Barton Bounty
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yip, I am a 16 but its all boobs and bum, some think lucky but not for me lol and if i lose weight they stay lol
Should there be a weight limit for people at shows (and if so, what and how?!)
- Thread starter Morgan123
- Start date
yip, I am a 16 but its all boobs and bum, some think lucky but not for me lol and if i lose weight they stay lol
PapaverFollis
Well-Known Member
I recently went from 13 stone to 10.5 stone. I'm not sure you can really see it in pictures of me sat on the horse. But the horse sure as heck felt it!
Losing weight and keeping it off is hard. We have a sh*tty food environment and a stressful general environment and it is a big fight, especially if, like me, you have rubbish genetics too. But I decided it was one I needed to face up to for my horses' wellbeing. Mine are a 15.2 and a 16 hh solid built cobs. I still think 10.5 stone is a much happier weight for them than 13. Just because they could carry more doesn't mean I should be happy to make them do so.
I run 20 plus miles a week but I still have to limit my food to two meals a day of non-processed, low sugar, minimal and unrefined grains to maintain. I'm 5ft7 and broad shouldered and well-muscled but 10.5 stone is not a particularly low weight even so, I still have plenty of body fat and could lose another half stone without even sniffing "underweight". I'd probably get told I was skinny but truth is we've all normalised carrying too much fat. I really enjoy my food and was definitely addicted to sugar and am prone to comfort eating... especially as it eases my ASD related anxieties when I'm pigging out on a big bowl of pasta. But actually I need to find healthier ways to cope!!
I get that it is hard and don't judge people for being overweight. However I think people need to be really honest with themselves when they are about to get on a horse.
Losing weight and keeping it off is hard. We have a sh*tty food environment and a stressful general environment and it is a big fight, especially if, like me, you have rubbish genetics too. But I decided it was one I needed to face up to for my horses' wellbeing. Mine are a 15.2 and a 16 hh solid built cobs. I still think 10.5 stone is a much happier weight for them than 13. Just because they could carry more doesn't mean I should be happy to make them do so.
I run 20 plus miles a week but I still have to limit my food to two meals a day of non-processed, low sugar, minimal and unrefined grains to maintain. I'm 5ft7 and broad shouldered and well-muscled but 10.5 stone is not a particularly low weight even so, I still have plenty of body fat and could lose another half stone without even sniffing "underweight". I'd probably get told I was skinny but truth is we've all normalised carrying too much fat. I really enjoy my food and was definitely addicted to sugar and am prone to comfort eating... especially as it eases my ASD related anxieties when I'm pigging out on a big bowl of pasta. But actually I need to find healthier ways to cope!!
I get that it is hard and don't judge people for being overweight. However I think people need to be really honest with themselves when they are about to get on a horse.
Bellaboo18
Well-Known Member
I'm sorry you feel like that and hope you can get the help you need. I also don't think anyone is bashing people for being overweight. Unfortunately though, although an emotive subject, riders weight can be a welfare concern so a worthwhile debate.
sbloom
Well-Known Member
You miss my point, if A rider is perhaps what I should have said, we needed a lighter rider, but just because the knees aren't buckling doesn't mean the horse's joints and way of going aren't being affected in a harmful way. And I don't agree that a petite person is necessarily skinny, it's not about just weight is it? This is the whole conversation, and we need to be careful of our language and definitions.
sbloom
Well-Known Member
Please read the whole thread, almost everyone is trying their utmost to not make it personal or bashing, we are talking physics, and I, and others, are 100% addressing the emotional and many other factors that go into this being so challenging. If you're around horses it's not a conversation you can completely avoid seeing.
TheHairyOne
Well-Known Member
I think that statement is pretty much the point I was trying to make. How does someone play judge and jury when visually the difference can be not all that noticeable?
I also took up running and got rid of 1.5 stone, but I am 5'9 with hips and boobs and I have been below 10 (thanks glandular fever) and just looked ill!
Weight is weight and a healthy weight is easier than being overweight (for both horses and people). However, if all my spare pounds went only on my hips I would really struggle to fit in a saddle that would fit my horse. Weight distribution would be all wrong. This is almost certainly going to cause more damage than just the weight alone.
Brings me right back to asking HOW this could be done to be fair to horses/riders and potentially the poor volunteers at these events!
Mrs_P
Active Member
I think people absolutely have the right to be whatever size/weight they want but equally that does not entitle them to inflict that weight on another being. The horse has no say in the matter so we as their owners need to put their needs and welfare above our selfish want to ride them. I say this as someone who has struggled in the past with my own weight but I refuse to inflict it on my horse.
sbloom
Well-Known Member
There are other, better, ways of spreading weight optimally on a horse than just larger/seat panels, the very best saddle fitting takes weight down the inner thighs, off the seatbones, and a little onto the pubic arch if you (like many of us) are not able to put weight on it. Many traditional English saddles concentrate weight not only on the seatbones, but often that is also towards the back of the saddle, getting towards the weaker point of the horse's back. I try not to fit to rider hip size, or keep it as a smaller part of the overall strategy.
SmallPony
Active Member
Ah I get you, I thought you were referring to that rider in particular needing to be lighter if that makes sense!
DizzyDoughnut
Well-Known Member
I think there should be a weight limit, but I have no idea how you would work out that limit or get people to enforce it.
I bought a youngster largely because since I'd retired my riding pony a few years before and got a sedentary job and I'd piled weight on, so was to fat to ride the type and size of pony I wanted.
So while he grows up I've got time to lose the weight and seeing him everyday is the best motivation, plus all the groundwork and in hand walking to see the world are doing me good too.
Aside from the fact he's only 3 and still to young he could probably carry me at the weight I am now but I wouldn't want him to, he's hopefully going to be with me for life and I want to give him the best chance possible of having long healthy life, I'd hate to do something now just because I could and the negative effects to possibly show up a few years down the line.
I bought a youngster largely because since I'd retired my riding pony a few years before and got a sedentary job and I'd piled weight on, so was to fat to ride the type and size of pony I wanted.
So while he grows up I've got time to lose the weight and seeing him everyday is the best motivation, plus all the groundwork and in hand walking to see the world are doing me good too.
Aside from the fact he's only 3 and still to young he could probably carry me at the weight I am now but I wouldn't want him to, he's hopefully going to be with me for life and I want to give him the best chance possible of having long healthy life, I'd hate to do something now just because I could and the negative effects to possibly show up a few years down the line.
JumpTheMoon1
Well-Known Member
Obese kids on little ponies are in abundance.Poor ponies - tighter rules need introducing as its cruel.
Parents are to blame - good old common sense does not exist in most people now.
Parents are to blame - good old common sense does not exist in most people now.
SO1
Well-Known Member
There are already rider age ranges for the plaited ponies. I know just because you are a child or teenager does not been you will not be too heavy for the pony.
I never really thought about the physics but it is a lot of weight distributed over a small saddle area and the size of the area that absorbs the weight does not change that much even on a heavier horse. A heavier horse also has to carry its own heavier weight on its legs which may be no stronger than a lightweight horse.
Compare for example to different size and weights of tables with different size table legs and putting the weight in the middle. At what point does the table break.
Is actually the 20% a reasonable amount for heavy horses to carry in addition to their own weight considering these are draft horses built for using their weight to pull rather than carrying a heavy person.
I never really thought about the physics but it is a lot of weight distributed over a small saddle area and the size of the area that absorbs the weight does not change that much even on a heavier horse. A heavier horse also has to carry its own heavier weight on its legs which may be no stronger than a lightweight horse.
Compare for example to different size and weights of tables with different size table legs and putting the weight in the middle. At what point does the table break.
Is actually the 20% a reasonable amount for heavy horses to carry in addition to their own weight considering these are draft horses built for using their weight to pull rather than carrying a heavy person.
palo1
Well-Known Member
This; thank you for articulating that
The thing is, isn't it, that weight just IS an important factor in riding any horse. No horse will criticise us or fatshame us lol but they still need us to be the best we can if we are going to ride them. For some people that is 7 stone, for others 13, 16, whatever. It really does have to be fair though.
RachelFerd
Well-Known Member
I went to local BD a few weeks ago and saw a rider, who actually won both classes, whose size I found actively upsetting - I did not see how they could, in good conscience, ride their horse. The horse was going well - clearly, it won both classes it went in. But there was no way that the rider was anywhere near under 20% of the mediumweight type cob that she was riding. I doubt there would be many horses for whom they would have fitted in a 20% category.
I have previously seen the same rider on a different horse pulled up part way through a dressage test.
I did wonder for a while whether there was any means of reporting in to BD to express concerns. But after poking around for a bit I couldn't see a clear route to write in about this specifically, and talked myself down as I guess that nothing would be done.
But I don't think you could show that to the general public and expect them to give you any kind of social license of acceptability to continue like that. They are animals with no choice in the matter of who climbs on them. We need to do better. Sport can't carry on unchecked like this.
I also think that 20% is a seriously generous amount of weight to expect horses to perform with anyway. I think 15% would be more reasonable for high intensity exercise involving jumping. I've previously seen evidence that points to anything over 10% starting to have measurable negative impact on the horse.
I understand that it is an emotive topic, but as humans we have the privilege of being able to verbally express our pain and emotions. Horses don't.
Time to license competition riders under a better competition structure and have signed off agreement, by a vet and qualified instructor or similar, of the disciplines that partnerships are allowed to take part in. We have to get a handle on the industry in order to safeguard it for the future.
I have previously seen the same rider on a different horse pulled up part way through a dressage test.
I did wonder for a while whether there was any means of reporting in to BD to express concerns. But after poking around for a bit I couldn't see a clear route to write in about this specifically, and talked myself down as I guess that nothing would be done.
But I don't think you could show that to the general public and expect them to give you any kind of social license of acceptability to continue like that. They are animals with no choice in the matter of who climbs on them. We need to do better. Sport can't carry on unchecked like this.
I also think that 20% is a seriously generous amount of weight to expect horses to perform with anyway. I think 15% would be more reasonable for high intensity exercise involving jumping. I've previously seen evidence that points to anything over 10% starting to have measurable negative impact on the horse.
I understand that it is an emotive topic, but as humans we have the privilege of being able to verbally express our pain and emotions. Horses don't.
Time to license competition riders under a better competition structure and have signed off agreement, by a vet and qualified instructor or similar, of the disciplines that partnerships are allowed to take part in. We have to get a handle on the industry in order to safeguard it for the future.
Hippoloosa
Member
I know exactly who you mean, Rachel. She is popular on instagram and also rides a 14.2hh young connie that she dwarfs... If anyone calls her out they get blocked. I'm no lightweight myself but a lot smaller than her and I would never ride that baby connie.
Goldenstar
Well-Known Member
We need to get real personally and responsibility I worked out me on my horse the other day I am just over ten per cent but I would not dream of competing at the weight I am .
You can’t do something just because you want to .
Being overweight is a choice for the vast majority of people .
But shows can’t police this it would be impossible and unpleasant .
You can’t do something just because you want to .
Being overweight is a choice for the vast majority of people .
But shows can’t police this it would be impossible and unpleasant .
AShetlandBitMeOnce
Well-Known Member
Is that the one who rides that hogged bay mare? Ray something or other
Hippoloosa
Member
No not her, a different lady.
jnb
Well-Known Member
Being overweight is NOT a choice.
No one would choose the hell I live in every day. No one.
And I will not be gas lighted into believing that everyone on here is trying not to be judgemental or some not be downright nasty about it.
All this confirms to me that if my beautiful HW cob ever is show-able it wont be me doing it as I'm just not strong enough to deal with the nasty backbiting comments.
I get that some people have lost a stone, 2 or 3 because they needed to be slimmer.
No one understands the isolation of being huge and trying, trying, trying and failing to lose the 5, 6 or 7 stone they want to. Every time picking yourself up and trying to get your head in the right place to try again. And fail. Over and over.
No one would choose the hell I live in every day. No one.
And I will not be gas lighted into believing that everyone on here is trying not to be judgemental or some not be downright nasty about it.
All this confirms to me that if my beautiful HW cob ever is show-able it wont be me doing it as I'm just not strong enough to deal with the nasty backbiting comments.
I get that some people have lost a stone, 2 or 3 because they needed to be slimmer.
No one understands the isolation of being huge and trying, trying, trying and failing to lose the 5, 6 or 7 stone they want to. Every time picking yourself up and trying to get your head in the right place to try again. And fail. Over and over.
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Bellaboo18
Well-Known Member
To be blunt, asking your horse to carry the weight is a choice
TPO
Well-Known Member
Oh jeez I fell down a hole on the site Tattle Life on threads about "equestrian influencers" so had a look at her page. So upsetting and everything about what's going on, that she promotes and is sponsored to promote, is just disgusting.
Hallo2012
Well-Known Member
everything i wanted to say but said better!!! 100% this.
Winters100
Well-Known Member
However upsetting and emotive it is for some people, surely animal welfare has to come first? To me it is just common sense, I would not expect my horses to carry me if I was too heavy, just the same as I would not expect a small child to carry a 20kg bag of feed. I make no judgement of anyone's size, not my business and does not change the person that they are, but choosing to ride a horse that you are too heavy for is cruel. Be whatever weight you are, but if you want to ride choose an appropriate horse. Many of us struggle with our weight, I have to watch every single thing I eat, and I am often hungry, but for me that is what it takes to be able to ride my horses.
Edited to add that this is not about whether anyone is fat or not, it is about how much an animal can reasonably carry. I am at the low end of a healthy BMI, but when asked to jump on a child's pony at our stable I refused because I considered myself too heavy, not too fat. We would not expect a 12.2 to carry a rugby player, why should maximum weight not also be considered for bigger horses?
Edited to add that this is not about whether anyone is fat or not, it is about how much an animal can reasonably carry. I am at the low end of a healthy BMI, but when asked to jump on a child's pony at our stable I refused because I considered myself too heavy, not too fat. We would not expect a 12.2 to carry a rugby player, why should maximum weight not also be considered for bigger horses?
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Mrs_P
Active Member
Losing weight is certainly not easy. If it was we would all be "perfect" skinny minis. Also being overweight can certainly have a huge impact on your mental health and I sympathise with anyone who has to go through the struggle of being so unhappy with yourself but finding it difficult/impossible to change. I have definitely battled with my own demons there.
But ultimately riding is a privilege not a right. We as owners should always prioritise their welfare above our own selfish needs. Ultimately there is no excuse for doing something that puts their welfare at risks regardless of how difficult that may be for us.
But ultimately riding is a privilege not a right. We as owners should always prioritise their welfare above our own selfish needs. Ultimately there is no excuse for doing something that puts their welfare at risks regardless of how difficult that may be for us.
TPO
Well-Known Member
Similarly my most haunting imagine is a nice wee cob/native type at a western show. The rider was far too heavy and was riding in a badly fitting synthetic western. According to a western fitter synthetics are meant for lightweight riders only max 9st.
This rider went beyond the front and rear of the saddle along with the saddle literally bending in half.
The poor horse was displaying every pain signal there is. Ears pinned, scrunched up pain face, tail swishing, attempting to bunny hop, stilted gaits and reluctance to go forward. "Isn't he cheeky??" ...
I mentioned it to someone involved with th3 club and running the show who said that's not what they're about, it's to encourage everyone to join in and have a go ? I actually feel sick in my stomach picturing it again. I'm sure the rider "loves" their horse very much and is clearly going to ride regardless.
Just awful what some people feel entitled to do.
Also a fat person who stopped riding because I felt too heavy and have so far slogged off 2st but have more to go. So I do know it's hard but everything is hard so you just have to choose what hard you're going to tackle
palo1
Well-Known Member
I think a lot of people understand the absolute struggle to maintain what is for them an acceptable and healthy weight (physically and mentally). Riding a horse is a real part of that struggle though; it is a hobby that is, to a degree, dependent on being a certain weight (ie a fair weight for the horse you have). But you don't have to ride and there are really amazing things to be done with horses without riding them; sometimes that can be a healthier approach for a rider/owner rather than the stress and worry of weight being a daily struggle. We all need to look after ourselves and there are many ways to do that - short term and long term. I am sorry you feel so awful about your weight. I hope you can find a way to navigate feeling better and healthier - it really isn't easy or simple.
Hallo2012
Well-Known Member
if you have 5/6/7 stone to lose then you have to be realistic about whether you should be riding.
that is the reality of it.
whether your chose to be at that weight or not is not the horses concern.
surely you see that?
despite being very slim, i have very tiny ponies as my body doesn't cope well with bigger horses on a daily basis or for long hacks etc, so i still make a very conscious effort to ensure i never go past 15% including clothing and tack. i do tons of exercise, eat healthily for the most, weigh myself weekly-i OWE my ponies that. we ALL owe them that.
jnb
Well-Known Member
I'm not. He's injured, and has been since last April. Nothing to do with my weight, before anyone dances on my grave
He is an appropriate size for me.
But since I'm sub-human as I am over the weight deemed on here to be acceptable to ride ANY horse at all on here I can't help but take all this personally.
This place really can be horribly and unnecessarily cruel, it really can.
So much for @sbloom post @12:25!
I'm out. Hope that makes the fat bashers happy
ecb89
Well-Known Member
You obviously have a lot of issues surrounding weight. At no point has anyone suggested an overweight person is sub human!
I would suggest you take a break from the forum.
palo1
Well-Known Member
Please don't think anyone is bashing you for your weight; I don't think that is what this discussion is about. If it wasn't a really important debate around social licence etc we wouldn't need to have it. As an aside, members of a tug of war team have to weigh in every time they compete. Many, many sports have a specific focus on weight and that will always preclude some people from participating in some aspects of sport but it doesn't mean that there are not other things that can be done.