Hi - I just joined new rider as I see there are a lot of adult pony riders - Lovely photos of you and your beautiful ponies! I'm wondering how you deal with the naysayers? This is a photo of me 2nd day backing one of our lovely connemara ponies (the funny face is me waiting for a possible bronck - didn't happen though). She is completely comfortable carrying me - i can feel she's balanced. I made the mistake of asking what anyone thought on a 'smaller connemara pony' forum - my reasoning being that if I'm going to do dressage or anything public with her I'd better have an answer for the weight police! Well rather than advice i got cyber bullied! I weigh 12 stone - 12 and a half in the photo - and I'm 5'7" - i ride light. She's 14' 1" 10 yo stocky connemara. It was only a couple of people but it was pretty nasty. I have a centre for kids riding in nature - with therapeutic riding - using connemara and rare native kerry bog ponies - so I'm lucky to have a few ponies i can potentially ride. I sold my big sport horse as lovely as she was i just prefer ponies & the more work i do with the kids the less time i have for maintaining a big horse (whereas the ponies can be ridden by the kids). So because I'm involved with native breeds and I advertise the business in social media i really want to inform myself to be ready for anyone who thinks adults on ponies is cruel etc. - without their taking into account the pony's individual weight bearing capacity etc.
I'm considering measuring her loins, her leg bone etc to be really prepared for them. The 2nd photo is me with one of the chunkier kerry bog ponies - I've never seen anything like the strength of these lads - like an 18hh draught they're so strong. (They do things like charge through strong, post and rail fencing - snapping it - not blinking an eyelid just to get out to buddies etc ). I'd like a formula for these too as they are incredibly rare, there's very little market for small ponies in Ireland at present, they make great kids ponies after a lot of training - & to get experience they ideally need an experienced teenager to work with them for a while (particularly the geldings). I have the teenagers riding them - no doubt the weight police will be onto me soon (). The 3rd photo shows a lighter gelding on the left who is fit as a fiddle from all his frolicking in the paddock & carries his 15yo tall rider -never tiring or blowing, even in canter, and in perfect balance. The much chunkier pony on the right with the other teenager is also as strong as an ox. My 7yo daughter was riding the narrower pony but at 4 he's still very green and needs to learn the ropes. If i thought he was anyway hurt by a bigger rider i wouldn't put one on. But i can see they hardly notice they have a rider. And having stronger teenagers riding them is really the key to training them as they are beautiful, amazing, incredibly strong, feisty as anything & will only survive long-term as a breed if they are ridden - & in my experience they take a lot more work to train than our connemaras have (some breeders say they are easy to train - but none of them who say that have ever trained 1!). We've trained & used 7 in our centre for little kids - 5 being mares, 1 being a gelding trained by 1 of only 2 other people in UK & ireland training them specifically - she is a light-weight rider & rode him herself, and the other a gelding we trained ourselves. We have 3 other geldings currently in training - Ridden by my own kids but too strong for beginners at present, and 4 more mares in training who tend to also be strong but easier to train . You couldn't explain to people how strong these ponies are - unless they've come across a feisty pony on their travels. The 15/ 20% rule just wouldn't seem to equate to the kerry bog pony's unbelievable strength. Sorry for the long post. I would like to find out people's accumulated knowledge & experience - then i can write an informed post for my website - and refer anyone who is giving out to it. If anyone is interested in photos of the ponies my website is www.wildmountainequestrian.com
I'm considering measuring her loins, her leg bone etc to be really prepared for them. The 2nd photo is me with one of the chunkier kerry bog ponies - I've never seen anything like the strength of these lads - like an 18hh draught they're so strong. (They do things like charge through strong, post and rail fencing - snapping it - not blinking an eyelid just to get out to buddies etc ). I'd like a formula for these too as they are incredibly rare, there's very little market for small ponies in Ireland at present, they make great kids ponies after a lot of training - & to get experience they ideally need an experienced teenager to work with them for a while (particularly the geldings). I have the teenagers riding them - no doubt the weight police will be onto me soon (). The 3rd photo shows a lighter gelding on the left who is fit as a fiddle from all his frolicking in the paddock & carries his 15yo tall rider -never tiring or blowing, even in canter, and in perfect balance. The much chunkier pony on the right with the other teenager is also as strong as an ox. My 7yo daughter was riding the narrower pony but at 4 he's still very green and needs to learn the ropes. If i thought he was anyway hurt by a bigger rider i wouldn't put one on. But i can see they hardly notice they have a rider. And having stronger teenagers riding them is really the key to training them as they are beautiful, amazing, incredibly strong, feisty as anything & will only survive long-term as a breed if they are ridden - & in my experience they take a lot more work to train than our connemaras have (some breeders say they are easy to train - but none of them who say that have ever trained 1!). We've trained & used 7 in our centre for little kids - 5 being mares, 1 being a gelding trained by 1 of only 2 other people in UK & ireland training them specifically - she is a light-weight rider & rode him herself, and the other a gelding we trained ourselves. We have 3 other geldings currently in training - Ridden by my own kids but too strong for beginners at present, and 4 more mares in training who tend to also be strong but easier to train . You couldn't explain to people how strong these ponies are - unless they've come across a feisty pony on their travels. The 15/ 20% rule just wouldn't seem to equate to the kerry bog pony's unbelievable strength. Sorry for the long post. I would like to find out people's accumulated knowledge & experience - then i can write an informed post for my website - and refer anyone who is giving out to it. If anyone is interested in photos of the ponies my website is www.wildmountainequestrian.com
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