Too big for my dartmoor hill pony????

Alfie&Milo

Alfie&Milo

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I have a dartmoor hill pony yearling, not sure what size he will turn out to be (12-13.2hh is the range), i weigh 9st, is that too heavy to be able to ride him when he's old enough ??? :(
 
I have ridden ours, he's 12hh and has a back like a table top. I am 8 stone 10 and he carried me no bother, he also bucked me off with absolutely no bother! Give me a tb any day! :) So much easier.
 
I may be totally wrong here (often am :p) but I seem to remember that they reckon when the Romans were marching over England, it was only senior officers who got to ride the bigger horses and they were about 14.2"....
 
Kate Sturgess said:
I may be totally wrong here (often am :p) but I seem to remember that they reckon when the Romans were marching over England, it was only senior officers who got to ride the bigger horses and they were about 14.2"....
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the Romans were short though, at least by Briton and Gaulish standards.although with a greater muscle mass than us so probably quite heavy!not really known for their cavalry though.

to the OP, I am 5ft6, I don't actually know what I weigh but it'll not be less than 10.5 stone. I regularly ride an exmoor (he takes my leg well) and I have another young exmoor in the wings. there is a trekking centre up here of exclusively exmoors that have a weight limit of 12 stone (they are retired at about 20 and often go on as family ponies for up to another 10 years) & there are adults up here, including vets, who ride exmoors in up to 80km weekend endurance rides or 60km one day rides. I am sick to the back teeth of people saying that someone of my height and weight should be on some ridiculous 17h warmblood-even my main riding horse is a LW 15.3.

there was an old saying 'don't buy what you can't see over' wrt horses and as someone else mentioned, no wonder so many people are overhorsed these days.
 
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Yes PF, but if you keep things in proportion, even if that meant the soldiers were only 5'6" compared to today's 5'10" or above they were still (by current thinking) under horsed!

Actually, I am with you here. I am 5'8" and CAN ride any horse you put in front of me, height-wise.

Doesn't mean I should! I think your maximum size of mount should be measured by the height of horse you can cope with when it's having a major paddy...
 
Don't expect your Dartmoor to get beyond 12.2.
Do expect to be able to ride him / her happily - that is what the Moorland ponies were all about - bred to be beasts of all manner of work, and pull trucks down the tin mines one day, carry a farmer to market the next......
Dartmoors unlike some of the Welsh breeds, are still bred to type so you should be OK, unless you plummet to 18 stone!!
 
:D can't wait, still got long time to wait though :rolleyes:
And i bet your exmoor is gorgeous, well worth every cheeky antic :)
 
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Kate Sturgess said:
I think your maximum size of mount should be measured by the height of horse you can cope with when it's having a major paddy...
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lol, maybe but there's less to hang on to when they are wee ;)

and 'by current thinking', well its not that I think the good old days were all good, far from it-but it was blinkin unusual to see a riding horse at 17h when I was a kid, it certainly wasnt the norm as it seems to be now. and its absolutely fine if people want to pay extra in feed, shoes and rugs to ride their great big horses, just as its fine for me to ride my smaller ones.

I agree also about whether they can, shouldnt mean that they should. the endurance riders of which I speak are lightweight, balanced adult riders and endurancers know alot more about conditioning than your average leisure rider. plus the ponies are vetted in and out. but, 9stone isnt heavy by almost any native pony standard
 
Crikey, our DHP is coming up 2 and is still only about 9hh (personally I think he is a shetland x)
I didn't realise they came up that big so I got a real shock when I read this. My daughter will ride our section As who we expect to be 11.2 - 12hh and she weighs 81/2 st so I cant see a problem.
 
I like having less far to fall:D

Plus, I also like being able to wrap my ankles round each other under a belly... makes me much more stable....
 
my yearling is 11.1 now, any idea what size he'll make at 3?

And where I got my two colts from they had little shetland x's, I'd imagine that's probably what yours is ! lol :)
 
Give me a pony any day, I'm 5'7 and just under 9 stone, my cob is 14.2 and plenty big enough and I ride both my daughter's ponies at 12hh welsh A old fashioned leg at each corner and 12.2 lightweight but fit Sec B xTB. They are fun! (I don't ride either for longer than 20 mins or so but they could cope with much more)
 
peteralfred said:
always good in a crisis-as is just putting your feet on the ground and walking away ;)
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And I like the ever present option of roller-skates on my boots. Bit like Heelys for ponies lol

Honestly, some of the best fun I've had in 40 years riding equines has been on things under 14.3" :)
 
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