Has anyone ever heard of measuring a horses leg to determine how much weight they can carry?

Question

Someone told me you can measure the circumference of a horses leg and there is a formula that tells you how much weight they should be able to carry. If you have heard of this and know where to measure and what the measurements equal in weight I would appreciate it. Or a website link that does this...

Answer 1

Yes, it's the circumference of the cannon bone that you measure but I don't know the calculation.

Searching now........

Edit> here it is

http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Much-Weigh...

Answer 2

hmm.... i've never heard of the circumference of a horses leg in relation to how much it can carry... It sounds a bit complicated.

A horse can safely carry 20-25% of its body weight, so if you know your horse's weight just use:

(your horses weight) x 0.25=amount of weight it can safely carry

Answer 3

I have heard of studys which measure the circumference of the horse's cannon bone and put riders of different weights on them and compared the results.  There was an article about this in either Practical Horseman or Horse Illustrated (sorry I'm not sure which one).  However not enough studys have actually been done to have a "chart" which says how much weight a horse can carry.  There are so many variables that it can't be determined by one thing.

Personally, I think the rider's ability largely determines what size horse they can ride.  For example, I would much rather put an experienced 200lb rider on my horse, than a 120lb rider who flops around and hurts my horse.