Something new is coming to TheArabianMagazine.Com – Cindy Reich’s initiative, The Conformation Club.
“This is a place for those who want to learn how to look critically at a horse and evaluate its conformation,” explains Cindy. “The Conformation Club is for owners, breeders, trainers – anyone who wants to understand what is behind the profile of the horse.”
The Conformation Club is available at three levels – beginners, intermediate, and advanced. Each level consists of a series of six to eight one-hour online lectures, taken at your own pace, with a final live interactive session where participants can ask questions and take a review to see how well they have learned the material.
The Conformation Club Levels
Beginners: You will learn how to organise your thoughts and develop a system. How to become consistent and repeatable when you look at a horse. What did the Arabian horse evolve to do? Balance – the key to everything. Anatomy – understand the individual parts and how they work to understand the horse. Understand the basics of feet and legs.
Intermediate: Building on the basics. Why does balance matter? Different body types and how they affect balance and movement. Different types of hindquarters and how they work. Understanding the shoulder and how it affects movement. What is Arabian type – and how is it determined and defined? Building on looking at feet and legs and recognising faults.
Advanced: Understand leg faults, both major and minor. Learn more about form to function. Understand the “why”of leg faults. Biomechanics – what is the most balanced construction, and why. How fads influence form to function. Putting everything together.
You can sign up now for The Conformation Club Beginners course here. The price is £495 per course, with six to eight modules in each course, or £1,300 for all three courses. Please note that the course will be released towards the end of April/beginning of May.
Cindy Reich is a globally recognised judge of Arabian horses, and she has been running these lectures in person. Now, in collaboration with TheArabianMagazine.Com, Cindy is sharing her knowledge with the world.
“I grew up on a family Arabian breeding farm,” explains Cindy. “I trained to be a judge from the age of nine, when I started judging livestock through the excellent youth program 4-H. This involved weekly judging practice and included having to go in and speak for two minutes on your placings – often to the owners of the animals you judged!
“This taught me many things. Honesty, organisation of thinking process in terms of evaluation, and clear communication. I judged in this programme for ten years, learning critical evaluation of the function of the animal. Livestock are bred for a specific purpose and are more performance based as opposed to emotional decisions. The breeding of horses is much more emotionally driven. As long as the emotions are resulting in beautiful, but also functional animals, it is great to be emotional. However, when emotions end up producing non-functional animals, that is doing a disservice to the breed. We should strive for animals that are true to their breed characteristics, while still retaining the purpose for which they evolved.”
Cindy attended Colorado State University and was on both the Livestock and the Horse Judging Teams. Regarding Arabian horses, the Arabian Horse Association (AHA) started a Youth Judging Programme in the 80s that continues to this day and is extremely important. Cindy judged as a Senior competitor, twice winning National Champion Senior Youth Judge. She also coached several Arabian Youth Judging teams, winning multiple National Champion and Reserve National Championships with these amazing youth judges.
“I applied for my USEF judging card at the earliest age allowable and have been a licensed ‘R’ judge and AHA N/R judge to date. After conducting many conformation evaluation clinics over the years, both at home and in various other countries, I wanted to find a way to reach more people. Hence, The Conformation Club!”
