I don’t know, if you are too heavy to ride your horse. but here is the nitty gritty facts and figures of me riding my horse.

I currently weight 22stone (308lbs)

Nas weighs around 1250-1300lbs -sometimes as much as 1330lbs-

His cannon bone is 9.5inches. and he’s not as fit as he could be.

If we work on the percentage rule: you divide 308 (my weight) by 1300 (Nas’s weight) and then times by a 100 = 23%

ok so I am actually surprised by that I thought I was closer to the 30% mark.

20% is the figure everyone likes to harp on about.

There are other systems using the cannon bone you divide the weight of horse+rider+tack and divide by cannon bone in inches. you then divide again by 2…

1300 (Nas) + 308 (me) + 20 (tack)= 1628 / 9.5 (cannon) = 171.368 / 2 =85.6

This is the top end of the acceptable range, ideally it should be between 75 and 85.

The main flaw with both of these systems is that Nas’s weight can actually have the biggest impact…

In the first instance it would be the MORE he weighs, the more I can weigh.

In the second one, its the opposite the LESS he weighs, the more I can weigh.

Either way its win win for me,  All of this is irrelevant to me though, all I want to know is will I hurt him by riding, and the only way I will know that is by riding him. I will of course be having his back checked regularly.