How much weight can a horse carry?

When asking the question, “how much weight can a horse carry?” You often hear a response along the lines of “it depends on the breed of the horse, its conditioning and conformation, the distance and time it will travel, the bone structure of the horse, the type of weight the horse will be carrying (for example, living [rider] or dead weight [gear]), weight distribution”, etc. So, with this good advice from your fellow riders, surely you now have a much better idea of ​​how much weight your horse can carry. Right? Of course not. Although your colleagues are right in having Taking all of the above factors into account, you are still in the dark without any guidance on how much weight a horse can carry. Can my horse only carry 80lbs, or is it capable of carrying 300lbs?

Fortunately, some very clever riders over the years have come up with some methods for us to calculate a starting point to help determine how much weight a horse can carry. A very simple guide is to take the weight of the horse and divide it by six to get the total weight, including rider and harness, that the horse can carry. Given this, a 1,200-pound horse could carry up to 200 pounds.

Another quick and popular method is to use the 20% rule. You take 20% of your horse’s body weight and the result is the amount of total weight your horse can carry. For example, a 1,000-pound horse should easily carry 200 pounds of rider and tackle. The 20% rule generally applies to competitive or “hard” driving. For pleasure riding, many use a 30% rule, so this 1,000-pound horse could carry 300 pounds for shorter pleasure rides.

Some use the measurement of a horse’s cannon bone to determine the approximate weight a horse can carry. A measurement is taken around the circumference of the front leg, just below the knee. Add up the weight of the horse plus rider and tack, and divide this sum by the measurement of the circumference of the cannon bone. Then divide that result by two. A number between 75 and 85 is good. If the number is higher than 85, you probably need a bigger horse. Using this method, I measure the circumference of the horse’s cannon bone and get 7.5 inches. Horse body weight is 1,150 pounds and rider and equipment weigh 235 pounds for a total combined weight of 1,350 pounds. Divide 1,350 (combined total weight) by 7.5 (cannon bone) and I get roughly 185. Divide 185 in half and my resulting final number is 93. Using this calculation method, I need to lighten my gear or get a bigger horse to get the number dropped to around 85.

Some guidelines for horses and riders when it comes to carrying weight: