How to body score your horse
Familiarise yourself with the body scoring chart and diagrams that follow, then with bare hands try to honestly and objectively score your horse.
It is easiest to split the horse into three areas:
- The neck and shoulders.
- The middle.
- The quarters.
Many horses carry their fat unevenly on their bodies, so you will often have to average the scores of the different areas. For example, you may see a horse that looks ‘ribby’ but is actually overweight because it carries a lot of fat on its neck and quarters.
What to look and feel for:
- Fat forming a crest and thickening the neck; you should be able to see muscles and feel where the bones are.
- Fat covering the withers and backbone (the spinous processes of the spine). There should be barely any - you should be able to feel the bones underneath a supple covering of skin. Fat will build up either side of the spine until it is higher than the spine itself creating a 'gutter'.
- Fat behind the shoulder and where the shoulder blends into the neck. There should be clear defi nition around the shoulder blade; fat will fill in the hollow in front of the shoulder and build up a pad behind the shoulder.
- Fat over the ribs - there should be a little fat between the ribs but not over them. This way you can feel but not see them.
- The definition of the bony points of the pelvis (croup and point of hip) - a healthy layer of fat under the skin will not cover up the bones; you should be able to see where they are and certainly feel them.
- From behind - the quarters should slope down away from the croup. An 'M' shape with a gutter along the backbone will be due to a large layer of fat. Fat builds up on the inner thighs too – lift up the tail to look.
Fat will feel spongy under your fingers and muscle more firm. Try on yourself or a friend. Dangerous crest fat will harden when it has been there for a while and often rocks from side to side when the horse walks.