Quote Originally Posted by bryjcom View Post
they are by far the most spoiled horses out there. There really is unlimited $$$$ for them so they better health care and treatment than my family does. One of them had surgery for bone spurs in his leg awhile back. How many people do you know that have bone spurs and just live with it???

Jim the caretaker spends some time in St. Louis and I believe that is were their breeding program is based as well. They are starting to home breed their horses now although they still get some from Ireland or Scotland. I can't remember.

The tallest one there was 6'6" at its back and he weighed 2300lbs. There muscle tone and definition was incredible and you can see their raw power. I just received a couple of their horse shoes today. They are friggin huge!!
6'6"? Damn, that's what, 19 hands or so? Damn! The one in the OP's pics looks to be almost as big... maybe 17-18 hands.

And yeah, often times prize horses live better than most of us do. My ex worked for a horse trainer/breeder who at the time had a fresh colt that they treated like royalty cause of his bloodline... the mare had brought in something like $140k, and the sire (the stud) was worth like twice that. You can imagine how well they were cared for.