Breed Characteristics
The horses combine the refinement of the Arabian with the animation of the Saddlebred. The resulting horse has the high-set, upright, long, swan-like neck of the Saddlebred. The neck should not have a pronounced crest. The head is usually refined and small, with small ears and either a straight or concave profile. The horses are close-coupled with a level topline and have a very deep, laid back shoulder. The tail carriage is high. Typically, the NSH is 14.3-16.2 hands tall, with some individuals over or under.
The NSH may be a variety of colors, including the traditional bay, gray, chestnut, and black of the Arabian, with Saddlebred ancestry adding a broader range of color than seen in the Arabian breed, including, most notably, pinto and palomino.
Read more about this topic: National Show Horse
Famous quotes containing the word breed:
“The note of the white-throated sparrow, a very inspiriting but almost wiry sound, was first heard in the morning, and with this all the woods rang. This was the prevailing bird in the northern part of Maine. The forest generally was alive with them at this season, and they were proportionally numerous and musical about Bangor. They evidently breed in that State.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)