A Case of the Fuglies

In eyeballing a few of these miscellaneous Mustangs in my area for moderately workable conformation, I have also come across a few of the most incredibly fugly beasts I have ever seen. In my last post about the little blue eyed mare I received a few comments about how Mustangs can either be completely awesome little sporthorse powerhouses, or total conformational nightmares, and I completely agree. I have seen some AWFUL looking fuglies out there! Certainly not their fault - they didn't ask to be born ugly, just one ugly bred to another ugly and it worked enough to survive! - but it certainly makes for a good case of the oh-you-poor-thing giggles early in the morning.

Evaluating conformation of the blue-eyed mare in comparison to Gogo and Padre, the Mustang who was Grand Champion in-hand in his 4 and older stallions class at Dressage at Devon last year:



It's a bit hard to tell without enlarging, but she's not TOO terribly put together. She is quite a lot longer than what I normally go for - look at how compact Gogo was! - but she does have a great shoulder and a pastern angle that matches, which is more than I can say for Gogo (killer shoulder but pasterns that were totally upright and never matched either her shoulder or her feet!) The mare's neck is a bit short and possibly a bit inverted, but mostly I think that is a lack of proper muscling (see how Gogo has the same problem, and Padre as well). Both Padre and the little mare have shorter legs than ideal and both are a bit on the long side. Hind end on the mare has decent leg angles but not a whole lot in the actual haunch area - might also be a muscling issue. She might beef up a bit with proper training and become a little less awkward. Overall, honestly, she's not that bad. Not great, but not that bad.

At least, not in comparison to these poor beasts..... enjoy your morning dose of Fugly!