Weight & jumping

[Painting Horses]

I have a friend of mine whos around 230lbs and she LOVES to jump. She asked me if her weight affected how high her horse jumps? I didn't know how to answer that so I told her I would post and ask. I'm going to assume it does but I've seen larger riders jumping before so?? shouldn't be a problem? Like I said I wasn't sure so feed back would be great :).

[Kathryn128]

ummm

well it depends on the horse, but realistically, jumping much more than 2'6'' courses at that weight is going to be hard on the horse, i'd think.

what height's she likely to be jumping and what's her horse like?

[Painting Horses]

The horse is a 15.3H paint and she's about... 5'8" I would say?? She working on loseing wieght because she's worried about hurting the horse but at our last show together she did 2'6" with me. She's done 3' before I THINK I wasn't there though. She'd love to go higher but I know she wont if it will possible hurt the horse.

[Daffy Dilly]

I think it's more about balance than weight, although I imagine that weight would place a restriction on how high/fast the horse could ultimately jump.

[Painting Horses]

We ride bearback a lot and we do a lot of bearback jumping, She's got great balance, She can stay on a bucking TB :D. I don't know if i'm a better rider than her or her than me (we've never ridden in the same class at a show lol) but if we ride about the same she has really nice balance.

[Elvengirl]

Well top showjumping men can be quite big, and I'm positive some of them weigh 230 lbs. It is all about balance, the problem is when you are heavy it is easier to get thrown out of balance and harder to get it back plus you have to do a heck of a lot more work to keep yourself centered etc. I'd say that your friend shouldn't jump her 15'2HH horse more than 3ft or so, but if she found herself a larger mount, she might go higher.

[Painting Horses]

Ok thanx for the feed back :), I'll let her know

[Painting Horses]

Hello,
I am PaintingHorses friend Sarah, Should I not do anything higher than 3' because of my weight? or because there can be balance issues? I've done close to 3' before but never done a course. I'm thinking of doing 2'6" course this weekend. I DO NOT want to hurt my horse and i'm trying hard to lose weight becasue i'm worried about hurting him (even though the mad I baugh him from was easy 230+lbs then add the saddle lol). Thank you so much for helping me.
Sarah

[Joyscarer]

I don't see how you can generalise without seeing the horse or rider.

The usual advice of see how the horse goes would be sensible wouldn't it?

[CurlyWurlyRach]

If your horse starts to knock rails and seem to struggle over jumps then put them down until he is happy but id say you should be ok upto 3ft ish but be careful to build him up slowly over fences so you can take a step back if you push a little bit too hard, good on you for caring so much :)

[ongo247]

Hi there.

I think that being overweight does always affect the way you ride, that certainly doesn't mean you still can't be good, but your balance and supplness will be affected, mainly because your centre of gravity is higher, and therefore your weight will inhibit your movement on a horse, which could be detrimental to the horse if jumping regularly over bigger jumps, particlarly if things go a bit wrong and you come down heavily on them, which happens to the best of us!.

If you are worried, then do something about it.

I am also worried about the effects i am having on my horse after gaining weight and therefore am taking action. You could try tesco ediets. I am on the totals plan and have lost a stone in 5 weeks!. I'm going to treat myself to a John Whitaker jacket when I get to my goal!

Good luck
Fi x

[Painting Horses]

Hello
Just a little update on my buddy, she's been schooling lower and is still working on losing weight. It's hard to be active with 112 weather but we do stuff together inside. I'm not much of a stick myself but I don't jump higher than 3' yet. Oh she wanted me to ask, Her doctor said she should weight around 170lbs. Would that be a better weight to go higher at? she feels like that still might be a larger number.

[dilaika]

I'm also significantly heavier than I'd like to be...and this is what my trainer told me. The weight itself just makes the horse work harder...and while it may make you less flexible, but just in itself is not going to change how the horse has to work inherently. Basically...you just have to be aware that the more weight you have, the more your horse is carrying, and just pay attention to how hard they are working. It may mean that you need to take more walking breaks or do the course less times than other people are doing, but it doesn't mean that you can't ride. Just be aware of how hard your horse is working