"For you, and the discipline that you are involved with, what would be a conformational "fault" (not directly related to soundness or useability), that would make you choose to not breed or improve upon it, on an otherwise breeding quality horse? "
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If it's not to do with basic directly relating to soundness. A straight shoulder is one, and a neck that comes out to high. The shoulder goes without saying if it's straight, you might as well hang it up no matter what you do with a horse. The neck coming out to high, will interfere with performance and it does seem to be one of those things that is not improved upon with alot of consistancy. If the neck comes out to high, he's high headed. It's hard to ask him to travel with his head in a more performance conducive mannor. When the head is in the rafters, his back is hollowed out. Thus it's really hard for that horse to gather, travel in frame and be collected. When he cant be collected, his hocks have a hard time coming up underneith him. Without the ability to get his hocks underneith him, he has no forward reach from behind. Without that forward reach from behind and being able to really get his hocks underneith him, he cant really stop, spin, drive forward or anything. It's like riding a train. Each part is disconnected and one follows the other instead of working in unison with 4 wheel drive. There is simply no strength behind to drive with.