Small Riding Horses

So they could do a little garden plowing and wood hauling? Mowing? They’d certainly be able to pull a small pleasure cart, my dog is big enough to pull a one passenger cart.

@carl ny 39601 wrote:

I don’t know how big these guys are or the build so it’s hard to tell.Mowing would be the hardest thing you mentioned,you wouldn’t want much over a 4ft. bar.

That’s almost as long as the longest BCS bar, so it wouldn’t be a huge step down from there. (I’m avoiding getting a full sized tractor for now so I won’t get too addicted to fast mowing.)
@carl ny 39601 wrote:

As far as the other stuff,you have to load to the size of your horses. I’ve seen a mini pull two people in a cart,as long as it was good going. HTH

Right, so I’d want to drag one or two logs at a time instead of a sled full… Since I’m just looking at firewood for our house (pleasure stove and fireplace, propane takes care of most of the heating) I’m not worried about haling a whole lot in one shot, and it’s only 1/4 mile or so from the wood lot to the house. There is some steep bits on the way though, so I would need to be conservative with loads. Draft dogs generally are not expected to haul more than 3x their own weight, and then only with a well balanced cart on good paths, is there a guideline like that for horse?

So it’s possible, but still not sure it’s a great idea for a novice to take them on. They’re working on me, they come to see me every time I take a pasture walk. Their real asset is a built in horse sitter, and I can probably get them for a greatly reduced price (maybe free) if I take them as this summer’s rent for the Alpacas. (He should know by fall if he’s gong to be able to build a new barn or not.)

@carl ny 39601 wrote:

P.S. Are you right in Rochester or where? I live outside of Lowville,N.Y. ,if you know where that is.About 150 from you.

We’re moving another half hour east, to Wayne County.

@dominiquer60 39603 wrote:

Sounds like you should start reading some of the old horse threads 🙂

Yeah, I did do some reading when I first toyed with the idea of draft animals, but it has been awhile, and there is a huge difference between reading and doing with such a large animal. Even Great Danes are getting large enough to be hard to handle safely when they’re not calm.

@Eli 39607 wrote:

The way I see it is I don’t have to dump gas in my horse every time I use her and I have to feed her any way. Eli

Well, that’s how I feel about oxen, I’ve got to feed them anyway if I’m going to eat him later. But I’ve no intention of keeping a just for riding horse in the near future, so I won’t be feeding one unless I decide it would be useful enough to be worth keeping.

… and those guys are quite a bit smaller than the riding horses I’m talking about.

Definitely much less stocky and a bit shorter than the Belgian.

I do have a friend that rides a draft horse, but it was my other horse friend that commented they were small for riding horses. I’ve got a couple other horse friends visiting next week, maybe they can tell me more about them. The owner gave us permission to go feed and pet the horses.