing to do with their coat, it is their build and conformation that makes them a cob or not.
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Exactly my thoughts yet people insist on referring to him as a cob probably because he isn't spindly LOL. He definitely has a cob bum though :)
 
The thing I always notice re the cob or not debate, is the size of the feet. Real cobs seem to have lovely big feet capable of carrying themselves and another horse on top. A horse may be coloured, have feather and smaller than a hunter, but needs to have the feet too! :p
 
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