Large lady riding a small horse?

Sanversera

Sanversera

Well-Known Member
Joined
22 November 2020
Messages
4,318
Visit site
There's a larger/heavy weight lady who has a large Face book following including lots who follow her winter challenges.. She rides a smallish middle weight coloured . looks to be well over weight for it. This morning she's posted a video of it and her show jumping. She does a lot of competitions, various types of things. Am wondering, if I was the competition organiser I'd ask her to get onethe scales and enforce the 20%rule. I think she needs a more suitable mount to comfortably take her weight. She does such a lot of things with her horse it's well trained but I feel sorry for it. Thoughts please 🥺
 
Sanversera said:
There's a larger/heavy weight lady who has a large Face book following including lots who follow her winter challenges.. She rides a smallish middle weight coloured . looks to be well over weight for it. This morning she's posted a video of it and her show jumping. She does a lot of competitions, various types of things. Am wondering, if I was the competition organiser I'd ask her to get onethe scales and enforce the 20%rule. I think she needs a more suitable mount to comfortably take her weight. She does such a lot of things with her horse it's well trained but I feel sorry for it. Thoughts please 🥺
Click to expand...
Sorry or even not sorry - it seems you don’t know this lady or her horse. Photographs and weight can be deceptive and so can the posts that appear on FB ….and on here. Is it really any of your business.
 
To discuss the responsibility of competition organisers in regards to horse welfare. Cruelty comes in many forms,too tight nosebands, overweight ponies, overweight riders,too much lunging and so on. Fortunately some organisers are addressing the issue. If I see a rider on a horse who is too heavy for it then that's a welfare issue.its not to do with the rider being fat,if someone needs a more suitable mount it's what's required for the sake of the horse.
 
Sanversera said:
A welfare issue is everyone's business, cruelty continues because no one speaks up.
Click to expand...
But posting on here about someone neither you, nor the majority of HHOers know isn't speaking up.
You need to either post on her FB page, or approach the organisers of a competition that she posted about and ask about their policy on weight limits.
 
There's few on FB. the names of the pages usually (but not always) are called 'The adventures of ......' they seem to encourage larger people to ride what are usually over weight cobs as they are 'weight carriers'

My preference is to not follow these pages. If they don't have the followers they won't be able to 'influence' the naive.

It does make me cross when I see obviously overweight people riding horses/ponies not suitable for their weight. I am constantly aware of my weight as my youngster hasn't made the height expected. I love the bones of him so have lost weight to be able to ride him rather than moving him on to another home, just because I like cake! I'm aware that I'm probably hyper-aware of heavy 'looking' riders as I'm constantly checking how I look on my lad (and not in a vane way).
 
I think it was discussed a while ago on a different thread (well obv not relating to this specific rider but the general issue) & I think it came up on there that it’s a really difficult issue for smaller shows to address in a sensitive manner as they’re unlikely to have a weighbridge available to confirm if rider is or is not over the weight limit so going to take a very confident judge / steward / organiser to challenge it.

I think some of the larger shows (Great Yorkshire springs to mind because I know / knew their welfare officer) are starting to be a lot more proactive about it but obviously they’re in the position of being able to have better infrastructure in place.

Would say if you know what venue the video was taken at you can certainly try to raise your concerns with them & ask if they currently have a policy relating to this.

You could also attempt to address this with the rider themself but that is really hard to do over SM in a way that’s not going to descend into a slanging match
 
Imo show organisers should absolutely be enforcing the rule. Far too many people make excuses and turn a blind eye (mostly those who are guilty themselves) to abuse like this and that is absolutely what it is in a lot of cases. Having said that, it's sometimes very difficult to accurately judge someone's weight on appearance alone so maybe the big competitions should routinely weigh all horses and riders before they enter the ring that way the expectations to do right by the horses filters down to the lower levels
 
The problem with posting on the FB page is that it's likely to do little more than encourage 'fans' to react in defence.

I know there's been a lot of posts about weight limits - it's something I feel strongly about, but I think the way forward is about raising awareness of the welfare implications.
At the moment there's a lot of emphasis on 'body positivity' and avoiding anything that might be seen as discriminatory/offensive to people who are overweight. IMO there should be more emphasis on the horse.
I remember seeing an enormous (ie, morbidly obese) bloke riding a little 14.2 cob out hunting. I just thought it was ironic that the hunt was super fussy about turnout/etiquette (and hunt staff were VERY blunt to people who weren't 'up to standard'), but said nothing about an obvious welfare case right in front of their eyes.
I don't have the answers but I do feel it's something that needs to be highlighted.
 
I know of a western rider.A man.Very successful.Trains and rides to an international standard very successfully.He is about 6ft2" tall.He is NOT fat but he is a man and must weight I would think about 12 stone.Western saddles weigh about 2 stone.Any horse he rides must be carrying a minimum of 14 stone.His horses tend to be quite fine quarter horses.They stay sound and working for many years.Just saying.Yes of course I think people should consider their weight before getting on any horse and I refused to get on a horse once when I was horse shopping because he was supposed to be a "proper cob" but was just a slightly common pony.The owner was heavier than me.
I do think though that their is more to keeping horses fit,active,sound etc.than the weight of the rider.My vet says that if only people would allow their horses to move naturally she wouldn't have to run round injecting hocks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top