Orangehorse
Well-Known Member
Found it - the book by Col Goldschmidt published in 1937 by Country Life called An Eye for a Horse.
"For my own riding I do not care for anything over 16 hands, in fact I consider 15.3 the ideal height for a hunter to carry even a great weight and 15 hands for a polo pony. I am 5ft 11" and ride 14st. Much of my hunting ..... was on polo ponies measuring around 15 hands, but our fences, if tricky, are small........
The nearer a horse is to 15 hands the nearer he is likely to approach perfection of conformation..........
Whenever I ask my friends to describe the favourite hunter of their lives the recital of the animal's virtues and prowess generally finishes with 'but he was only 15.2' or 'if he had only been two inches bigger I suppose I could not have afforded to keep him' ............My contention is that it was just the 2 inches in height that made for the compactness and activity which raised the horse above the ordinary."
I take that "riding at 14 stone" is dressed in riding clothes and does not include the saddle.
"For my own riding I do not care for anything over 16 hands, in fact I consider 15.3 the ideal height for a hunter to carry even a great weight and 15 hands for a polo pony. I am 5ft 11" and ride 14st. Much of my hunting ..... was on polo ponies measuring around 15 hands, but our fences, if tricky, are small........
The nearer a horse is to 15 hands the nearer he is likely to approach perfection of conformation..........
Whenever I ask my friends to describe the favourite hunter of their lives the recital of the animal's virtues and prowess generally finishes with 'but he was only 15.2' or 'if he had only been two inches bigger I suppose I could not have afforded to keep him' ............My contention is that it was just the 2 inches in height that made for the compactness and activity which raised the horse above the ordinary."
I take that "riding at 14 stone" is dressed in riding clothes and does not include the saddle.
