RE: [RC] heavyweight on small horse - Maryben Stover
Marlene, it's Maryben. You know me and I am a HW without my tack. I don't own a horse over 14.1. My horses are built like tanks and my little Spotted Saddle Horse has 16 50's to his credit, a lot of them hauling my butt around. I can't get on and off and have juniors to open gates so you know he carries me every step of the way. My mustang I have not ridden yet but he is about 14.1 and has 9" cannon bones. I think is is how solid the horse is built and not how much the rider weighs or how tall the horse is............mb
From: marlene@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [RC] heavyweight on small horse Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:25:12 -0600
In general I agree that people don’t need to be looking for large horses for endurance, but my husband and I have been discussing him competing on our stallion. He’s a really nice little sabino arab, about 14.1 and maybe 850 pounds. He’s got solid legs, good sized canons, but 00 feet. They are good tough feet, he did his first ride barefoot because the boots wouldn’t stay on.
My husband weighs 220# and his saddle about 20+ pounds more. He is a balanced rider and his saddle is a Free’n’Easy which spreads the weight over a pretty large area.
The stallion has always self exercised quite well and when he started conditioning, we were both very impressed with his fairly low exercise heart rates and good recoveries (at least down to 70, more on that below!). He’s doing well mentally – I posted a while back about advice with dealing with a stallion and every ride he’s gotten better and better. On the trail, he’s never been anything but a gentleman too.
Anyhow, we haven’t had any obvious issues concerning my husbands weight, but we’re only doing LD so far. My husband loves riding this horse and would like to do 50’s next year and even possibly Tevis eventually.
We had one horse that was lighter bodied that did well with my husband until he climbed a really steep hill and she hesitated and then couldn’t get going again. It wasn’t pretty, but it ended with no injuries at least! So I am concerned that this is really just too much weight for a horse of this size even though we haven’t had a problem yet. I don’t necessarily want to just keep going until we have a problem if it just isn’t wise. I don’t know if the stallions testosterone is just getting him through! And then even though the HR closely matches my horse through extensive exercise and recovery, he does just hang around 70 for 10 minutes or so. It’s not because he’s being a stallion or getting distracted by mares. He can stand with his head down and eat. But that 70 mark is tough to get past. Could that be because the weight is just too much?
Any stories or general advice would be appreciated. I know every horse is an individual, but I don’t want to gamble against the odds too much!
Thanks,
Marlene
Marlene Moss
www.LosPinos-CO.com - boarding, training, sales
www.KineticEquineAnalysis.com - saddlefit for the horse in motion
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