# Too big for 13.1 hand pony?



## arabianrider00 (Apr 20, 2017)

You and I are about the same size, and if it were me, I wouldn't ride him. You'll probably be pretty tall on him, and if you are younger and still have growing left to do, he definitely won't be a good size for you for very long. Ponies are strong, but if it were me I'd look for something bigger.


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## MerriBelle1 (Apr 19, 2017)

In 2013 a study was done regarding the weight of riders and their horses. A GENERAL rule of thumb is for every 1,000 pounds, take 10% and that should be the weight of the rider (100lbs.) You can add 20 lbs and still be okay. A 900 pound horse or pony should have a rider of around 90 pounds. Keeping your weight under the 25% of the weight of the horse will help the horse. Anything over 25% will cause muscle soreness, elevated heart rate, respirations, temperature, and increased stress. Horses with wider loins and larger circumference around the cannon bones seem to be able to handle weight better than a horse with narrower loins and skinny cannon bones. Also take in consideration the weight of your saddle (western saddles run between 25 and 60 pounds generally) and other gear that you may be using. I suspect this little pony would weigh between 550 and 800 pounds. Be realistic. The pony you are looking at may not be to your best advantage.


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## walkinthewalk (Jul 23, 2008)

I say no. Look for a bigger horse.

You want the horse for strenuous work (barrel racing). Barrel racing is about winning, not about a comfort zone with a smaller horse

PLUS, he is t even a trained barrel horse. The owner "said" he would make a good one because he loves to run. 

Maybe the pony would and maybe the pony wouldn't. Regardless the pony needs training. Keep looking.

And you might want to do some jumping ---- look for a bigger horse.

If you were only going to to do mild trail riding, I would say maybe.


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

The 10% rule has more recently been replaced by 20% and even then you need to take into account things like age and fitness of the horse and body type - a 13.1 cob will carry more weight than a 13.1 light built pony with fine legs
I don't think you'd be too tall, I'm an inch taller than you and have ridden plenty of 13.1 ponies but I do think that you're on the heavy side for him if you want to do barrel racing or jumping
A pony of that height and type is likely to weigh roughly 700lb so if you use the 20% rule would be at its comfortable limit carrying a rider weighing 140lb
If you otherwise love this pony then maybe it could inspire you to drop a few pounds?


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## phantomhorse13 (Feb 18, 2011)

MerriBelle1 said:


> In 2013 a study was done regarding the weight of riders and their horses. A GENERAL rule of thumb is for every 1,000 pounds, take 10% and that should be the weight of the rider (100lbs.) You can add 20 lbs and still be okay. A 900 pound horse or pony should have a rider of around 90 pounds. Keeping your weight under the 25% of the weight of the horse will help the horse. Anything over 25% will cause muscle soreness, elevated heart rate, respirations, temperature, and increased stress.


Can you link to that study please? I would be very interested in reading it, as what you posted doesn't make sense. If the study's general rule of thumb is 10%, by adding 20 pounds to your example would mean the horse was carrying 30% - so how is that "still ok?"

While I have always heard the 20% rule, I don't believe it for a moment and would be happy to tell you about the 1000s of miles our endurance horses have carried more than that without issue. Thank goodness nobody told them the rules!


For the OP, I too would be more concerned with finding a horse with some training to do what you want to do. While being "too big" for the pony in question would depend a lot upon the build of this specific pony, I would shy away from one without at least some baseline skill in the discipline(s) I want to do.


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## SteadyOn (Mar 5, 2017)

I don't think your height or weight are inappropriate, depending on the build of the pony. I'm 5'6" and range around 130, and have been told by many people that they're jealous because I could "ride just about anything." 

If you want to do speed events, then something a bigger might be a better choice, though. It does make a difference. I know one 14hh pony, definitely not a heavy build, who is owned by someone over 200lbs who SWEARS she is the slowest, pokiest thing, and can barely get her to move. The pony is *quite* zippy, and pretty darn squirrelly, even, with lighter riders.


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## farmpony84 (Apr 21, 2008)

At 5'2 and 145 I'd look at no smaller than a large boned 14 hand pony. I'm about the same size as you. I think I may have an inch on the height and I have a 14'2 hunt pony that is built like a tank. He looks a lot bigger than he is. My other horses range from 14'3 to a little over 16 hands. The small ones sure are easy to get on and off of!


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

5'8" and 165 lbs on our 13.0 hand pony, with a 30 lb saddle:



















We've done 3 hour rides in the desert and he's been comfortable enough to offer to trot uphill at the end.

That said...I don't barrel race, jump, or do any extreme competition. He can handle my weight, but climbing out of a wash or dropping into one can challenge him. We're well above 30% when riding - but we mostly WALK. I have ridden him fast around turns - his choice, he has plenty of spunk to him - but the balance is a strain for us both.

So I'd pass on getting that size horse for barrel racing or competition of almost any kind. Don't think it would be fair to the horse or help in being competitive.



> A GENERAL rule of thumb is for every 1,000 pounds, take 10% and that should be the weight of the rider (100lbs.) You can add 20 lbs and still be okay. A 900 pound horse or pony should have a rider of around 90 pounds. - @MerriBelle1


 New one on me. 

The guy who owns these sheep prefers Arabian/Appy mixes for his ranch. Most of his current herd comes from an 800 lb stallion, and they mostly weight 800-900 lbs. Kind of hard to figure out where the ranches find their 80-90 lb ranch hands.










At the time of the picture, they were finishing a ride of about 45 miles in 2 days, mostly on pavement & climbing up about 2,500' in elevation. When done for the day, they were turned loose for a bit with the sheep...and a couple of them started to play. So they were hobbled, and then they settled down to eating.


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

According to this article the 20% ratio originates from the U.S. Cavalry Manual of Horse Management. 
Horse Channel.com published a research article done by Ohio State University that used experienced riders to show that the Manual's guidelines are fairly accurate in its beliefs 
One of the most frequently cited recommendations on matching horses and riders comes from the U.S. Cavalry Manual of Horse Management. It recommends that the rider and gear weigh no more than 20 percent of the horse’s weight. The mention of gear is important—a western saddle can add another 30 pounds or more to a horse’s back, easily pushing the total burden past that 20-percent point. These standards were based on the educated opinions of military horsemen at the time, and scientific studies in more recent decades have backed them up.
Too Heavy to Ride
QUOTE:
_'Research from Ohio State University (OSU) published in 2008 measured stress and soreness indicators in horses before, during and after exercise while carrying 15, 20, 25 or 30 percent of their body weight. The horses were put through a 45-minute workout designed to replicate an average riding lesson. Lead weights were added to both sides of the saddle to reach the necessary total weight_
_The researchers found that the horses started to exhibit a change in muscle soreness and tightness once their burden reached the 25-percent point, and those measurements increased significantly at 30 percent. Horses carrying 25 or 30 percent of their body weight also had an elevated heart rate, respiration and temperature compared to those that carried 15 or 20 percent. These findings appear to verify the old cavalry guideline.'_


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

A guy who studies military history & the cavalry tried to find that in the US Cavalry pubs - and could not. Neither could I, although I didn't have access to as many pubs. What is readily available is the US Cavalry's horse buying practices and field loads. They desired horses between 900 & 1100 lbs, and the standard field load was 250 lbs - rider, tack, and gear.

The British Cavalry looked for horses weighing more - 1000-1200 lbs, but they also expected a standard field load of nearly 300 lbs. The math is clear.

As for that study, it had a fatal flaw. Two, actually.

1) It used couch potatoes. The horses were not ridden for 4 months, and then ridden for a 45 minute period every two weeks. That is like putting people on house arrest for 4 months, then trying to figure out how far someone can jog without getting sore - while only allowing a 45 minute period of exercise every two weeks.

I'm not sure how far such a study would conclude a person could jog, but I'm sure it would be well below what a FIT human could jog!

2) The blood work in the study indicated stress at 30%. It did not show stress at 25%. To determine that, the researchers used people giving the horses massages, and the humans concluded there were signs of discomfort at 25%. Thus "20%" became the "maximum". But if the blood work didn't show stress until 30%, which do you trust?

And right now, as I type, my back is sore. I'm trying to get back into doing pull-ups after years without. As I end the first week, I'm sore. Definitely. Does that mean I should never do another pull-up? Or does it mean pull-ups are a good way to increase my fitness?

I haven't done much jogging lately, either. About 1.5 miles leaves me sore and tired, versus 3 miles when I largely stopped jogging. Does that mean 1.5 miles of jogging is my limit? Or is the limit 3 miles, like it was 6 months ago? Or is it 5 miles, which is what I was jogging before I took up riding horses? Should 10k races be banned? Or 5k races?

The Tevis Cup study indicated:

"Among all horses who competed, neither rider weight nor rider weight ratio had an effect on the
overall completion rate (p>0.05). Body weight of the horse had an effect on completion rate, in
that horses with heavier body mass had a higher incidence of failure due to lameness (p<.001).
Among Group S, weight had no effect on the time required to complete the course or on overall
placings among all finishers (p>.05). Among Group U, weight had no effect on the miles
completed before elimination (p>.05)...

...Condition scores had a significant effect on completion rate (p<.001). No horses with condition
score less than 3 were successful in completing, while completion rates for horses with condition
score of 3 was 9.5%. Completion rates were highest in horses with condition scores of 5 and 5.5
(90.7% and 100%, respectively). Regression analysis demonstrated that an additional 19.88
miles were successfully completed for each incremental increase of 1 (to a maximum of 5.5) in
the condition score (p<.001). ..

...The results of this study did show that weight affects endurance performance in that horses with
heavier body weights had lower completion rates due specifically to lameness failure.
Traditionally, it has been believed that in general, larger horses would not perform well during
endurance competition due to increased energetic costs, or greater heat load dissipation
requirements. Our results did not show that body weight had an effect on time to finish, overall
placing or disqualification due to metabolic failure, as might reasonably be expected in horses
experiencing excessive heat load or excessive substrate depletion. However, the effect between
body weight and failure due to lameness indicates that larger horses may not be as suitable for
endurance competition for biomechanical reasons. It was interesting to note that despite the wide
range of body weights among all horses, measurements of cannon bone circumferences fell
within a narrow range and did not proportionately increase as body weight increased. Although
there are many other factors which affect lameness,* it is a reasonable assumption that if crosssectional 
area of the metacarpus does not increase at the same rate as the forces acting upon it,
the incidence of exercise-induced trauma and biomechanical failure will also increase.*"

None of which suggests the OP would be well served by trying to compete on a fairly small pony. But it does suggest that for fit horses, people ought to pay more attention to total weight of horse and rider versus the thickness of the legs. The back muscles can get bigger with exercise, but the leg joints cannot...


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## farmpony84 (Apr 21, 2008)

A horse can carry half it's weight but that's not what would be the recommended weight for the animal to carry. Going off that 10% rule I couldn't ride a couple horses in my barn! My 15'2" QH was always right around 800-900 lbs and he had no issues carrying full grown men in his younger days.

I see 6 foot tall men riding 14'2-15 hand horses all the time. The ranch horses are around that height I mean, statistically speaking it's a great rule... but realistically I can't abide by it


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