Working out how much a horse can carry

Irishcobs

Irishcobs

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Reading a horsey mag, they have an article about the heavier riders. They said take a horse's weight in pounds, divide by 6 then divide by 14 and it gives the total in stone of the weight the horse can carry including tack.

So Hattie is 1203 pounds. So thats 14.3 stones. She is a 15.3hh heavy weight cob, with 10" of bone, but she has a long back.
Gyp is (he is loosing it slowly) 1269. So thats 15.1 stone. He is a 15.1hh mw cob with 8 3/4" bone, is overweight and has done a tendon in the past.

Now lets say the average TB is 1100 pounds, 500kgs. So that is 13.1 stone.

How can you possibly do it on weight? Surely it would have to be average weight as Gyp being over weight according to this formula can carry more. Now most people will know if their horse is over weight and know they won't be able to carry their top weight, but some novice may think that they can and cause more problems. Not having a dig at the mag but that should of been explained.
Also they say a regular-sized horse with good bone will measure about eight and half inches. Anything above this will be more of a weight carrier. Now I know some TB thats have more than 8 1/2" and they certainly are not weight carriers.

Maybe its just me, but you do see alot of riders that are too heavy for their horses and either know but don't care or really have no idea how much their horses can carry.
 
thats interesting but i know what you mean........hmmm - write a letter to the mag
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sounds rubbish to me, what about fitness, muscle, etc, and of course how the rider rides, if they are well balanced or a sack of spuds makes a difference as to how much the horse can carry.
 
I go with Bone and fitness! The bone measurement calculated Beau could carry up to 21st! But there is no way I would let him. He managed to carry me at 16+ stone though, and it was no detriment to his back, nor did it slow him down (unfortunately!). Only area I felt it was jumping, so we never really tried anything too big, but thankfully I have quite a good seat on landing and dont whack into the saddle
 
You know I have never worked it out by any method such as this before, but I have always unbeknown to me, used this method!
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And ...... it's right! For me anyway.

I only used 2 of my horses as an experiment:

Spotty Horse - solid built 16.3hh Appaloosa with about 9" bone, weighs 1500lbs - I don't let anyone over 250lbs on him. Did the workings out and that's pretty much bang on!

Cloud - Connemara X Exmoor, 12.2hh, no idea about her bone. Weighs 800lbs and I ride her at times (I weigh 125lbs) - once again almost bang on.

As I previously said in earlier threads relating to this - what a horse is capable of carrying when it is fit and muscled up, is quite different to what it should be carrying when it is in a far lesser condition.
 
Funny, this is such a basic question and yet there is no answer, or should I say, there's not only no accepted way of working it out, it's very difficult to know how to start. The formula you quoted is not an unreasonable way of calculating it but I have no idea where the numbers come from (it makes sense to say an animal can carry a %age of its bodymass but the %age will get smaller as the animal gets bigger).

The place to begin is probably with 'what will break first'. Even if you knew all there is to know at the moment about when things break I'm pretty sure you still couldn't guess with a high degree of certainty. I suspect the back would break before the legs in which case the amount of bone isn't the most important factor and the amount of back muscle probably wouldn't make too much difference either. I also suspect that what the rider 'does' is more important than back length bone circumference and mucle development unless you mean extreme muscle under-development.

Fascinating! I'm so interested in this I think I'll try to find an answer to it that's based on something measureable and then report back. Or just write an article for a horsey mag! Watch this space!
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It is an interesting point.
Basically, the formula says a horse can carry a sixth of it's body weight, so you can use that for Kg too. You would get an answer of approx 90-100kg depending on the horse.

I must admit, a sixth sounds a lot if you think of a human. That would amount for a man to carrying around 2 stone, or approx 12kg. Try it yourself and see how long you can carry 12kg
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Obviously some breeds (eg cobs) are much better suited to carry heavy weights then others.
 
Well, i've just done the math for Bo....16.3hh m/w WB, weighs around 700kgs I reckon or 1540lbs. That means he can carry over 18st in weight. I'm around 17st, and he has jumped over 5' with me on his back
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Doing that maths I think, from last time I weighed Patches, that means she can carry about 13 1/2 stones.

But people see Patches and say she'd be a "good weight carrier" so I'm assuming they're referring to riders about 16 stones plus? I've had one rider that was fairly large get on Patches, she was a friend of my friend, and I must say Patches wouldn't break out of walk with her on her back.
 
Well quite, so it just happens that 1/6th of a horse 's body mass turns out to be not too unreasonable a value (although how does one really know). I have a sneaky suspicion that someone could have taken a person that looked big on a horse and weighed them both, divided one by the other and found that it came out at around 6 because that's where things like this tend to come from and I really can't think of any known basis for deriving it from horse structure.

weight carrying in humans is not a good analogy because of the differences between bipedal and quadrupedal posture although army man packs can easily get up to 80 pounds and above. Soldiers don't jump fences with them though as far as I know..
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Obviously some breeds (eg cobs) are much better suited to carry heavy weights then others.
Well the funny thing is this might not be true to any significant extent either... that's another thing it would be fun to have a look at...
 
I've just worked it out for 2 of mine

Hänsel 14.1hh 3.5yr old haflinger weighs 1102lbs can carry 13.1 stone
Robin 15.3hh 16yr old tb weighs 1172lbs can carry 13.9 stone

Now maybe I'm too soft but given the age of those 2 there is no way on this planet I would even consider someone that heavy riding them. In fact I think they should be eternally grateful that I weight 8 stone. At least I can carry on eating my way thorugh all the xmas choccies without feeling guilty.

It is probably a useful formula for giving a guideline amount but common sense needs to be applied and age, condition, fitness etc need to be taken into consideration.
 
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