Really irritated with this girls mother.

[Balloonhearts]

More of a vent than anything.

I work at a riding school who do weekend pony clubs in the summer, and a longer one over the holidays.

We match the riders to their ponies based on height, weight and experience/temperament.

One of my group is very overweight. Three stone heavier than her mother said she is on her form. She cannot ride the pony assigned to her or any of the ponies. She needs a horse. Which would have been fine if we knew when she booked.

Now I'm desperately trying to find a suitable mount before the 3 o clock hack so I don't have to tell this sweet girl that she is unable to go on the hack due to her weight.

WHY do people do this? Just be honest ffs! If we had the right numbers, she would have been given one of the horses but now there is no one suitable left.

Wow, the sheer lack of consideration for the actual pony's welfare by this woman is beyond me. I thought that maybe she just massively underestimated her daughter's weight but apparently not. "Let the poor little pony break its back so long as my precious little darling isn't too far off the floor" 🙄

Hmm, no problem filling the form in then, just devious.

Still laughing.

So, a deliberate lie. And she obviously realised that bigger people should have bigger mounts, if she’d simply been ignorant of that she wouldn’t have lied.

Has the resident thread complainer read the update?

I would love to ride again but am too heavy and broken but I do wonder if people would be so cavalier about accurately giving their weight if they were doing rock climb or bungee jumping or anything that depended on the strength of a rope. I suspect not

Well the OP was expecting a 10 stone child, which is still far too heavy for a 13 year old, 5 foot child. It turns out that the child is actually 13 stone, but the mother didn't tell them. I would say there actually is some neglect there if the mother is that unaware of her child's obesity. The OP did not want to say to the child that she couldn't ride any of the ponies because she is so heavy, but if her mother was more on the ball they could have more easily worked around her size.

The mother deliberately lied.

wow..just wow...well done OP on making the best of a bad situation. The girl will know she's big herself against her peers. Her mother is not doing her any favours.
I've read the thread with admiration. I've never ridden, its on a bucket list but not sure I've got the guts at 58.

She’s a novice rider. The OP said she was wobbling on horse as in unsteady, because she doesn’t have the core and balance of an experienced rider, she wasn’t implying she was wobbling like a blancmange due to her weight

Definitely not weird! We never really had the budget for lessons, I was taught the basics by a family friend as a kid then pretty much worked for lessons / rides for the next 15 years. This definitely led to some questionable moments but also some amazing ones, including regularly riding horses I couldn’t ever hope to own in a month of Sundays! Go for it!!

WOBBLING = UNSTEADY in this context! Sheesh.

Well what a little ray of sunshine you are. Bloody hell.

You clearly have way too much time on your hands to go to this much trouble copying and pasting comments just so you can take them out of context and become offended...🙄

Ah thank you so much to you and OP for your replies on this! This makes it sound like a really possible and quite exciting prospect! There’s a local Riding for the Disabled just 10 mins up the road, think will start with them and see if they could do with a hand 🙂

Do you have the kids again tomorrow OP? Hope you have a good day with them if so. Much better temp now it has dropped back down. I bet the ponies and horses enjoyed their cool baths!

But the latter is the reason for the former. The mother should have a reasonable idea of her childs’ weight - especially if she is taking part in an activity where weight is key. What, do you think the childs’ weight question is on the form for shits and giggles ? It’s not, it’s relevant. The fact that she filled in the form incorrectly suggests that she knows full well her DD is overweight and doesn’t want to admit it. Which doesn’t do the poor pony any good does it. And your earlier statement that OP was only providing a basic service by going to look for a suitable horse is nonsense. A basic level of service would have been to bat the problem back to the mother because there were no suitable animals for her daughter to ride, due to incorrect information. OP didn’t do that. She put herself out. And if you weren’t so entitled you’d have no problem seeing that.

What am I "entitled" to, exactly?

Copying and pasting being such a time-sucking activity, after all...

Heaven forbid that the woman was concerned for her daughter's safety and presumably didn't understand that her child could break a horse by sitting on it.

Oh do give over now, @MasterBeth. Petulance is so very embarrassing for a (presumably) grown adult. The mother lied, the OP went above and beyond and saved the day, the little girl had a fantastic time, and thankfully, no horses were damaged in the process. (No thanks to the mother).

Go and find an actual issue to moan and bitch about.

I know nothing about horses or riding but I I've so enjoyed this thread! You are a star OP!

I caught a doco recently about Zara Tindall where the narrator said she wanted to teach Mike to ride, but apparently it's hard to find a horse that can carry a world-class rugby player. It then showed Mike on a horse that was moving very slowly and did look like it was struggling a bit with the size of him! Also he only wanted to gallop so Zara gave up on him.

Is there an upper limit to the size of person who can ride? Horses only get so big surely?

So Mum did it deliberately to get her daughter on a too-small pony? Jesus. I hope it was pointed out to her that the weigh limit for each horse is for animal welfare reasons. Thank goodness the girl herself has more compassion for them. People are dumb or selfish sometimes.

I don't think she really sees them as living, feeling animals. Some people treat them as equipment. They don't get 'broken' @MasterBeth they get hurt.

I think it’s obvious that some loads will be too heavy for some horses, and that the horses could be hurt or injured if they carry too heavy a load. The mum knew that, she’s not completely thick, surely? She just didn’t care.

If the woman was that concerned about her daughter's safety she would give the correct information so that when her child is being paired with a mount, it is suitable for her. The right horse, or pony, for the right rider is quite critical in a dangerous sport. It is vital that people give the right information to riding schools to avoid accidents.

And as the OP pointed out, horses don't break, they get hurt.

Yes, of course she knew that. There would have been no point lying about her daughter’s weight if she didn’t realise a heavier person will need a stronger - therefore bigger - horse, it wouldn’t have occurred to her. If she was worried about the size of mount her daughter might need she should have gone and discussed it with the school beforehand - asked if there were maybe any strong enough but not too tall horses, I think from what the op says there were some not as big as the one she ended up on.