Over flextion of fetlock

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Friesianfoal1999

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Opinions. Friend of mine is buying a horse. Asked my question my opinion. I noticed he over flexes his back fetlocks very much.
Is this normal? Buy or not buy?
Any opinions appreciated
 
I would not want to write off a horse based on a couple of blurry and possibly distorted photos (stills from a video?) it is so easy to make a horse look 'wrong' with bad photos.

What is it like in real life?
Do you have a good conformation photo or the whole video?
How old is the horse?
Has it stayed sound while in work?
What does a vet think?
 
Meowy Catkin said:
I would not want to write off a horse based on a couple of blurry and possibly distorted photos (stills from a video?) it is so easy to make a horse look 'wrong' with bad photos.

What is it like in real life?
Do you have a good conformation photo or the whole video?
How old is the horse?
Has it stayed sound while in work?
What does a vet think?
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Completely get that, it is a still from a video, cropped as didnt want to show the yard. But this is every single step, i just showed it at trot and once at canter so you can see, but every step id say he has a 90 degree rotation, Looks very like flimsy.

Confirmation seems strong, I dont have a photo of it (have asked)
Horse is 6 years old
As far as the dealer says yes
Vet is going to have a look tomorrow
 
Meowy Catkin said:
Have you seen the horse in the flesh or just the video?
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Flesh, seemed to move well and jump well. Only noticed this one I rewatched the videos. picked up on it straight away.
But when I looked at its confirmation I did quite like it. just dont want to go into something thats going to cause issues etc
 
So it sounds like a poor quality video maybe?

In the second still the off hind looks blurred so it looks unnaturally long from fetlock to hoof. Does the horse have long pasterns?
 
If this horse is for sale, has the seller approved you publishing these photos?

It's a very distinctive horse, I dont think this is acceptable unless you have permission.

.
 
That's great, fast work :) If you crop the photo to just the bit that matters, it would be fine.

I think it looks really odd, but I'd want to see it in real life. Loose ligaments can produce a fantastic movement, but need care not to do too much until the horse is strong enough.

At 6, I'd only buy it if your friend is prepared to take things slowly until it's older.
 
ycbm said:
That's great, fast work :) If you crop the photo to just the bit that matters, it would be fine.

I think it looks really odd, but I'd want to see it in real life. Loose ligaments can produce a fantastic movement, but need care not to do too much until the horse is strong enough.

At 6, I'd only buy it if your friend is prepared to take things slowly until it's older.
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thank you for your advice, I think the same as you. Its a horse for life for her so will never be sold. so think she would be happy with that. She agrees it looks really odd as well. Weve been sat here comparing our current horses and every horse weve ridden videos to see if its normal and defo not compared.
thanks for not getting rude, I didnt think!
 
I have a similarly marked loose limbed horse of five. I'm about to check his video for you to see how his pasterns look in that position.

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I missed the picture, but out of curiosity what is the breed of the horse?

I am a bit more aprehensive nowadays with dropped fetlocks due to DSLD/ESPA. It seems to be more prevalent out of certain Warmblood breeding lines.
 
It did not look like DSLD.

The horse was a middleweight type (possibly a crossbreed) with a fancy coloured coat.

The poster was concerned about the legs that were shown in the air, not the ones on the ground. The legs in the air looked very long from fetlock to hoof. The horse had flexed its fetlocks, but they are a joint so that's meant to happen ;) and the amount they were flexed wouldn't worry me if the horse did it evenly with both hinds.

I personally feel that the pictures were of too bad a quality to make a real judgement. I do however suspect that long pasterns, plus blurred video was part (or maybe even all) of what was going on.

The Vet looking at the real horse will be a far more accurate judge. :)
 
Well, the thing with DSLD is that it may not be at its worst in a 6 year old horse, so it won't present so dramatically as when the horse is older, so it wouldn't look like the DSLD horse that most of us picture.

The fact that he sinks now, means that they will only get worse, or stay the same over time. They will not get "better" over time in a horse that is 6 years old.

Some horses are long in the pastern and it is a conformation fault that may or may not ever effect them negatively. The fact that they could be flexed evenly in both hind ends means basically nothing to me as a DSLD horse can drop equally in both hinds. I am not saying this is a DSLD horse, but just for conversation sake.

I've seen horses long in the pastern out there doing work and doing it well, so it isn't a death sentence by any means. It is a fault that I myself am not too keen on, but we all have our preferences and what we can live with.

If a horse was built like this (I didn't see the photos or video so just in general) and was sound, in work, doing the job I wanted it to do for awhile now with no issues, then maybe it would be ok. If a horse is young and just beginning work, we cannot predict exactly whether or not this horse will be impacted by this type of conformation.

But as always, buying or owning a horse is a bit of a crapshoot anyways :p

We had an older mare at the yard (a heavy crossbreed of sorts) with hind fetlocks that hit the ground when she walked and while she got around ok herself, she couldn't be worked or ridden, and had been this way for awhile. Probably did not look so dramatic when younger.

It all comes down to what we are willing to accept as individual horse owners. If you're uncomfortable with it, don't proceed. If you're open to the horse, get a vets opinion and see how you get along.
 
But the horse didn't have dropped fetlocks in the photos so it is rather a leap to even mention DSLD.

I really think that you have misunderstood what the photos were showing.

The horse was moving in both photos.
They were bad stills from a video.
The one shot of a hind limb weight bearing had a perfectly normal looking pastern angle for that moment of the gait shown.
 
Meowy Catkin said:
But the horse didn't have dropped fetlocks in the photos so it is rather a leap to even mention DSLD.

I really think that you have misunderstood what the photos were showing.

The horse was moving in both photos.
They were bad stills from a video.
The one shot of a hind limb weight bearing had a perfectly normal looking pastern angle for that moment of the gait shown.
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Fine. I didn't see the photos. So sorry for my inaccurate comments. Just ignore them.
 
I'm sure that you knowledge about the condition will be really helpful to an owner with a horse that has it. :)

I think that we need to remember that the OP doesn't own the horse that the post is about. Lots of people may have seen it and the horse is distinctive. So I had to say that it didn't have dropped fetlocks in the photo because your comment

The fact that he sinks now, means that they will only get worse, or stay the same over time. They will not get "better" over time in a horse that is 6 years old.
Click to expand...

implies that it did. I just wanted to make it clear that that was not what the photos showed so that the horse isn't 'diagnosed' via internet forum. It is looking for a new home after all and a proper vetting before sale would be the best for all concerned.

I really hope that I didn't upset you, that wasn't my intention at all.
 
Meowy Catkin said:
I'm sure that you knowledge about the condition will be really helpful to an owner with a horse that has it. :)

I think that we need to remember that the OP doesn't own the horse that the post is about. Lots of people may have seen it and the horse is distinctive. So I had to say that it didn't have dropped fetlocks in the photo because your comment



implies that it did. I just wanted to make it clear that that was not what the photos showed so that the horse isn't 'diagnosed' via internet forum. It is looking for a new home after all and a proper vetting before sale would be the best for all concerned.

I really hope that I didn't upset you, that wasn't my intention at all.
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Yes, I get your point.

As I stated I did not see the photos. It was all relatively hypothetical. If people don't infer that from my posts. I don't know what to tell you. a apologize for my lack of knowledge and misinformation.

I'll refrain from further posting here.
 
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