Big Horses versus Smaller Horses

good afternoon duane here dry creek wrangler school uh going to try to make another video today um i got a question on on the channel um about a subject that i had addressed in passing in another video and uh i think the question was asked in in the right heart in the right manner and it's a good question and so i want to answer it and cover today and i want to talk about big horses versus little horses uh and it may be more relevant than you uh first thing um by the way before we get started i had another fella uh comment about just mention to me that the volume has been pretty low and it has been and i apologize for that i finally went today and got me an adapter so i could plug the microphone into my phone hopefully that helps the volume and things are a little better but big horses versus small horses and what this person asked was how come you as a big man with heavy saddles ride little horses now i just i want to clarify me as a big man i'm six foot tall and 180 pounds i'm i'm not a giant of a fella um and but my but my saddle i do have working saddles and that's what the video they were watching was talking about was a good working side is a heavy saddle so i at six foot tall and 180 pounds and my saddle when it's fully rigged saddlebags is slicker it's it's a good 50 pounds how come i ride i prefer to ride little horses well let me let me start let me back up and let's talk about the physiology about the thing for a minute okay so let's compare big horses to big men and little horses to little men okay now you take big men i mean really big men so in today's popular culture when you think of a big man you think of the rock johnson or you might think of shaquille o'neal some most basketball players some of the football players really big men so the idea is uh if a fella is a good-sized fella and he has a good sized saddle then he should have a big horse um but you these big men when these big men okay they're in sports now wrestling football basketball it's a controlled environment i am not at all taken away from their athleticism they're incredible athletes but their athleticism is in a very narrow category when these guys retire what do they do do they take up mountain biking do they take up rock climbing do they start running triathlons marathons no they don't um they bulk up really big in a controlled environment in the gym and start doing movies uh or they take up golf think about it michael jordan what's he known for today golf um these guys do not take up these high output athletic activities why because they're not built for it the olympics is coming up this year um if you watch long distance running if you watch marathons if you watch the high jump pole vaulting sprinting if you are ever out on the trails and you watch hikers you watch mountain bikers you watch those kind of athletic people they're not big people they're not big people and horses are the same way okay you take a horse that's 16 hands and 1200 pounds he has to carry that without a saddle without a person he has to carry his weight and his size and then you add a person to it you add a saddle to it and then you head up into some really super steep up and down very rocky sagebrush that's knee high or hip high on me and then you go into the timber thick trees stands of aspen you go into all that narrow trails uh they don't do well because they're not built for that they're not built for that they have to eat more to maintain their own body size they have to they recover slower big men big horses have a slower metabolism than smaller men smaller horses it takes them longer to recover from extreme exertion um and so i have found that small tough horses do better in rough country and in rough work than big horses you take the same size man the same size saddle in the exact same terrain now there's exceptions to every rule if somebody gets on there and says hey my horse old blue now now just wait a minute i'm not talking your horse down okay we're just speaking general rules here you take a a horse that's 14 2 [Music] and 800 pounds now for me that's ideal that's the perfect size horse for me okay so you take that horse and you stand him right here and you take now he's he's in shape okay we didn't just pull him out of a flatland pasture somewhere he's in shape and then you take a 16-hand 1200 pound horse right here and you put a 50-pound saddle on this horse and a 50-pound saddle on this horse and you put a 180-pound man on this horse and 180-pound man on this horse and you go side by side up the same trail into really steep country really high country with a lot of rocks a lot of narrow trails a lot of timber a lot of dead falls a lot of logs to go over a lot of ravines to go down and up and at the end of a day after eight hours of riding as a rule the little horse will be in a lot better shape than the big horse okay the big horse generally will be he'll be more wore out he'll have a harder time not only that but the foundation of a horse is their hooves okay so you take a really big horse needs a really big hoof to support him a little horse needs a little hoof well which one is going to be more nimble in rough country which one is going to be more um able to pick its way through really thick stuff really rocky jumbled up ground dead falls where trees are crisscross to each other pick their way down really steep slopes or up really steep slopes it's going to be the smaller hooks just like the smaller men are rock climbing and are in the back country in the extreme the smaller horses do better and so it's it's more um it's it's more conscientious of the horse for one thing uh it's it's not rare it's not right in in my view to take a horse that is not anatomically designed for a certain genre and put him in it any more than his right to take a little horse and put him out in a plowed field and put a big old plow behind him he's not built for that he's not designed for that now some anecdotal reference here we went out the other day and and i've mentioned it before and some really super steep really rough really rugged country there were 13 of us out there gathering cattle in the mountains there was not one big horse in the bunch these are guys that do this for a living there i don't think there was one mare there was one mare that was over 15 hands there were two or three that were at 15 hands and then predominantly most of the horses were at like 14-2 and they were slimmer more rawhide built horses um because the guys know they do this for a living they know that these type horses they do better uh if you're if you are going up a really steep grade okay and it's covered in sagebrush and it's rocky and you've got a five week old calf scampering up uh trying to trying to get away and you've got to tear up that slope after that calf you've got to go uphill through the sage and through the rocks at speed without falling and without slipping to get up and around that calf to push that calf back down you do not want a great big horse you do not want some thoroughbred that 16 hands and and fine bone you don't want some you don't want something that's 16 hands and half percheron with size 4 shoe you want an athlete that can scamper up and pick its way through that without falling get above the calf at speed and push the calf back down and if you're packing a ring that's the same thing you go through if you've never tried to ride through aspen deadfall before um it's it is its own challenge and you have a giant horse and you've got an aspen tree about that big around that has fallen across another aspen tree so the top of that tree is 18 inches above the ground and the trail is only about so wide and you and they have to go over it now it seems counter-intuitive maybe if you're a little bit green but the little horse can nimble his way over that log much easier than a big horse because a big horse has to get all of his size and all of his body weight as massive as it is over that log plus his rider in the saddle um the taller the horse the taller you are up in the trees you can't pick your way through the heavy stuff big horses are long-legged so it's really hard for them to slow down and be nimble and pick their way through the rough stuff be it sagebrush or a pine thicket or aspen grove um and so so yes i i ride smaller horses uh at my size it's easier on me [Music] because the horse isn't as likely to fall and we can go through the rough stuff and get the job done but it's easier on the horse um it's like taking one of these great big football players now some of these football players they do phenomenal speed at you know at the 100 yard dash phenomenal but they're not going to run a 26 mile marathon and it would it would not be fair to take charles barkley even at his prime and put him on a 26-mile marathon he's not built for it okay and so it's not fair to take these great big giant horses that are better designed and built for a certain deal to take them and put them in our world because they don't fit in our world they do not do well uh we have to have horses we have to have horses that can do the job that we're out there to do um and so it's better for us the little horses but it's also easier on the horse so i hope that answers some questions i i hope it makes sense um a lot of your really big horses have i mean you're really tall horses that are so popular out there they have a lot of thoroughbred blood in them so there's another another side of this your little horses tend to be more cold-blooded bread um hot blooded your arabs okay your your thoroughbreds your warm blood your hunter jumpers your your you know these horses they're hot bred and they're long and they're tall and they're lean and they're made for flat country at high rates of speed but they also tend to be more hyped up they tend to be more nervous they tend to have finer bones um and we're a smaller horse not always there's exceptions to every rule again but a smaller horse they tend to be calmer and they tend to be able to look and to focus on what they're doing and pick their way through so it's not a form of abuse um it's it's finding the tool that fits the job okay so i hope this makes a little bit of sense i hope this explains it so when like i said in the previous video i did several months ago about buying a horse that's where i had first broached this subject if you're going to buy a horse you need to know what you're going to do with that horse and if you're going to be riding in rough country um i would strongly consider that you look at smaller horses now i don't mean ponies okay but like i said 14-2 for me about 14-2 and 800 pounds is about the perfect size and for those that don't know 14 2 a horse is measured from their withers which if you look at the net coming down here's the net coming down there should be if the horse is built right a little peak a little ridge right there that goes down into the back top of that peak is the withers if you measure from that withers to the ground a horse is measured in hands a hand is four inches okay so if you measure from the ground up to the top of those withers all right however many inches that is so a hand is four inches so it'll be 14 hands and two extra inches 15 hands as you measure 15 times four and that's how many inches they are so that's just over a lot of years of experience that's what i have found the the best horse i ever had in the mountains the best horse i ever had uh her name was scotch and she was a little bay roan mare and she was 14 2 and about 800 pounds and i've mentioned her in other videos before i rode her in the mountains of alaska and i rode the hound out of that mare but i fed her really good i took really good care of her and she just became just a slab of muscle never soared never tired never quit never gave up she carried me through some of the roughest country you could imagine but we had on that outfit we had some big horses and they didn't fare near so well okay so um i hope this helps you if you like the content click on like and um if you haven't subscribed go ahead and subscribe for me and and then just keep riding okay be safe be logical be reasonable and have fun and i'm gonna add this to be logical and to be reasonable in this day and age what that means is do not get your information and your philosophies and your ideas of the reality of horses from hollywood okay hollywood goes with what looks good not what works good all right so we don't want to do hollywood all right so have fun and we'll catch you next time

Channel: Dry Creek Wrangler School

Views: 43,822

Rating: 4.9671235 out of 5

Keywords: trail rides, riding a smaller horse, rough country riding, big horses

Id: cUV6opomqTo

Length: 17min 12sec (1032 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 02 2021