To heavy to ride a pony.

[jessica788]

Hi at my riding school i ride a pony its so nice its a big pony it is cute and gentel it looks like a paint horse and i have always wonderd how much wight can a pony carry?????And how much wight can a horse carry????plaese post here thanks alot.

[Mehitabel]

depends entirely on the horse/pony's type, weight, breed, age and level of fitness. petal, my new forest pony, is 14.1hh and can happily carry 13 stone. copper, my gelding, is the same height, but not as stocky and a fair bit older, he happily carried my bf, who's about 11 stone. i wouldn't ask him to carry a lot more.

[lamprellsarah]

it also depends on the amount of bone, this is measured underneath the knee, but some ponies/horses natually carry people!!
my old 12HH welsh carries around 8 stone!! my last cobby type 14.1 could carry like 14-16 stone!!
my one at the moment although 16HH, and bit of bone, has a dipped back and is 21, and i wouldn't be happy with her carrying more than 12 stone if they ride well!!
carrying around a 15 stone person that can ride well is much nicer and easy than a 10 stone person that can't ride!!
yeah ponies soemtime carry weight just as well as horse, it really does depend as ES says on age, breed, ect!!

[Ame]

Not sure if this answers your question or not - but the old rule of weight for natives used to be:

A native pony (pure Welsh/Fell/Shetland/Dales etc) can usually carry 1 stone per hand. Ie. If the pony is 13 hands - he could carry 13 stones.

Obviously this is not a hard and fast rule. Natives can often carry more weight than non-natives, but you must remember that weight carrying abilities vary from horse to horse.

Food for thought :)

Regards,
Ame