Do fat riders make your blood boil?

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There we go, as I said, 3 -4 stone overweight and probably squashing my 15.1 arab, but he seems to cope fine and loves to jump and gallop for hours on end
 
So long as the horse is not struggling/they are not hugely above the weight that horse can carry (lets face it, how many different opinions on how much a horse can carry are there?) .
I definitely think it woudl be unfair to ban them from competing, and how do you define who is overweight?
Let me guess, what size are you?
 
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Don't forget there may be a medical reason for a rider being fat eg An underactive thyroid glad.

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So? That doesn't change the fact that the horse has to carry you...no one is saying 'fat riders should eat less pies' just that they should ride suitable horses for their size.
 
Cant see the pic Minky!

It is interesting to see whose taken the post to heart and who hasnt, I wonder if its down to wether you feel you are overweight or not??
 
I think that larger riders should try and avoid big fat round cobs, although they do need to ride something that can carry them.
We have a lovely lady on the yard who is on the round side who ride a very round cob and she is very unbalanced as the picture is of one round object balanced on another round object which simply doesn't work.

I won't ride without a gilet on as a notice my tummy rolling over my waistband!
 
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Don't forget there may be a medical reason for a rider being fat eg An underactive thyroid glad.

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So? That doesn't change the fact that the horse has to carry you...no one is saying 'fat riders should eat less pies' just that they should ride suitable horses for their size.

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Um, actually I did say that 90% of overweight people are over weight because they eat too much, are greedy, and have no motivation to go on a diet - If you wanted to lose the weight, you could (hence why slimmers world etc are still going - they teach you to eat less and exercise more, you go, and loose weight)

Probably only 10% of overweight people are overweight due to medical reasons.
 
QR -

Woah there's a lot of people taking the thread personally.
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I swear people don't give up their weight and post photos so easily when there's a thread titled "what do you weigh?"
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wrote a big reply, but why? I ride horses I am comfortable with. nobody has ever said I am too big, aside from when growing out of ponies, and that's fair enough. I knew when I had to move on from ponies, I like to think I would know if I was too heavy for my horse.
Are all the people supporting this, what size/weight are you? 8-10 I'm thinking?
 
I don't see why anybody should have to justify why they are riding the horse that they do.
As for people on here saying that the people who are being offended by this topic must be concerned about being overweight or being too heavy for there horse, if you have never been overweight then you don't know how much it plays on your mind, and posts like this don't help the overweight person as it just makes then more paranoid about there weight. This is why there is so many eating disorders around as EVERYBODY is always under pressure about looking the right way, being pretty enough etc, does it really matter as long as a person is happy and healthy?
 
Slimming world is actually about food combining and you can eat as much of certain things (not just fruit and veg) as you want. As a fat person who has always struggled with her weight and has joined slimming world and chatted to loads of others like me I feel it's lack of excercise and what people eat rather than how much thats often the problem. Being overweight and having medical problems is in most cases a vicious circle, I have ME and arthritis and struggle to exercise even when I'm not over weight as it's too tiring and often very painful but at my current weight any exercise (other than riding/mucking out/houswework) is virtually impossible.
I don't find this thread offensive at all although I can see how some people might have as the original post wasn't very specific.
 
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Um

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Quite possibly the most antagonising start to a reply there is.
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There are two ways to put it -

a) you need to lose weight
b) you need to ride a suitable horse.

The difference between the two is the likelihood of getting a smack in the face.
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I started reading the thread but it was just getting silly.

I agree with you. I am over weight, probably by around 3 stone. I am hell bent on losing the weight for my horses.

Yes, he can carry me no problem at all but imagine how much easier it would be for him to carry me if I were a couple of stone lighter?

Not only that but imagine how effective my riding would become as a less fat rider. I know my fat gets in the way, I remember how it felt to ride as a slimmish person, it was a whole lot easier than it is now.

I do believe as horse owners/riders we should try and make an effort to be as fit and as light as possible. If we can't do that then we must have a horse that is more than capable of carrying us. We should at least try though.
 
I have been physically sickened by seeing huge riders on horses/ponies. Worse than the eventing examples posted here
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. I don't think it's wrong to say so. I get annoyed when people say tall people are worse for horses than heavy people. I am 5'10" (not overweight for my height) and used to hack out and school/jump my 14.1 Fell. She had no trouble carrying me at all. And I don't think it affected her balance to carry me as she was used to it. I don't see how a well balanced tall person is any worse than a well balanced overweight person. But apparently it's ok to discriminate against tall people?
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As long as the horse can comfortably carry the rider then I dont see aproblem, saying that Im always over cautious myself about what weight I let my horses carry.

Beau is a big strong chunky 17.3hh WB, and i have no doubt he coud carry just about anyone,however I woud ony let a heavy rider ride him if they were well balanced, I hate seeing people bounce around on horses backs.

Lance is a good mw 16.2hh WB and again im sure he can carry plenty of weight, its more how someone rides.

My OH is over 13stones and rides them both, I dont think they even know Im there, Im only 8stones LOL
 
This is why there is so many eating disorders around as EVERYBODY is always under pressure about looking the right way, being pretty enough etc, does it really matter as long as a person is happy and healthy?

i agree about the eating disorders, and as long as someone's happy i don't personally care if they're the size of a sofa, as long as they aren't going to sit on a horse that's not up to their weight.
so, yes, it does matter... for the horses' sakes.
 
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I don't see why anybody should have to justify why they are riding the horse that they do.
As for people on here saying that the people who are being offended by this topic must be concerned about being overweight or being too heavy for there horse, if you have never been overweight then you don't know how much it plays on your mind, and posts like this don't help the overweight person as it just makes then more paranoid about there weight.

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If this was aimed at me I was simply wondering!!
 
WelshRarebit - Soz wasn't aimed at you
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I do agree that a horse and rider should comfortably match, but i also know how easy it is to get really paranoid about weight, being overweight myself, i know my limits as to what type of horse i can ride. Just know how paranoid other overweight people would feel reading this post.
 
I am about 3 stone overweight and TBH do think twice about riding my welsh cob mainly because I feel top heavy if you know what I mean but feel ok on daughter 16.2 warmblood.
I don't have a problem with overweight people competeing as long as horse suits weight etc.
Oh and you can also be overweight when you don't eat enough!!Honest have even seem dr about it.Should be like Twiggy the amount of energy I use.Used to walk ar least 10 miles a night,4 night (stacking shelves someone measured it) hardly eat never lost an ounce!!
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This was also doing 2 horses and working on yard mucking out one day a week
 
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I am about 3 stone overweight and TBH do think twice about riding my welsh cob mainly because I feel top heavy if you know what I mean but feel ok on daughter 16.2 warmblood.
I don't have a problem with overweight people competeing as long as horse suits weight etc.
Oh and you can also be overweight when you don't eat enough!!Honest have even seem dr about it.Should be like Twiggy the amount of energy I use.Used to walk ar least 10 miles a night,4 night (stacking shelves someone measured it) hardly eat never lost an ounce!!
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This was also doing 2 horses and working on yard mucking out one day a week

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That is because your body goes into starvation mode and converts most of what you eat into fat (in the broadest sense of a description!). It's why staration diets do not work long term.
 
Maybe you should substitute the word 'black' or 'Jewish' for 'fat' to see just how offensive and inappropriate your OP is. No riders make my blood boil unless they are causing a horse distress in some way.
 
umm, "Sooty", steady on. i would never never say such a thing about "black" or "Jewish" people. how dare you intimate that it is the same thing. i am neither racist nor prejudiced.
being fat is a choice. sorry, but it is. i'm not saying it's easy to lose weight, but no-one ever went to bed 10 stone and woke up weighing 20 stone.
if someone is huge and happy, fine, as long as the only thing they want to sit on is a sofa.
if they're huge and riding a horse which isn't up to their weight, it's a welfare issue.
 
I must admit I do feel distressed when I see a horse/pony carrying a rider who is clearly too big or heavy for it.

What also upsets me is that so few people nowadays seem to know that a horse's weight-carrying ability is determined by the amount of bone it has, NOT by its height, breed, etc.

The rule-of-thumb I was always taught is that a horse/pony with 8" of bone can carry up to a maximum of 13 stone (that's including all tack, rider's heavy clothing, etc. so does NOT mean a 13-stone rider). 9" of bone can carry up to 15 stone (including tack etc.). Above 9.5" is a serious weight-carrier.

I was taught that other factors, such as the horse's age, condition, fitness, conformation, etc., and the rider's skill/ability can be taken into consideration, but only to reduce the amount of weight a horse should be asked to carry - i.e. even a well-made fit horse in peak condition with a brilliant rider should never be asked to carry more than the maximum for its bone.

A horse that is very young or very old, unfit, in poor condition, with conformation faults, etc. (or with an inexperienced rider) should not be asked to carry the maximum for its bone.

This is (or should be) a simple welfare issue - same as if we were discussing how many pounds of straw a pack-donkey should be asked to carry - but unfortunately it gets muddled up with all sorts of issues about body-image.

It would perhaps help if we used somewhat more 'morally neutral' terms, such as 'weight' and 'heavy', rather than 'fat', which is both innacurate (muscle weighs more than fat) and can hurt people's feelings.

(P.S. I am 5ft5 and weigh 6 stone - not glamorously slim but unattractively scrawny, and a lousy rider to boot! If I were a horse I'd much rather have SN on my back than me LOL! And I know that as an intelligent, caring rider, she wouldn't get on my back in the first place unless I had enough bone to carry her.)
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What's your problem Kerilli? I suppose you'd call me fat then as I'm 5'4" and 12½ stone. Yes I used to be 9-10 stone in my younger days but due to back injury and continuing back problem I find exercise difficult so yeah have put on weight. Whats it to you if people are or are not overweight. Its how they treat other people that counts. I've recently started to alter my lifestyle and do more exercise and plan to ride my 18hh boy through the winter.

What group is this forum going to pick on next?
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