Find a horse for a 18stone + rider

meesha said:
right thats it I am calling RSPCA ..... not for having 2 peeps on one horse but for calling the poor chap trevor !!! he looks mortified (and gorgeous)
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Alas, he isn't mine. He was one of the horses at work. And now (weirdly) he lives at the RS I learnt at as a child. He is gorgeous. And huge :)

And yes, the plonker on the back is me :o
 
love him... does he even know you are up there ! and more importantly - is the ladder in the background what you used to get up there in the first place ?
 
jesstickle said:
That's what I always think. Even WFP must weigh a bit. He may be as wide as a rake but he's tall and carrying muscle so hardly likely to be a light weight.
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According to the all knowing google lol WFP is just over 12.5 stone, so i think he looks lighter than he really is. I know of one girl localish to myself who has a clydesdale and she must be at least 20 stone, horse doesnt look very happy to be honest and seriously lacks topline. So i completely agree that not all draft types are weight carriers.
 
No, I don't think he really knew I was there. He used to bog off with me occasionally when I rode him. I thought I had more pictures of him but there appear to not be on my facebook sadly. I do at home though. He was a lovely chap:)
 
would never put someone over 11 stone on this, they would be waaaay too heavy!! ;)
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Jellybean50 said:
How shocked am i to read some of these posts.. I am a big rider and standing at 6ft tall i would never weigh less than 16stone if i was a size 10 (which i am not). I do agree the horse pictured does look a little weak in the back, but we haven't seen a picture of you to comment on the suitability. My current horse is a 17.2hh WB x Shire, we have competed BE finishing 7th in our first outing, he has 15BD points in 7 outings and has qualified for the trail blazers final twice.. Do these results show a horse who is unhappy and unable to carry me, we are currently training elementary at home with a trainer. Just because you are big does not mean you are a heavy rider, some people i see who are lighter than me ride heavier. People should not be judged on how heavy they are. Sorry for the rant but when matching horse and rider there are numerous factors to take into account. The right horse is out there keep looking and dont get disheartened - GOOD LUCK!!
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JB50 Please would you post a picture of your horse? I would be most interested to see him as I have a WB x Shire foal. Thank you

Sorry to hijack, OP. In response to your post, I am qualified to say, having once weighed something approaching 18 stone :eek: that riding at that weight is no pleasure for the rider or the horse. I had not ridden for 5 years (too busy piling on the poundage) and OH, new to riding, wanted to buy a 16.3 ISH, he had ridden the horse, but I wanted to make sure it was suitable for him. The horse was in a hunting yard, we went on a 5 mile circular route, mostly at a spanking trot, she carried me without any apparent difficulty. When we got back to the yard, I couldn't get off, my legs were like jelly and I had to be assisted off. Very embarrassing! I could hardly walk for weeks :o We bought the horse and I am pleased to say that I am now 6 stone lighter than those days.;)
 
rhino said:
He's only about 12 stone! :eek: :D
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I know,I know! I just meant for all the people who (constantly on HHO) say 'no more than 11 stone ever on my horse'. As IF they wouldn't let WFP on their nag because he'd be too heavy. He's like a bean pole and still weighs 12 stone!

My point was really that most men weigh more than 11 stone. Even my OH and he's a perfectly normal chap. A bloke wouldn't have to be massively fat to weigh 16 stone I wouldn't have thought??

Basically, I'm letting one of my rants from other threads spill into this one which is about genuinely heavy riders. I just can't bear to see all the threads that say 10/11 stone is as much as a horse can carry!!

ETS: what a cracking horse. I want him even though I'd look like a pea on a drum!
 
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unicorndreams said:
20% of horse weight is usually considered a guide for what it can carry safely but it also depends on overall rider ability, musculature of horse, its bone and width of loins.
A 650kg horse 'could' carry 20st based on that rough guide. My friend's 15hh heavy cob weighs 600-650kg!
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That is overweight even for a HW cob! I would say that he is carrying at least 80kg excess.

The flaw with the 20% rule is that it is intended to apply to horses that are 'ideal' and healthy/fit weights. Many leisure horses are not. If you apply the 20% rule you are saying that the fatter a horse gets, the more weight it can carry, which is rubbish. A horse that is say 80 kg overweight is already carrying the weight of a substantial person. :(
 
Jellybean50 said:
How shocked am i to read some of these posts.. I am a big rider and standing at 6ft tall i would never weigh less than 16stone if i was a size 10 (which i am not).
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Rubbish! I am not one of these "people over 12st shouldn't ride types" but if you are 16st and 6ft you are clinically overweight. A person of 6ft can healthily weight significantly less than 16st. My husband is 6ft2" and weighs significantly less than 16st, but he could also stand to lose some weight. He rides our shared horse who isn't a "weight carrying type" but he wouldn't be riding her if he weighed 16st. WFP is about 6ft4" and weighs about 12 and a half stone.
 
The 20% weight study was an extremely limited investigation with a tiny, statistically insignificant cohort, and looking solely at immediate negative effects - heart and breathing rate and muscle soreness (though that was a purely subjective exercise).

I think the long term impact is the important thing, and AFAIK there are no studies at all which show that any certain percentage of a horse's weight is 'safe'.

It has to come down to individual opinion, but I really hate it when that 20% figure is bandied about with no understanding of how limited and subjective the research was :)
 
Kat said:
Rubbish! I am not one of these "people over 12st shouldn't ride types" but if you are 16st and 6ft you are clinically overweight. A person of 6ft can healthily weight significantly less than 16st. My husband is 6ft2" and weighs significantly less than 16st, but he could also stand to lose some weight. He rides our shared horse who isn't a "weight carrying type" but he wouldn't be riding her if he weighed 16st. WFP is about 6ft4" and weighs about 12 and a half stone.
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You would need to be over 7 foot to have a healthy BMI at 18 stone :D
 
I agree that there is a huge difference between a tall fit 18 stone man and a shorter 18 stone woman. Being overweight for your height causes all kinds of balance problems when riding.

I also agree with Littlelegs when she says that the 'riding light' thing is a load of rubbish. If you are eighteen stone, you feel like 18 stone. Nothing will make you feel lighter. However, you can feel a hell of a lot heavier by poor or unbalanced riding.

OP I commented on your cc thread. That last pic where your horse was going really well for you, you looked like you had lost a fair amount of weight and your whole position was better. When you were really overweight in some of the earlier pics, you looked more slumped and unbalanced in the saddle. Of course it may have been the angle of the final pic that made you look slimmer, I don't know. But I applaud you for doing something about it and acknowledging that your riding seems to have improved after you lost weight.
 
Thankyou wagtail, I am still losing and the horses are going better for it! I didn't want to open a can of worms on this thread but was meant to be to see what others thought etc. I do not think that riding light is a factor as you can say bla bla bla but you still way x amount...
 
If I weighed 15 stone And wfp weighed 15 stone we would still be 15 stone on a horses back. I do however think wfp would feel like a different 15 stone to me!
 
Beans2000 said:
Bmi is rubbish!!! For a 5'6 average female what would you say they should weigh?
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BMI is a very useful population tool, as it was designed to be. People seem not to understand what it is and why it is used.

What would 'I' say they should weigh? I couldn't care less.

BMI healthy weight at 5'6" would be anywhere between 8 1/2 stone and 11 stone ish I would think.
 
One of my liveries weighs 16 stone on a good day and she has a 15.1 MW cob for light hacking. She rides in a very balanced way and I would have no hesitation in letting her ride my horses. It's about how you ride, not how much you weigh IMO (and I'm 8 1/2 stone so unbiased!).

You may be interested to know that polo ponies are classed as "lightweight" and "heavyweight" in terms of what they can carry. My 15.2 Agentine TB mare is classed as heavyweight. That means she's shown (there are a few polo pony classes inc at Royal Windsor) as being able to carry 14 stone plus.

If you look at the majority of low and medium goal polo players (i.e. excluding the tiny argy guys) they'll be around the 14 stone mark, some a lot more!

As other people have said, WFP is a bean pole and he's 12 stone. Geoff Billington and some other show jumpers I can think of are pretty hefty, and their horses manage to jump huuuuge fences!
 
although i do not agree with putting 18 stone on a horse, can i just remind all of you that there are many men who weigh 18/19/20 stone who go out hunting. i have said many many times, if you go along in unison with your horse they will not feel hindered by all of your weight. yes, 18 stone or anything above 15/16 is pushing the boundaries, but i beleive if the horse has a correct build of of muscle across their back to cope with that weight, the rider rides very light and they dont go jumping courses or galloping, whats to say they cant go for a plod along a country lane?
 
My goal weight at 5'6 is 10 stone and I bet my boy will go like a dream when I get there :))))

I'm on the treadmill pretending I'm going round badders lol :')
 
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