So no one is allowed to discuss how much weight it is appropriate to put an animal that is not built to carry any weight – because you don’t want it discussed? By anyone? Ever?
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Try Google and Google Scholar.
Here are some I have readily at hand, but you can find more by searching.
And I will caution you to actually read the entire articles and look carefully at the data tables, because what you read in the abstract isn’t always an entirely accurate reflection of the data. A common problem is that the abstract will say “X is less than Y,” but when you look at the data tables, you find that the difference isn’t statistically significant or that there isn’t a consistent trend.
Debra M. Powell, Karen Bennett-Wimbush, Amy Peeples and Maria Duthie. 2008. Evaluation of Indicators of Weight-Carrying Ability of Light Riding Horses. Journal of Equine Veterinary Science. 28(1): 28-33.
Matsuura, Akihiro, Mami Irimajiri, Kunihiro Matsuzaki, Yuko Hiraguri, Toshihiko Nakanowatari, Atusi Yamazaki, and Koichi Hodate. “Method for estimating maximum permissible load weight for Japanese native horses using accelerometer‐based gait analysis.” Animal Science Journal 84, no. 1 (2013): 75-81.
Garlinghouse SE and Burrill MJ (1999). Relationship of body condition score to completion
rate during 160km endurance races, Eq Vet J Suppl 30: 591-595.
Stefánsdóttir, G. J., V. Gunnarsson, L. Roepstorff, S. Ragnarsson, and A. Jansson. “The effect of rider weight and additional weight in Icelandic horses in tölt: part I. Physiological responses.” animal 11, no. 9 (2017): 1558-1566.
Gunnarsson, V., G. J. Stefánsdóttir, A. Jansson, and L. Roepstorff. “The effect of rider weight and additional weight in Icelandic horses in tölt: part II. Stride parameters responses.” animal 11, no. 9 (2017): 1567-1572.
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It’s appropriate to discuss based on facts and data-driven research - which is exactly what most of us have been doing for pages, in multiple threads. Not appropriate to proclaim opinion as fact, and then criticize those who don’t agree with your opinion.
Most of the available research out there provides a ratio of rider weight to horse weight as a guideline. Within that guideline other factors must then be considered such as conformation, fitness, soundness, type and duration of work, saddle fit, rider skill, etc. Do you disagree with that general guideline?
For individuals the best bet is to do what I do, along with several others here who have mentioned the same. Work closely with your trainer, vet, and saddle fitter to make sure your horse is appropriate for your weight and to watch for any changes.
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Well here are some studies.
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You are really working this, aren’t you. We start with a discussion about a very bad guy, and how the FEI dealt with him, and, per usual, those who are desperately insecure about their issues come out blasting. Think about why. No one here has any idea what you weigh, or cares. You all outed yourselves with your posts. At the end of the day, I simply can’t care about those issues.
Regarding having kids? It’s hard to express how much I don’t care about that. Animal abuse- and I am not implying that any is happening here- that has been my Crusader Rabbit mission of a lifetime. Kids? You want 'em? Fine. I never did. My children have always had four legs.
No one set out to “fat shame” you. You chose to do that for yourselves by jumping on this issue with the attacks on others. You think that you are defending your position? That isn’t how it looks, at the end of the day.
If you and your horses are happy, there is nothing else to say.
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What do you figure that their BMI’s are? The mass that they are carrying is undoubtedly more muscle mass than anything else.
This is a poor comparison, at best.
So here I am two weeks ago. The morning I got on this horse, I weighed 199.8 pounds (BMI 33.1) , so I’m guessing 220ish with tack, etc. Mare was a catch ride for me. We finished 25 miles in 4h 1 m. She passed every vet exam with flying colors, pulsed down to 48 immediately coming off trail and never showed a sign of slowing. Then last Saturday I ran (on my own feet )16 miles of trail with 1700’ of elevation gain in 4.5 hours. By BMI, I am still considered obese (which is effin ridiculous). But clearly I’m just a lazy fatty who shouldn’t be on a horse.
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This was just a side note. I also don’t have kids, never wanted any, and having them in the usual way was pretty much out of the question due to my medical issues. It was just a possible parallel… someone who “did everything right” being resentful of people who didn’t, yet still seemed to have a good life.
For the record, my mare has an upper weight limit of about 170 pounds including gear – about 17% of her “normal” body weight, and my primary motivation to keep my weight stable for the past 10+ years has been to honor that limit. She was ridden by someone too heavy for her before I bought her, and had some unnecessary wear and tear from that. If it was a daily “fight” to keep my weight down for her sake, I’d be looking for a different horse.
(I’m quite unfit at the moment, and working very slowly back into doing things other than walking trail rides. Seven solid minutes of trotting and cantering wipes me out…)
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Your words. Not mine
The mare is adorable. What’s her breeding?
Saquon Barkley, at 6’0" and 234lbs, has a BMI of 31.7, putting him into the obese category. BMI doesn’t tell you anything about muscle mass.
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You do know that BMI has absolutely nothing to do with muscle mass, right? It doesn’t care whether your weight is body fat, or lean muscle. It’s simply a number based on height and weight. Period. Which is why it is pretty much useless as an indicator of health.
If you genuinely don’t care what overweight people do, as long as they are happy, then why are you still trying to start arguments about it?
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Actually, the hilarious part about the latter is that you’re wrong.
Here’s one such gal https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fat-shaming-marathon-runner_n_5c49dbcde4b0e1872d41dcd2
And I don’t get why you’re so salty about the whole thing given that you started the thread asking what we thought about a 15% bodyweight limitation. There are many people who are tired of the weight conversation in equestrian sports - myself included. Doesn’t mean I’m over any limits (I’m not), but it does mean that I think this focus on weight above all other things is damaging, promotes disordered eating which is endemic in horse sports, and the faulty information about weight & fitness is just annoying as all get out.
Weight and fitness are not and cannot be conflated.
Now, if you want to focus on the fitness of riders? Absofricken-lutely. I am a huge advocate of rider fitness, am in the gym on the daily myself and happen to have happily discovered the Dressurfit program which kicks my butt on the daily.
But when we bring Dr Bennett, % weight limits, and people making comments about other people and their willingness and/or desire to compete based on their BMI into the conversation, I am NOT on board.
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Wow! Now that is someone I call inspiring.
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Ok, topic of the thread aside, what the hell is a scored 1.5 horse doing at the Tevis, and why weren’t they turned away?
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There are some horses built like greyhounds, won’t carry an extra ounce of fat or muscle and always look like a skeleton model.
We had one such chestnut mare in our riding school, embarrassing, as she really looked awfully skinny.
In reality she was an awesome school horse with kids and excellent competitor in our two day, 200 km endurance rides with one of the riding center students, a slight lady that adored the mare.
In the many years I spent there growing up, she was still going strong when I left,.
She must have been then her late teens.
Most horses you would worry if so skinny, for her, is who she was, as they say here, “looked like a gutted snowbird”.
I have seen pictures of endurance rides and occasionally a horse there looks like she did.
I think we are used to fatter horses being healthier, but maybe we have to remember that there is not something wrong with every super skinny horse?
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I apologize, but I don’t fall for that - sounds similar to the people who say the old horse is skinny “because they’re old”.
Horses have different dietary needs, sure. Those “special” horse’s diets can get expensive and unruly. But when you’re competing a horse - or really even if you own them at all -, you need to do the due diligence to get them to an acceptable weight.
“Built like a greyhound” sounds like an akhal-teke, who in their “typical” racey body condition score a 3-4. Something at 1.5 should not be doing an endurance event.
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This is the EXACT same thing that happened to me!! I hate running and I literally don’t have time to run. I like walking but again don’t have any time between riding and gardening projects (both of which are exercise anyways). I think I might try Noom.
And similar to Tabula- who is clearly super fit riding 25 miles and running 16 miles but still falling into the obese category by BMI, when I weighed 60 lbs. less, I was 2 pants sizes smaller. Right now I’m a 16, sometimes a 14. 60 lbs ago I was a 12, sometimes a 10. But apparently now I am significantly fatter.
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They shouldn’t have been. I totally agree and after this study and another one done in 1998 on body score condition, they no longer are allowed to start below a certain score (but I can’t remember what off the top of my head because no horse of mine is ever in danger of being too low of a body score lol)
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That wasn’t two studies. That was one study, cited twice in two articles.
So I went found the study, which isn’t available for free, but found this synopsis https://ker.com/equinews/horses-weight-carrying-ability-studied/.
Interestingly, they mention two things - loin width as a function of increased ease with weight carrying (as we have all acknowledged before) and that the horses were not fit before they started the study (they were horses brought in from the pasture), and the horses worked one day and were rested for 14 days.
The muscle damage measurements are interesting as muscle damage is actually the way we get stronger when we lift weights. We damage our muscles, our bodies repair them, and then we get stronger. So we could say that the heavyweight riders actually got the horses fitter faster 
At any rate, this study still doesn’t really represent how horses are usually worked and ridden. If I rode my horse once a day, every two weeks, at the walk trot and canter for a “set period”, he would be sore and it would have nothing to do with my weight, but more of a “weekend warrior” sort of deal. Heck, even if I work him in the lines once and then rest him for two weeks he’s going to be sore…and crabby. Because that’s how exercise works.
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