Elephant In The Room. An Update

 In the three years since I wrote a piece in my blog spot on overweight riders many things have changed. Social licence to ride our horses has become a really big thing, many believing that it is unacceptable to ride at all. Welfare, which should always have been at the forefront in all that we do has become more spoken about, but I might venture that in many cases, it’s not so much in evidence.

Before I go further can I put on record that yes, I’m reasonably slim, that yes, I have been  overweight and yes, it’s really hard trying to shift the weight. I am not without sympathy or understanding for those with these problems.

So, in this post I speak of riders with horses that are too small or light boned for them. All too often we are asked to fit a thoroughbred, or similar type of sport horse with a saddle to “go eventing/ show jumping/showing (hunter type classes, for my American friends)”. The rider may or not admit to their correct weight, and yes, I am aware that there are many factors that can cause problems, but often it is in excess of 110kg – 242lbs.  The horse, at 500kg and using the 20% scale can carry, say 100kg –INCLUDING saddle, bridle, stirrups, girth, saddle cloth, your boots, hat and clothing. I suggest that everyone spends a bit of time to weigh this lot – it will be far more than you expect. Add to this that the 20% guidance is for the horse at its optimal weight, and so, with an overweight horse many kilos will be deducted.

Have we have got to a stage, bearing in mind the social licence and welfare considerations, where saddles should not be fitted to these horses as this will facilitate the rider being able to work them? I have walked away from a decent saddle sale because the rider was, in my opinion some 35kg too heavy for the horse . That’s 5 ½ stone or 77lbs!  Believe me, that was a difficult thing to do. I would have liked to make a nice sale and see the horse in a well-fitting saddle. I also have no doubt at all that the client was upset and hurt. How on earth can you say this without upsetting them? In this case it was the right thing to do, and it really is what all equestrian professionals should be doing. However, it is still ‘the elephant in the room’, meaning that we all know that it’s there, and a problem, but no one is prepared to address it.

Unfortunately, many who do try to compete when too heavy for their horse might be in for a shock this year. Certainly, in the UK and if not in place yet, soon to follow in other equestrian nations where this is a problem, people are being turned away from the competition. Many show classes have scales at the gate and have a maximum weight for each class. If you exceed it, you will be asked to leave. In dressage and, I believe eventingc the judges have a right to eliminate a rider if they consider their weight excessive for that horse. Surely other disciplines are the same or will follow. Endurance? Showjumping?

Whilst honestly full of sympathy for those who struggle with their weight, we just can’t allow this abuse of our animals to continue.

Let me leave you with this thought...

If you walked into a barn and saw someone beating a horse and, as you got level with them the whip broke, then the person asked you to give them another nearby whip so that they could continue as ‘he needs this to keep him in line’, would you give them the second whip? I suspect not. However, by ignoring or ‘not seeing’ the under horsed rider and walking on by, how much pain and injury will that horse suffer? Sadly, a great deal. It could well be broken beyond fixing. Why is this thought by some to be acceptable?

I’ll re-publish my original blog post about overweight riders when I have finished some planned edits to it and include a reminder of the formula I first shared in 2022 that can reliably help work out how much weight a horse can safely carry. In the interests of horse welfare and the growing awareness of the importance of our social licence, this is a subject for which all of us need to take responsibility.

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Acceptable Weight / Horse Ratio

From my post ‘The elephant in the room’ I have seen many comments asking what ratio is acceptable for rider weight to horse size. If only it were that simple! 

Many use the 10, 15 or 20% guidance but these really aren’t of much use. Let’s say that I am 70kg, at least 85kg and probably more if you include my clothing, hat, boots and the like plus saddle, bridle, girth, breastplates, stirrups and so on. 1m 70 tall and ride a 15-2hh thoroughbred ex-racer. The horse is 500kg (for ease of figures.) At 10% the maximum weight that he could carry including all of the extra baggage would be 50kg. Hmm. Not very likely is it, that any adult could weigh 50kg with tack and clothing included.

Let’s try 15%. 75kg. which is slightly more realistic but still well below the 85 kg that is actually the weight he has to carry.

20%? That makes 100kg total weight, 85kg for the rider alone, which really sounds too much. Unfortunately all of these formulas miss out on many important factors. Apart from the weight, how fit and athletic is the rider? An unfit person may well have poor core strength, sit ‘heavily’ in the saddle, not have just such good balance or stability as the fit rider. Yes, I know that some larger riders ARE fit and Do Have Good core strength but I think that they will admit that they are the exception rather than the rule.

You will notice that the formula says, ‘so many percent of the horse’s bodyweight.’ But there is no consideration to the type, age or condition of the horse. A just backed 4 year old, would really not want to be carrying 20% or even 15% of their bodyweight until they were stronger and more balanced themselves, An older horse may well struggle with a heavier rider. 

Likewise breed types. TBs are very deep in the chest as a general rule as they need large hearts, and so more heart room to be successful racing. However the bone and general build of the horse does not really carry heavier weight well whereas a stouter horse, a good cob say, can carry that weight, although if you are using a weight tape for gauging the horse’s weight they may well come in as the same weight. 

Nowhere is the breadth of the quarters, nor the bone beneath the knee taken into consideration, nor the fitness of the horse, although including these gives a much better idea of the horse’s ability to carry certain weights. My granddaughter and I have played about with this in the past using horses in a riding school, along with the very knowledgeable and experienced owner who gave us her opinion as to what rider weight each horse could carry, and we came up with a formula that, whilst it isn’t straightforward, is the most accurate that I have seen. It doesn’t take age or fitness into consideration but I think the rest is there.

This is the formula (measure in centimetres):-

Measure point of hip over the quarters to point of hip. (q)

The circumference of bone beneath the knee. (b)

Circumference of trunk at girth point, where you would use a weight tape. (g).

Height of horse to top of wither.(h)

((q+b)x h)x g) /39095 = maximum weight that can be carried.

This will give you the weight that the horse can carry in Kilograms including tack and clothing.

Yep, it sounds crazy but it does seem to work, however it’s nowhere near as easy as just saying ‘15%’ is it?

This formula arrived at a rider weight  to horse ratio that seemed acceptable for the riding school horses that we saw in our trial – a fair mix of cobs, weight carrying horses, finer riding horses and a couple of thoroughbreds so a good range and should be a good guide for most if you allow for age and fitness level, reducing the acceptable weight in relation to these but never increasing it.

Have a play with this, and see what everyone thinks? Any carefully thought out and tested formulas that anyone has would be a huge help with this rider weight question but it is because it is so complex a question that there is no official advice out there.