Carriage Weight for Large Pony

[DiamondJubilee]

I have a good idea on marathon carriage weights but I would love to hear some other peoples ideas/comments as well.

We currently have a new carriage that has pnematic wheels/hard wheels with easy change hubs, 5th wheel break and delayed steering and had it made for a pair of ponies. It weighs around 600lb and our 13h pair pulls it no problem and we have an up and coming 14.2h pair that will pull it. It has shafts for a single but do you think it would be too much for a 14.2h pony to pull?

We have a single heartland III carriage which is 300lb that is used for our single driving around the farm but no pnematic wheels. We are in love with the drive with the air tires and its so bumpy/loud/uncomfortable going back to the single carriage. We priced pnematic wheels for this carriage and it was over $4000 for it, so really not worth it.

Ages ago we had a 400lb carriage that our 13h single pony used to pull (600lb pony) and he was pulling a little more than his own body weight (with the 2 of us of course) and we did marathons with him. He always finished ok but we were worried which is why we went to pairs in the first place.

I’m just worried that we will have the same issue with the 600lb carriage as this pony is about 800lb and he will be pulling just over his body weight as well.

Not sure if we should look into selling our single light marathon carriage to get another 300lb one with pnematic wheels as we also only plan on driving our 14.2h pony single for a year maybe 2 until his partner grows up. Or do we drive him single to the 600lb carriage for the next year or two. We will be driving pairs again, but would love to put some miles on this guy first while his brother is growing up.

I’m just trying to see if its worth it to sell our current single carriage to get another one with pnematic wheels for a year or two of driving. I know we can always use it for single driving around the farm which is always good for training, but we don’t tend to do much single driving as we ride the ponies as well. Or should we just use the 600lb carriage (which we just love!) for the next year/two if the weight would be ok…And keep our heartland III for our smaller ponies when we want to go around for a boot (they will be retired next year so not too much driving for them).

[China_Doll]

No way would I make a pony pull that much. Way to get a sour horse and tendon injuries. I wouldn’t want my horse to pull that much unless it was on flat ground.

[DiamondJubilee]

Thanks CD, thats what I was thinking.

So I just had a new thought. We could use our heavier carriage for training around home as its quite level and the trails and our dressage ring are all grass - quite a nice and easy pull around here. We don’t drive if our footing is muddy/wet as we don’t want to wreck the grass/footing so the pull is always steady/easy. Those are the days that he gets ridden our sand ring.

There is one hill on part of our trail and its tiny. The pony is worked 5 - 6 days a week either driving or riding/jumping so he is in good shape.

We could then use the light carriage for all of our marathon shows (which is usually only 2 or 3 shows a year). This way we wouldn’t have to sell/trade in anything for just the year or two we plan on driving single and only for a few shows…

Does this sound feasable?

[goodhors]

We figure that horse should not be pulling more than 80% if his weight as the TOTAL load and then not for very long. The carriage, plus passengers, should not equal the weight of the animal out front, doing pleasure driving or CDE things. He has nothing left with which to control his load, if he is working at optimum weight all the time. Kind of like driving a loaded trailer that outweighs the tow vehicle when you run into strong wind, wet roads, gusts of wind, which can make you lose control of the towing vehicle.

The animal working overloaded all the time is more likely to stress or strain something. An occasional short “work session” of heavier load for strength building is alright, if he is otherwise in good condition. But not on a daily basis, it is way too much load.

Doing equal “work”, can you carry or pull around a load that weighs what you do for an hour or two? Fit, experienced hikers, only carry packs of about 40 pounds to go into wilderness areas. Otherwise they are exhausted just trying to carry their big load, not even able make any distance to go camping. That 40 pounds is usually not even half their body weight.

You may want to take pony to the local scale, get him weighed to KNOW for sure what he actually weighs. The same with the vehicles, unless you have had them weighed in the past for a TRUE weight. Lots of folks guess vehicle weights, are WAY off, not even close to the true weight. Vehicles built for Pairs, SHOULD weigh more than those built for singles, because the forces Pairs put on vehicles is much stronger.

You can toss around pony height, but without weight on a scale, it is a guess. How pony is built, muscled up, will make huge changes in what the scale reads as “true weight” of the animal. I had a 14.2H size horse, stocky, went 850-900# when fit. She weighed more fit than when not in use, because muscle weighs more than fat. A friend also had an Arabian cross, same height, slender, in good flesh, only weighed in at 800# when fit. So using either of them to drive, would have needed different vehicles, loaded passenger weights, to not go beyond the 80% of their body weights into overloading them.

It is even better if you can stay BELOW that 80% body weight in load behind a driving animal. He will have more in reserve, if well conditioned, should he need to work harder on a muddy course or something with sand or hills in a course. He can recover better, easier, not be exhausted after using his reserves, for coming back to do Cones if needed.

This getting them fit, yet not overworking or overloading the animal is a fine line to walk. If your ground is flat, you have to still find some stress to build conditioning on them, but maybe shorten the distance a bit or work time that day.

Do any of your vehicles have air-ride seats? That might add to the comfortable ride, in the lighter vehicle. I can’t say that the air-filled tires really gives our vehicle that much of a better ride. They are nice though in the ring after rain, tires not digging in like rubber tired wheels will.

[DiamondJubilee]

Lots of great points goodhors.

We do not have air ride seats, unfortunately. We have had 3 of the same makes of carriages, 2 of them being the exact same model, and we have noticed a huge difference with the wheels, oddly enough. When we go back to the hard tires of the single carriage (which is the same make, different model) it is more of an uncomfortable ride for sure. I don’t mind it so much as I’m driving, but the passenger does feel it.

The 2 glincowski pony sport carriages were built for us and we had them weighed on a proper scale at Driving Essentials before we picked them up. The base model (and our first pony sport carriage) weighed just under 400lb and it was sold to us as a single pony carriage, for a 600lb 13h pony. We were quite new to CDE’s and it was over 12 years ago that we bought this carriage. We only planned on driving single and noticed how hard our pony worked. We looked into a little more and decided that we either had to sell the pony or go to pairs. The carriage did come with a pole and we couldn’t sell (as he was a home bred pony - who could do that??) so we bought a brother and never looked back.

The new pony sport had some added features put on but we were told it would come to just under 500lb when done. We were surprised that it weighed in at 580lb on the scales. We weren’t too worried as we are planning on driving our large pair to it, but we have decided to retire our older geldings at the end of the year and our new pair is not ready yet. So we are trying to plan for next year. Right now I’m driving the large pony to the 300lb carriage as its set up for a single since we are still driving the 13h pair to the 580lb carriage.

I have not actually weighed our boy though, so that is a good point. He may come in a little heavier than 800lb as he is a fairly solid boy - more “warmblood” in build.

It is tough to get conditioning done at our place as it is so flat. We really don’t have much of a choice on where we can drive and we even pay a farmer for some lost crop of his as we asked for the outside of his corn field so we don’t have to keep driving around our pasture.

We have a fairly good fitness program and know how many km it is around each of our fields. We also have 2 hazards set up and we often do a few km at a trot, do a hazard (in trot/canter), continue on etc like we would on a marathon day. It has worked well for us and almost never have to re check at vet checks and have won conditioning awards before (knock on wood!!).

I do have concerns for our new pony though and I really don’t want to spoil him/wreck him because of being over stressed.

Our older pony (now 18) pulled more than his own body weight for years and did very well in competitions (showing since he was 3 and never had a lame day, popped a splint, failed a vet check etc in his life, again, knock on wood!), but he is tough as nails and still going strong (though I think he loves having his brother help him at times). He owes us nothing and it will bring us great pleasure to retire him next year.

I will not use the heavy carriage for competition, thats for sure. I’m still on the fence for everyday driving. I’m looking around and pricing carriages, just getting my feelers out. I really appreciate everyones wisdom. Please keep the ideas coming

[China_Doll]

[QUOTE=DiamondJubilee;8288852]
Thanks CD, thats what I was thinking.

So I just had a new thought. We could use our heavier carriage for training around home as its quite level and the trails and our dressage ring are all grass - quite a nice and easy pull around here. We don’t drive if our footing is muddy/wet as we don’t want to wreck the grass/footing so the pull is always steady/easy. Those are the days that he gets ridden our sand ring.

There is one hill on part of our trail and its tiny. The pony is worked 5 - 6 days a week either driving or riding/jumping so he is in good shape.

We could then use the light carriage for all of our marathon shows (which is usually only 2 or 3 shows a year). This way we wouldn’t have to sell/trade in anything for just the year or two we plan on driving single and only for a few shows…

Does this sound feasable?[/QUOTE] I also think it would depend on if he was stout or had fine legs. Also keep in mind when the grass gets any length to it there is a lot of resitance.
I may have missed something but why not use the lighter carriage for training also?