What do you call "big"??

I'd call anything over 16.2hh 'big', but then I ride a 13.1hh most of the time; so even a 15.2hh feels like a fairly long way up.
 
I would call 17hh+ 'big'. 16.2 I would call a roughly 'average' size horse.

I'm also now very sceptical of people who say 'oh my horse is 17hh' since we have/have had a number of '17hand' livery horses who are actually smaller than our 16.1!!! In fact I would say the majority of our livery owners overestimate their equine's height by at least a hand - and I'm not being remotely facetious!!
 
Read an interesting extract from a Dr Deb Bennett article a week or two ago and I wish I could find the rest of it. She was talking about the optimal size for a horse. Excuse me if I don't get it 100% correct, but she was saying that is rare to find wild horses over 14 hh, and up until around three hundred years ago 15.2 hh was a big horse.

She said that 16.2hh is pushing the design envelope for horses galloping and jumping, which given the size of some of our sport horses these days, I thought made for interesting reading.

After years of riding Arabians anything over 16 hh is big to me, but it is all about perspective I guess and anything up around 17 hh I find huge.
 
If I can't get the rug on in one swing and have to resort to hefting it up and unfolding/adjusting it til it's on properly, the horse is big IMO lol but I'm five foot three, so that can include a lot of horses!
 
I would say over 17hh big although my mare is passported at 16.3 but she is definitely bigger-
I won't remeasure as I dont want to know haha.
When ridden and 90% of time in the ground she doesn't feel big- but when on ground and she puts her head up to look at something she seems huge!! She has massive ears which don't help that look either!!
 
Wagtail said:
Anything over 17hh is big to me. Average is 15.2 - 16.2 judging by the horses I have had at livery here over the years.
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In objective terms, this ^^ but actually as I'm a titch, Id also think anything was big that I couldn't get a rug on easily or I could reach their bum to groom! That may be within the same range.

I generally feel comfortable around the 15.2/3h mark although am getting used to slightly bigger as F is about 16 maybe getting up to 16.1. Interestingly I've had a few comments lately about how he's grown and that he's big, but I tape measured him and it said 16h, go figure. Although that could be my inability to measure him properly!
 
I'm 5'3. I have a 15 hand "runaround" and a 16.2 retiree who potters out once in a while. I love big horses and it took me a while to transition to my little boy once the big oldie was semi retired.

16.2 never used to seem big when I was riding him regularly, but now it does. Nowadays I'd struggle to clamber onto the small boy from the ground in an emergency, and I'd have absolutely no chance on my big fellow! And as someone else mentioned, hoicking rugs on in the field on a windy day is often an amusement to anyone watching me with the big boy too. I usually end up wearing the rug myself then trying to look like I meant for that to happen!
 
FfionWinnie said:
Well a 16.2 draft is bigger than a 16.2 TB. It's not all about height. I can say that as I own the biggest 14.2 *in the world* :)
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This.

I had a 16:2 TB and a 16:2 very very chunky British Appaloosa (he is having the ah super cob saddle he is that wide) the tb I look normal on but the chunky I look a little small.

And I'm 5'6
 
I wouldn't consider a horse under 17hh. All my horses have been that except the one that was 16.3hh and felt decidedly small for me!
I am tall at 5ft 10, but I know of people much shorter than me who have ridden my horse who stands at 17.1hh and haven't looked small on him.

To me anything over 17hh is what I regard as big.
 
I have a 17.1hh WB I think he's quite tall but I like that height. Big to me is shire build 17.00hh upward. Medium weight is great heavy weight is big and I would worry too much about injury and soundness with all that weight.
 
Currently riding 16.1 ISH who's chunky so takes your leg up. Normal TB is 17hh but narrow so I don't look small on her. Brothers WB is a fraction under 18hh and wide - he's BIG, I ache once I've worked him, but he's the only one on our yard I would class as big. His rugs are a PITA to put on - even his lightweight is heavy, and if he feels like being rude when tacking up he lifts you off the ground when putting his bridle on - git, he only does it to take the P.
 
My biggest is an 18h ISH but before him I thought of my TB at 16.3 as pretty big, though my Welsh 15.2 feels bigger than the TB. Now with an 18h horse I genuinely understand riding a BIG horse/ It has pluses and minuses though. He costs a lot to feed and loses weight quickly if not maintained. All his tack has been made to measure including the saddle. Even things like fly masks and boots just don't fit properly. His rugs cost more too. I love him and enjoy riding him and never feel big on him though I am a heavyweight myself and pretty tall too. He always makes me feel small and light. I definitely feel under 16h is a small horse 16-16.3 is a horse and 17 and over is large horse... over 18h is a giant....
 
My share horse is 16.3hh (properly sticked at!), and the only time he looks big to me is when I see somebody else riding him. However, the first thing anybody says on meeting him is always, "He's huge!"

I'm old enough to remember the time when anything 16hh+ was considered big, and 17hh+ was considered freakishly enormous. Nowadays, the classifications seem to have shifted up a hand.

I suspect also that people are getting worse at estimating horse heights. I'm 15.2hh with my boots on, but I've met an awful lot of '16hh' horses that I can see over! So possibly horses aren't actually getting bigger - it's just the numbers used to describe them that are increasing!

I admit, I like riding 17hh+. The larger stride is easier to ride and I generally find them more comfortable. (Also, I'm 5'1". I like the very rare opportunity to be tall!) However, the added costs - tack and rugs difficult to find, shoes sometimes having to be made rather than 'off the shelf', keeping them fed - mean that if I ever scrape together enough pennies for my own horse, I'll be opting for something I can see over.
 
To me, anything over 16hh is big.

I am not supple enough to mount even a small pony from the floor since i broke my back so that's irrelevant to me :D

If i ride a bigger horse, i like them to be substantial with a damn good neck. I hate getting on TB types with narrow shoulders and little skinny necks - that goes for ponies or horses!
 
It funny as i never considered my 17hh+ (dont wana actually measure him!!) warmblood as big until i brought a 15.3/16hh little irish fella! Now the warmblood seems huge and the irish fella seems normal! Plus he made the jumps look a lot smaller!! :D
 
To me anything over 18hh is big. I like big horses - mine are all 17.2hh+ at the moment, and when searching for my current youngster I didn't consider anything smaller than 17hh.
 
I think of over 16h as big. My mare is 16h, my gelding is 17h. Both are good Irish middleweight types. I notice a big difference between the two of them especially in the following situations - getting on from the floor (I can just about scrabble on her if I have to, not him, leading about when on box rest, he towers over me and is much more intimidating, field damage - he is a living, breathing rotavator, rugs and equipment- easier to chuck a rug over her and she's still in normal sized tack while he is in extra full or specialist made tack. However jumps look tiny from him and my 6'4 husband (who he was bought for) doesn't make him look 12h.
 
Crikey. I got a bit jittery when I realised my pony would make 13.2 instead of the anticipated 13h!
 
My last ride I'd describe as big. The clue was the number of people, who ion first meeting him would utter the words "god he's huge". Just felt normal to me. He was (still is) 17.3 and a half. The one in my avatar.
 
I am surprised at how many of you with 17/17.1/17.2 have to get things made especially.

Jake, as I have said, is 17.3hh:

He has a 17.5'' Wide saddles,
an extra full bridle/headcollar,
6'9/7'0 rugs,
full tendon boots,
28'' dressage girth,
He has a handful of alfa-a and half a scoop of calm and condition twice a day,
three large haynets of haylage/hay mix a day (plus top ups should he need it but rarely does)
the farrier fits shoes off the peg,
AND he fits in a 3.5t

Nothing specially made, not overly expensive to feed.. no real dramas. (I did have to buy an extra long dressage whip but I'll allow him that :D )
 
AShetlandBitMeOnce said:
I am surprised at how many of you with 17/17.1/17.2 have to get things made especially.

Jake, as I have said, is 17.3hh:

He has a 17.5'' Wide saddles,
an extra full bridle/headcollar,
6'9/7'0 rugs,
full tendon boots,
28'' dressage girth,
He has a handful of alfa-a and half a scoop of calm and condition twice a day,
three large haynets of haylage/hay mix a day (plus top ups should he need it but rarely does)
the farrier fits shoes off the peg,
AND he fits in a 3.5t

Nothing specially made, not overly expensive to feed.. no real dramas. (I did have to buy an extra long dressage whip but I'll allow him that :D )
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Mine is 18hh
20inch xxw made to measure ideal saddle
Extra full made to measure bridle
7ft 6 rugs (bit snug)
54" girth
Extra full Tendon Boots
Goes through a round bale of haylage every week plus 2 feeds a day.
Not a chance would he fit in 3.5 tom lorry...I have to travel him alone in my 7.5 ton with the partitions removed...

It not just height he is extremely wide too....never have too ask if my bum looks big on him..!!!

But I wouldn't change a single bit of him.....
 
It's all relative, and it doesn't just depend on the horse's height or the rider's, there are so many factors. Archie, my 16.3 (ID x something) rides far smaller than Monty (TB x Sec D x Shire) my share horse who's 17hh. When I first had him, I was moving up from the 14hh Sec D who rode a lot bigger than 14hh and I barely noticed the difference. If I get off M and onto A, I feel like I'm riding a pony again although weirdly going from A to M doesn't make M feel any bigger.

Arch takes a 6-6" - 6'9" rug, while M takes a 7' - 7'3". However, A's girth is 4" longer than M's (with the same make and model of saddle) so he really takes up the leg and I think I look smaller on him than M. He takes an extra-full bridle / headcollar while M can get away with a cob. I think due to the fact you're holding on to a much finer head (or maybe because he's much more of a gent), M seems much smaller to handle than A does.

Neither seems particularly big to me, but I've only really handled horses that sort of size for a long time. M's owner has a little 13hh pony for her kids now and while I've got used to his height, his length (or lack of it) always surprises me. I can touch his head and his tail at the same time!
 
If their withers are the same height as my chin, I call them big - I'm 5ft 11.

I always thought our RDA cob was a good size until I started riding bog hoss - he makes her seem tiny to ride and she's a wide 15.1!
 
Charmel said:
Mine is 18hh
20inch xxw made to measure ideal saddle
Extra full made to measure bridle
7ft 6 rugs (bit snug)
54" girth
Extra full Tendon Boots
Goes through a round bale of haylage every week plus 2 feeds a day.
Not a chance would he fit in 3.5 tom lorry...I have to travel him alone in my 7.5 ton with the partitions removed...

It not just height he is extremely wide too....never have too ask if my bum looks big on him..!!!

But I wouldn't change a single bit of him.....
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Wow! Would love to see a photo, sounds like my sort of horse. Although does sound like I have got lucky with Jake, maybe that extra inch in height is the tipper over into expensive, specially made world :D Jake is fairly short backed, although has a lot of muscling up to do so I will to wait and see whether any of the above changes!
 
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