Very true. As a 5’9 woman who fits into size 2/4 and is a size 26 breeches US (38 Euro) people are also floored by how much I weigh (typically between 64 - 70 kgs). When lifting heavy, which makes me a LOT more dense, I am on the high end of that spectrum. Yet whenever I got a leg up, trainers and grooms were confused about the weight I told them I was vs how much “jump” I could give them that they barely had to assist.
I think weight limits are a grey area and should be on a case by case basis. Weight isn’t a dirty word, its a fact and should be considered with the variety of other factors like strength, balance, skill level, etc. As many indicate there, there is a difference between incorrect ratio of size between animal/ rider and “weight limits”.
Mostly just chiming in to say most people think I weigh 125 - 130 and they’re baffled to realize they’re nearly 20lbs off and that you cannot always determine weight from sight alone.
Vid in question - outsized and terrible horsemanship, inappropriate.
Totally worth it for me. I had sleeve. Lost just over a 100 pounds. I gained 45 back because I was drinking too much alcohol. I have now dropped 34 pounds since I stopped drinking in November. I have 19 pounds to lose to get to my surgeon’s goal weight. I am 7 years out from weight loss surgery.
I had 2 co-workers that had weight loss surgery. One RNY and one band. Both before me. Neither gained their weight back.
I had underlying medical conditions- PCOS in particular.
Some WL programs are better than others about teaching you to eat after surgery and about providing ongoing support.
Well, I’m glad to hear it worked for you. One of my best friends in the horse world had WLS last year, and I’m crossing my fingers that she keeps the weight off, because she’s much more able to enjoy riding her horses now. She was definitely in the “fit and fat” category; she’d evented through Prelim and ridden up to 4th level dressage before WLS. It’s just easier now.
But… At the same time I know many people who have not kept the weight off, and not because they were in programs that gave them no support. One friend was doing great, pre covid, but the isolation got to her. And she had covid herself, and several months of recovery where she was home alone and unable to even go outside. And my brother-in-law is a GI doctor, who deals a lot with people who have nutrient absorption issues after their surgery. He’s not a fan.
The nutrient absorption issue is one reason I picked sleeve over the RNY bypass. Less issues with that with the sleeve. They only shrink the stomach not remove portions of the intestine. I am not supposed to take vitamins as gummies, chewable is better. I have not had issues
I don’t remember exactly ( been too long now) except you clearly identified yourself as out of shape and overweight and still showing your horse and doing fine at it.
I was just saying that is a fine goal as long as you weren’t too heavy for your horse . That is what the topic of this thread was all about at the time . I wasn’t singling you out. Just replying to what you posted.
And for those who didn’t read the actual study, this is the take away:
“Despite a wide range in weights (Table 1) carried during this competition, this study showed that rider weight—whether described as an independent value, or in relation to the body weight of the horse—did not have a significant effect on endurance performance over a 160-km distance”
Rider weight, which included tack and any carried equipment, ranged from 56.4-118.6 kg which is roughly 125 - 261 lbs, give or take some rounding errors.
This is an excellent point. When I offer an opinion on whether or not someone is too big for a horse, it’s not purely about weight carrying ability, it’s also about balance (length of the rider’s torso vs. length of the horse) and the overall picture. I also try to be aware of my bias - as a recovering hunter rider, my eye wants to see barrel below the rider’s heel, and the rider’s torso not overbalancing the horse’s front end over fences.
I have an acquaintence (posting on this thread - she knows who she is) who rides an adorable stock bred horse who is built like a brick with legs: broad short back; good weight carrying confo. To my eye, she looks big on him. No barrel showing below her heel, and he’s short from back to front, so the torso ratio looks wrong to me. But the horse is absolutely appropriate for her weight, because she rides in a completely different, low stress discipline, with no jumping. She’s also an experienced rider who rides in good balance. If everything else was the same, and she was a beginner, either without a following seat or someone who rode tipped forward, balanced on the neck, the horse would probably struggle. If she rode in a higher impact discipline, that might be a problem as well. Same size horse, but a weak back? Probably trouble.
When I was still riding full time (and weighed ~ 135 - 150#) I often schooled small horses and large ponies and it made me VERY aware and careful with my upper body position, because just dropping my shoulder could noticabley unbalance them. On the horses I ride now, I’d have to shimmy up past their withers onto their neck to influence them.
That eye thing is tough. In a hunter saddle on my slab sided 16.1h horse I look a titch tall but relatively normal. I’ve switched to dressage and now I look like a giant. Same horse, same weight, longer stirrups make him look tiny and me enormous. Our eyes definitely can fool us.
True. Personally, I’m not looking at the leg. Mostly the torso. That might be a me thing, though, as I “see” lines of energy thanks to reiki. On the FB pages I mentioned upthread, we’re also talking people with half their butt hanging over the cantle or the saddle covering the horse from in front of the withers to the kidneys
Oh sure - I was mostly speaking “in general”. It’s just amazing how different balance points etc can also influence our perceptions of size appropriateness. I’m not talking about people who don’t actually fit in their saddle or saddles too big for the horse.
Think it through…
Ok, a saddle adds weight, BUT the tree distributes your weight along the horse’s spine. So instead of all your weight being concentrated on right between your thighs it is spread.
Saddles are the kind way to ride a horse, ESPECIALLY when one is heavy.
Only if proper care is taken that it actually fits! As a larger rider I am so glad that the newest trainer at the barn is a Western Saddle fitter, and also makes saddles. She regularly checks fit, as my horse changes shape, it’s reassuring.
yes, of course. too wide a saddle seems the most common offense… i’ve seen a LOT of gray-haired withers in my time. At least western folks seem to all try to really pad-up though. I don’t like riding that high above a horse myself, but i see double pads pretty often. Talking those 3/4 felted guys!
This! I have a slightly long torso at 5’9 and I dwarf even 16.1h normal barreled horses. The best size for me is probably a large barreled 16.3 with a big crest-y neck to balance my upper body. Although I don’t love super big horses (didn’t enjoy riding an 18.1h mid level eventer), I looked most picturesque on a 17.1h former 1.30m show jumper WB built like a defensive back who literally walked down the lines and tidily hopped fences at what felt like a relaxed, economical canter with some serious hind end power.
My next partner needs a solid body and a neck on them because of my own conformation.
The discussion is depressingly typical, though, of contemporary American thinking: If you want something to be true then it must be true - otherwise reality itself is “shaming” you.
I agree that tangents about diet culture and fat phobia have exactly nothing to do with the fact that, in the three-dimensional world where gravity rather than politics reigns, three hundred pounds is still three hundred pounds.
This is off topic, but I want to put it out there that I tore my ACL in my late teens and then again in my early 20s. When I re-tore it, I opted purely for PT without reconstruction surgery. I did more research the second time, being an adult at the time, and was surprised by the results of studies showing similar outcomes for both approaches. I was under a lot of pressure to get surgery but really didn’t want to go through it again. I felt like I got much more out of the PT than when I was doing it while recovering from surgery, learned a lot more about how the muscles support the joint, and when to be conscious of fatigue affecting the joint stability. Ten years later, I really haven’t had trouble with it. So for anyone contemplating the surgery, I would just say, whether or not you do it, the PT is really the more important part. I felt like my surgery made me prone to re-tear it and I just took it for granted that I’d be “fixed” when I should have put more emphasis on PT
I used to be very concerned about horse height/ barrel vrs rider height until I started in endurance. Watching a tiny arab and a 6’ guy eat mountain trails for breakfast kinda gets that out of your head lol
I had done some research about ACL tears. There seem to be 2 types of people. Those that are ACL dependent and those that are not. There is a famous NFL QB, John Elway, who played his entire college and professional career and never had his torn ACL repaired.
However a friend of mine is a professional horse trainer. She tore her ACL a 2nd time. Had lots of PT but the knee was too unstable without a brace and she had to have it repaired again.
From what I read many years ago some people need the ACL for that stability and some don’t.
For my original injury I needed surgery anyway. The ACL torn and was in a place that kept me from having full range of motion. There basically it was like having a leadline in the crack of a doorway. The rope prevents the door from closing all the way. Basically my ACL was hanging and was acting like that rope.
Yes, that’s what my first ACL tear was like. I was only 12 at the time! I couldn’t fully extend my leg and limped for months until I got surgery. Then I tore my other ACL years later, repaired it, re-tore it a couple years after that, and that’s when I did the research that converted me to a PT/strength training approach instead. But it wouldn’t have worked for my first knee injury, which was more complex and earned me a very unwelcome reputation as a “cripple” in middle school.
If a horse or pony requires extensive PT type treatments, particularly on their backs, following most rides by a bigger rider; does that suggest the rider might be too heavy for that horse or pony?
