I can’t help but be amazed by the amount of deflecting about the issue at hand.
I stated that if you and your horse are happy, that’s what matters, and you are trying to turn that statement into something it isn’t.
The issue was about being overweight, and possibly too heavy to safely ride. Dr. Deb has been thrown out, for being too narrow in her definitions. It’s hard for me to believe that anyone would work so hard to justify it being “OK”, because someone who has spent their life earning a degree, and then studying horses, has her work poo-pooed because you say so.
There is some major deflecting going on here, and that’s a shame.
Nobody is deflecting and literally EVERYONE here has agreed with the importance of riding a horse that is appropriate for your weight. Everyone. So who are you trying to start an argument with?
The issue with the Brazilian rider is about abuse, not just about weight. Riding a pony far too small for him was part of the abuse, but far from the only part.
Dr Deb is a paleontologist by training, and an amateur rider, trainer, and horse historian.
Her professional training is in looking at the bones of extinct animals and figuring out how they functioned. This gives her a lot of insight into functional conformation of horses, and the importance of the skeleton.
However she has not spent her professional life being trained in or studying horses. Her horse work is a side project or hobby.
I really like her conformation analysis because I have not seen any system that is more inclusive and objective. At the same time I recognize that it is not the end product of peer reviewed research. And I have taken her analysis and actually looked to see if it holds up IRL. Some of it does.
Her horse historical research seems accurate and uses sources and archive research, but also does sometimes make assumptions that may be hypotheses.
Her training advice is influenced by good role models in the vaquero tradition, and takes her understanding of conformation as foundation. But her understanding is also a little quirky and exclusive.
Dr Deb is a good example of a solid academic who delves into a side project related to her hobby interests. The farther she gets from relying on her accredited speciality, the more subjective her opinions. However, one of the bonus things you learn as an academic is how to speak with authority so she is able to sound this way even when just relating her opinions.
The 250 lb guideline for cavalry horses is widely known and cited in such discussions. But back then they needed horses to march 4 or more hours a day, day after day, and be ready to fight at the end of it.
That is great as long as you aren’t exceeding a weight limit that your horse can safely handle over the long haul. Isn’t that what most of the posters here are saying?
The picture that started all this was a man that was way too heavy for the pony he was ( abusively) riding.
It made no difference that he wasn’t overweight/ unfit for his height. He was too heavy plain and simple.
Not sure why you singled me out to reply to, why you ignored the context in which my comments were made, or why you’re trying to drag me back to the original post. Your reply doesn’t make any sense, given the current state of the discussion going on here.
And I’m well aware of the contents of the original post, but the discussion strayed away from that context well before I got involved.
And yet, she has far more education about any of this than those who are insisting that carrying 250 pounds, or better, is Ok, doesn’t she? If you are going to base your opinion on her lack of knowledge and education on the subject, then you need to be able to say that those who do not agree with her on here have greater knowledge and education in the topic at hand. Not just an opinion.
I’m going to skip over the guy on the Shetland because, truly, what he is doing is straight up abuse and is irrelevant to the other conversation
Now with that out of the way. Let me assure you, that no overweight person doesn’t know that they are overweight. They don’t need you to point it out to them. It’s staring us in the face every freaking day. It’s when you can’t buy the same clothes as everyone else, it’s there when you have to squeeze into that airplane seat, it’s there when you try to find tall boots, it’s there on the front covers of magazines in the checkout line.
In my early 20’s my riding career was going very well, just got married, things were great. I’d always been towards the heavier side but not obese. Then I had a bad riding accident where I basically couldn’t do anything for 6 months. I gained weight like crazy between the meds, no exercise and drowning my sorrows. Over the years, it crept up a bit more and a bit more. If you don’t think I didn’t try to lose weight with every method possible, you’re crazy. 1200 cal a day for ages, working out until I was dying, weight watchers, noom, herbal life, vegetarian… Sure sometimes I’d drop a few pounds but nothing was sustainable.
This summer I was at my heaviest and just decided to try another route after a lot of research. I’ve been strict Keto, intermittent fasting, strength training and trail running and I have finally found a sustainable combo that works (8 months this way and 70 lbs down). I have learned how much is wrong with the way we teach people to eat. And if someone tells me to my face those fun old (completely false) things of “eat less, move more” or “calories in, calories out” - I swear I’m going to punch them in their stupid faces. And now that I am losing the weight, there’s no shortage of people telling me I’m doing it wrong.
Do I think my riding has improved from losing weight? No I don’t. I’ve always been a good rider at any weight I’ve been. Has strength training improved it, yes. Was I competitive enough to win at my sport? Yes. Do I think my weight had a huge impact on my horse? Well I’ve never gotten less than an A as a back score from a vet on an endurance ride except once- where my friend who weighs about 75 lbs less than me rode her instead of me and got a poor score. Other criteria checked frequently throughout the ride are pulse, respiratory rate, gut sounds etc- aka if my horse was struggling I would have been pulled. Are there horses that I would not consider riding because I was too big for them? Of course. But an appropriately matched horse is fine. BTW, when I won my division at the Old Dominion LD 2 years ago- I exceded Dr. Bennett’s 250 pounds between myself and my gear
Now to Dr Bennett. She started out a reasonable person and is slowly becoming a loon. She completely lost any interest I had in her with her treeless “study” where she didn’t know how to properly use the tack and then declared it bad
So bottom-line, unless something is clearly abuse like the dude on the shetland, one should probably STFU and mind their own business.
More from Dr. Deb (in response to a question unrelated to rider weight) which helps explain why she does not give a percentage of the horse’s weight as opposed to a flat figure of 250 lbs:
"Heavy breeds (and any heavy individual), if they weigh over 1450 lbs., bone density tends to drop off. The heavier the individual, the more it tended to drop off, so that many of the heaviest draft horses in the collection had bone verging on osteoporotic, i.e. very low bone density or abnormally low bone density. The best predictor of low bone density is large size/massiveness.
Heavy horses are more prone to ringbone and sidebone, which are abnormalities that are promoted by concussion, simply because they are massive. The maximum weight for any wild horse or horselike animal in nature is 1100 lbs. Between 1100 lbs. and 1450 lbs. lies a kind of “gray area” where you could have the horse that big and still be OK. Above 1450 lbs., your chances of having the horse be sound get less and less.
Another result of my study was that the larger your horse, the smaller the bone-tendon circumference will be relative to his weight. The average circumference-to-weight ratio in domestic horses (excluding miniature ponies) is 8 inches per 1,000 lbs. of weight. Once we get over about 1450 lbs. we never find horses that will meet this rule – it would require that a 2,000 lb. big draft horse have 16" of bone, and I can tell you Neal, there is not one single record of any horse with legs that heavy. The average for horses that weigh between 1500 and 2,000 lbs. is 5" per 1,000 lbs. of mass. This is another reason that big horses suffer far more frequently from all kinds of unsoundnesses from the hock and knee down.
What about horses that weigh less than 1100 lbs.? Those horses tend to have at least 8" of bone per 1,000 lbs. of mass, and as you get down toward the smaller end, i.e. animals that weigh 600 to 800 lbs., they may have as much “bone” substance as the Mongolian Wild Horse, which is 14" of bone per 1,000 lbs. of weight."
I have no doubt that there are plenty of people here who have more formal education than Dr. Deb has on the subject of equine biomechanics and physiology. As @Scribbler already said, Dr. Deb’s formal education and peer-reviewed publication record is in the field of paleontology.
I think that most anyone who came out of a university program in equine biomechanics (like Dr. Hilary Clayton’s former program at MSU) and even lots of people with degrees in Animal Science with Equine Science specialties have had more formal training in this area than Dr. Deb.
And who here has been making blanket statements insisting that “carrying 250 pounds, or better, is Ok?” I don’t recall reading that. I think everyone has indicated that heavy riders require an appropriate mount.
I’d add that last I checked, something like 50 % of Americans were overweight and 30% of those were obese. This has developed over the past 50 years as work patterns, food availability, and transpotration options changed. I also think there is an epigenetic or environmental effect where babies born to overweight mothers are more prone to be overweight lifelong. At the same time, the ideal woman in media became thinner and thinner.
Anyhow, when something is that widespread in a culture you have to look at larger causes, not just individual situations.
The equestrian world, especially the pro world, does tend to self select for women who are thinner, stronger, and more athletic than average. Doing barn work your whole life can keep a thin woman thin. But if you are being reasonable about keeping going a sport and industry that is in decline in many areas, you can’t reflexively just shut out half the population because they don’t look the part.
I don’t think there is any data one way or the other that sorts out the long term effect of rider weight when the person is a skilled rider. I expect that the cavalry limit of 250 lbs was thinking about excess gear, because if you look at cavalry troops in say old Civil War photos, they are small, lean, underfed looking young men. And with the exception of endurance riders and maybe some working cowboys, nobody rides a horse that long that often today.
We also have way better saddle fitting and nutrition for the horse.
The ceremonial horses, still used in the UK will be asked to carry a substantial amount in the way of ornamental saddles, and riders clad in silver, I’ve seen estimates of up to 100 pounds of ‘kit’ I’m guessing that puts many of them into the region of carrying 250 give or take. The horses are carefully chosen, well looked after, and are usually retired in their late teens or twenties.
The drum horses carry kettle drums that weigh close to 250, then the rider gets on. Once again, horses are chosen carefully, and conditioned well.
To say that no horse can carry 250 is a stretch for sure.
I would love to see someone provide quotes from other equine biomechanics experts that support the idea that it is healthy for a horse to carry more than 250 lbs. on their back. So far, we have only had ad hominem attacks on Dr. Deb and other posters as well as n of 1 anecdotes. There are plenty of n of 1 anecdotes to support big lick Tennessee Walkers and peanut roller Quarter Horses and any other practice excoriated on this board.
No one is talking about BMI. We are talking about total weight. Think sandbags – very well balanced, AI, Boston Dynamics, sandbags. And then only if you are putting that weight on a horse’s back. Up until that point, no one cares what anyone else weighs. Just like no one cares if the guy in the video jerks a pair of reins around – until they are connected to a horse’s mouth.
I have never told anyone either that they were too heavy for their horse or that they are too heavy period. I am just talking about the horses here. We all ride them for our own selfish entertainment. We like to convince ourselves that our horses enjoy it (yes, we have all heard the anthropomorphisized stories about the horse that loved his job), but if we are honest they just want to be left alone. We all have to live with our own level of comfort as to how much we sacrifice our horse’s level of comfort and happiness for our own.
Efforts to label this discussion as fat shaming are thrown up to redirect or try to shut down the discussion. It is clearly not what it is about.
Are you resentful of the people who’ve decided not to “fight” the weight battle and are happily enjoying their equestrian lives, and eating more what they want to?
This reminds me of a friend who’d done “everything right” to prepare to have a child: she had a stable marriage, worked at staying healthy, a job where she’d get at least 3 months paid leave after giving birth, money in the bank, emotional maturity etc. And she terribly resented young women who had none of those things, and went ahead and had kids anyway.
You’re creating a strawman so you have something to argue about. As I said previously, no one has made a blanket statement that it is healthy for any horse to carry 250 pounds under any circumstance. The ability of a horse to safely carry weight is a function of many different factors. Conformation, bone size, and fitness of the horse, rider’s ability and balance, the nature of the riding activity and the duration…
It is certainly correct that not all horses can carry 250 pounds. But it is also certainly correct that there are some horses that can carry 250 pounds under some circumstances.
None of the studies I’m familiar with recommend specific rider weights as being “acceptable” or “not acceptable.” Rider weight is typically expressed as a percentage of horse weight or as a function of some other endpoint (e.g., cannon circumference). That’s because most scientists recognize that you can’t make simple black-and-white statements because of the number of factors affecting the outcome.
My point was that it shouldn’t have gotten to that point at all. Part of being a good rider and a good horse person is acknowledging when it’s time to reevaluate.
Falling off nearly every ride isn’t a normal occurrence. It’s dangerous, especially when you consider that we’re in a pandemic.
I couldn’t give two hoots about horses and riders who are well matched.
There a difference between opinion, informed opinion and data derived from research conducted by the scientific method.
My problem with Dr. Bennett’s quote above, is that it is somewhere between opinion and informed opinion, not anywhere near data derived from rigorous research. Dr. Bennett’s paleontology degree and her previous wonderful work on equine conformation and biomechanics tilts the meter toward informed opinion; but her lack of awareness of her own biases and repetition of old tropes tilts the meter back to straight up opinion, as here, her first bullet point and presumably, her thesis statement:
This is clearly uninformed opinion; as there are tons of examples that refute this, many of which have been cited in this thread.
If Dr. Deb publishes something data driven, I’ll be the first to read it and consider it.
I’m a person who has had a vet observe me and my horses under tack at all gaits to evaluate suitability and whether or not my weight was appropriate/damaging. I have refused to get on multiple horses that I personally thought I was too heavy for, even though other horsemen didn’t. I stopped riding my short, stocky, broad foundation QH at a certain weight (even though he had carried more previously and even though he’s built to be a weight carrier) because it concerned me, and I especially wanted to avoid the rail bird criticism.
The horses I ride regularly (a 16.2 H ISH w/ a size 4 shoe, a 17.3 H CB/TB cross with a size 5 shoe, a 17.3+ RID with a size 5 shoe and a 16.2 draft/TB cross with a size 4 shoe) all have custom fitted saddles, regular chiropractic and body work.
So I’m really, really tired of the guilt tripping.
Are some riders too big/too unfit to ride? YES. Are some riders too big/too unfit for the horses they’re currently riding, and do they need to find something more suitable/appropriate? Also YES. Should many riders, of a variety of shapes and sizes, pay more attention to saddle fit and horses’ clear signs of pain and distress? ALSO YES.
The problem with some of the rhetoric being thrown around in this thread is that horsepeople like me, @tabula_rashah, @KBC, @BigMama1 and others all take it too much too heart and the people who ARE damaging their horses pay no attention at all.
So except in the cases of clear cut, out right abuse, shouldn’t we all just ride our own horses, keep our eyes on our own paper and STFU?
so she is able to sound this way even when just relating her opinions.
