Backing horses - weight of jockey

Wagtail

Wagtail

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I've always thought it was best to have as light a person as possible when backing youngsters. My filly is 14.3 at present and will be 4 in June. I am approaching 11 stone (on a diet now!) and as she's a WB x TB I feel I am too heavy to back her. Would I be best sending her away do you think? This is her:

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If you are a good and balanced rider and you and her have a good bond I would do it yourself. You can go as slow as you need to to enable her to be balanced with the extra weight, a LW saddle and plenty of back muscle building exercise before you hop on.
 
She's very lightly built. Personally, I wouldn't be putting more than around 9 stone on her max, as she does not look to be particularly built for weight carrying. (Not saying 11 stone is uber heavy or anything!!)
 
!st choice ,find a good lightweight rider and supervise the backing ,2nd choice ,send her away to someone you have thoroughly checked out. 3rd choice ,do it yourself ,but I think you are too heavy and do honestly know it.
 
I'm sure you will be OK to back her. From your posts you are experienced and I believe that a heavier balanced rider is better than a lighter unbalanced rider. During backing you won't be on the horse for a long time in any session.

I tend to back mine is a Wintec saddle as they are lighter.
 
Clodagh said:
If you are a good and balanced rider and you and her have a good bond I would do it yourself. You can go as slow as you need to to enable her to be balanced with the extra weight, a LW saddle and plenty of back muscle building exercise before you hop on.
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I was planning to do all the strengthening and ground work with her before backing. I am going to get her properly fitted with a lightweight saddle (perhaps a thorowgood T8?) this spring. I would love to do it myself. A very experienced person remarked to me that being slightly heavy was actually good for backing youngsters. I had always thought the opposite.
 
sorry nothing useful to add as never backed a horse. Just wanted to say she looks really sweet, lovely colour. What do you have planned for her?

Also you have six months so potential to lose weight.

I'm with you though, of the opinion that person backing should be as light as poss - I would say ten stone or under but that's not based on anything, just my opinion!!!
 
She's lovely. I'm not going to speculate if you will be too heavy to back her or not but I agree that generally the lighter the better for first backing until they have gained a bit of fitness. But, I also think that it is better to have a more experienced person even if they are not the lightest as they will have the skill and experience to help the horse understand quicker and ultimately have to spend less time working the horse to get to the same point.
Another suggestion is lots of ground work (will help the diet ;) ) to help build up her fitness(assuming she is of a quiet enough temperament) before the backing.
 
FlyingCircus said:
She's very lightly built. Personally, I wouldn't be putting more than around 9 stone on her max, as she does not look to be particularly built for weight carrying. (Not saying 11 stone is uber heavy or anything!!)
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Thanks. In my heart, I think 9 stone too. :(

Mike007 said:
!st choice ,find a good lightweight rider and supervise the backing ,2nd choice ,send her away to someone you have thoroughly checked out. 3rd choice ,do it yourself ,but I think you are too heavy and do honestly know it.
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Thanks. I could send her to the breeder who is not far away from me at all so I could be there most days she was worked.

eggs said:
I'm sure you will be OK to back her. From your posts you are experienced and I believe that a heavier balanced rider is better than a lighter unbalanced rider. During backing you won't be on the horse for a long time in any session.

I tend to back mine is a Wintec saddle as they are lighter.
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Thanks. I had always thought lighter was better and had resigned myself to sending her away until the person I referred to made the comment about using a heavier rider to back. Now I am completely torn.
 
FlyingCircus said:
She's very lightly built. Personally, I wouldn't be putting more than around 9 stone on her max, as she does not look to be particularly built for weight carrying. (Not saying 11 stone is uber heavy or anything!!)
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I agree with this - but maybe nine and a half stone.

Eleven stone isn't heavy, but I think it's too much for her.
 
If I were you, I'd continue to diet (as long as it's healthy for you to do so! you don't say how tall you are). Whilst dieting, you can start doing all the groundwork with her and strengthening her as appropriate. When she's ready to be backed/sat on, you can then make a judgement call based on how much you weigh at that time.

Not sure how tall you are/how much you're expecting to lose, so really when you've reached your goal weight (whatever that may be) would be a good time to reassess.
 
Evie91 said:
sorry nothing useful to add as never backed a horse. Just wanted to say she looks really sweet, lovely colour. What do you have planned for her?

Also you have six months so potential to lose weight.

I'm with you though, of the opinion that person backing should be as light as poss - I would say ten stone or under but that's not based on anything, just my opinion!!!
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I am very tall so still only a size ten. I reckon I could shift half a stone, but there's honestly not a lot of fat to go. The two sets of scales in my house say I am ten stone, but I stepped on some at my parents and I was almost 11 stone. My sister reckons they are pretty accurate.
 
Wagtail said:
I am very tall so still only a size ten. I reckon I could shift half a stone, but there's honestly not a lot of fat to go. The two sets of scales in my house say I am ten stone, but I stepped on some at my parents and I was almost 11 stone. My sister reckons they are pretty accurate.
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Ah the joys of scales reading different things!
May be worth getting your GP to weigh you if you go for any other reason/someone at a gym or similar. Then you could hopefully get a more accurate idea of how much you weigh as 10 stone and almost 11 stone is a fair bit of difference! And if you were 10 stone and you could lose half a stone then you may well find your pony will carry you fine.
 
milo'n'molly said:
She's lovely. I'm not going to speculate if you will be too heavy to back her or not but I agree that generally the lighter the better for first backing until they have gained a bit of fitness. But, I also think that it is better to have a more experienced person even if they are not the lightest as they will have the skill and experience to help the horse understand quicker and ultimately have to spend less time working the horse to get to the same point.
Another suggestion is lots of ground work (will help the diet ;) ) to help build up her fitness(assuming she is of a quiet enough temperament) before the backing.
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Thanks. I have broken in four youngster in the past and retrained many OTTTBs, but am obviously not the most experienced as haven't broken one in for quite a few years now.
 
FlyingCircus said:
Ah the joys of scales reading different things!
May be worth getting your GP to weigh you if you go for any other reason/someone at a gym or similar. Then you could hopefully get a more accurate idea of how much you weigh as 10 stone and almost 11 stone is a fair bit of difference! And if you were 10 stone and you could lose half a stone then you may well find your pony will carry you fine.
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I know. There I was blissfully thinking I was only ten stone... I think the scales at my parents are probably the most accurate though as they are pretty expensive.
 
Omg sorry not suggesting you should lose loads of weight!!! Just you mentioned you were on a diet so was trying to be positive suggesting that you have six months to potentially reach your goal!!
Really sorry - you don't need to justify your stats to me!!!!
 
Evie91 said:
Omg sorry not suggesting you should lose loads of weight!!! Just you mentioned you were on a diet so was trying to be positive suggesting that you have six months to potentially reach your goal!!
Really sorry - you don't need to justify your stats to me!!!!
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Not at all. Just so gutted that she may be too small for me.

There is one other option - wait until she's 5? What do people think? Do you think she might grow? She's actually quite broad through the chest even now. Dam is 15.3 and sire is 16.1. I know she's not going to be as big as either of them.
 
Wagtail said:
Not at all. Just so gutted that she may be too small for me.

There is one other option - wait until she's 5? What do people think? Do you think she might grow? She's actually quite broad through the chest even now.
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What is her breeding? How tall are her parents/siblings?
If her parents are around 15hh ish, then I'd say it's probably unlikely that she'd grow loads much more.
I'd say the height of her isn't really a problem, it's more how dainty she is. She'll fill out for sure as she matures, but if her parents are both dainty too, she'll likely not bulk up massively.

But that's me not knowing her breeding at all. She's gorgeous and I hope she does become what you want!
 
FlyingCircus said:
What is her breeding? How tall are her parents/siblings?
If her parents are around 15hh ish, then I'd say it's probably unlikely that she'd grow loads much more.
I'd say the height of her isn't really a problem, it's more how dainty she is. She'll fill out for sure as she matures, but if her parents are both dainty too, she'll likely not bulk up massively.

But that's me not knowing her breeding at all. She's gorgeous and I hope she does become what you want!
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Sire is 16.1hh German WB. Dam is a very chunky 15.3hh TB.
 
Find a light weight rider. Dont leave it. You are by no means heavy but the thing that separates the real horsemen(women) from the rest ,is the realisation that we cannot do everything ourselves. Sometimes we have to stand back and supervise the training. All the best racehorse trainers I have known did their training from the ground.
 
Wagtail said:
Sire is 16.1hh German WB. Dam is a very chunky 15.3hh TB.
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In that case, I'd be tempted to wait to see if she's going to bulk up and grow some more as it does sound from her breeding that the potential is there for her to (not like you're wanting a 13hh x 14hh to make a 16hh or anything haha!).

If she were mine, I'd diet, do groundwork and then reassess right before you get to the ridden stage. You can then do the majority by yourself, but also take stock in how your diet is progressing as well as if she has grown any more.

I wouldn't be worryingly unduly now if you're planning on sitting on her in 6 months, a lot can change in 6 months :)
 
Mike007 said:
Find a light weight rider. Dont leave it. You are by no means heavy but the thing that separates the real horsemen(women) from the rest ,is the realisation that we cannot do everything ourselves. Sometimes we have to stand back and supervise the training. All the best racehorse trainers I have known did their training from the ground.
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Yes. I knew she was small when I bought her. I took a gamble because both parents were my ideal size of horse. I will have a look see if I can find someone. I think that would be an ideal option. Thank you.
 
FlyingCircus said:
In that case, I'd be tempted to wait to see if she's going to bulk up and grow some more as it does sound from her breeding that the potential is there for her to (not like you're wanting a 13hh x 14hh to make a 16hh or anything haha!).

If she were mine, I'd diet, do groundwork and then reassess right before you get to the ridden stage. You can then do the majority by yourself, but also take stock in how your diet is progressing as well as if she has grown any more.

I wouldn't be worryingly unduly now if you're planning on sitting on her in 6 months, a lot can change in 6 months :)
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Yes, I may be getting ahead of myself. :D Just panicking a bit because I really don't want to have to part with her.
 
If you are tall you will not be sitting like a 11 stone dumpling in the saddle, you must have a lot of leg! I would get yourself properly weighed at the doctors and go from there, if you think half a stone might make all the difference.
 
But who is going to be her rider when shes backed? Theres not much point, surely, in sending her to a lighter person if when shes backed in a couple of weeks you are going to ride her yourself.
 
I dropped 2 stone for my boy, 12.5st to 10.5st. Tall enough anyway so he didn't need extra weight in tow with height. I've dropped another 3/4 of a st since also, though not specifically for him, the 10.5st was the aim for him.
 
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