Tip 48: Does Size Matter? Of course it does. The smaller, the better!
The smaller compact horse tends to be the horse of choice for most. The reason is pretty straightforward. Less horse to control, normally better handling due to their shorter coupling and generally easier to hit off of. However, if you come up against a bigger horse, that handles and bumps equally as well, the bigger horse will dominate.
The larger horse is usually, not always, longer strided. That often translates into greater speed on the 300 yard dash. But when you get to the end of the field, how quick is your horse to get back around. An enormous amount of speed won’t help much if you aren’t able to carry and score consistently. You will be the one off the end of the field making rather large crop circles while the rest are back in the game. Most would probably be better with more handle as opposed to more speed.
But back to how tall these guys are. How big is that brown one over there?
5’10”, 5’11”??
Actually, the bay horse over there is 15.1 hands…What? What country uses “hands” as their measuring system. Actually, pretty much all countries when it comes to horse size. A hand is pretty much the width of the average human hand, about four inches. So a 15.1 hand horse is 15 * 4= 60 inches plus one inch, so 61 inches and if you need to go to feet, 5 feet, one inch. Now the average polo pony is just over five feet tall, so why do most of us look up to them? Because they are measured from the top of their withers to the ground. The withers is that bone at the top of their shoulder, just at the front of the saddle. Now some horses have very large withers. Great for keeping the saddle centered, but not great for bareback riding for guys. I learned that one the hard way…..you know…that mickey mouse voice that come from deep down in us guys when a horse stops a little too quick.
Anyway, a horse with no withers is a challenge to keep the saddle from slipping, so as with everything in life, somewhere in the middle is optimal for withers. Why do they measure from the withers instead of the head, like us? This is only a guess……. because it was more practical to count hand over hand from the ground to the withers??
If anyone knows the real answer, write-ins are welcome !!
So 15.1-15.2 hands are often quoted as the ideal height for the reasons already listed. However, if you are a larger person by way of height or width, so should your horse be by height or width. If you are buying a car and need to carry more luggage, you look for a suburban, or an excursion, or a hummer. More to pack, bigger pack horse.
I think 16.1 will normally be the largest on the average. Once you get over 16.1, you are pretty high up for effective malletwork and normally have a little trouble with handling at speed. If 15.2 is desired and is normally your 51 inch mallet, 16.2 means you would need a mallet four inches longer. When it comes to mallet length, shorter is easier to handle, so that pretty well coincides with the horse size as well. The information I offer is general, as some players have much longer arms, and you may have a fairly small horse that just measures big because of large withers.
In any event, now that you have all this swirling around in your head, we’re back to the simple fact……… that size does matter.
Some players try to clone their string by selecting similar type horses. Once you have been at it for a while, you will realize it is not easy to adapt from a large bulky horse to a small narrow type. So some players look for the frame they find most comfortable. Some of the top players and sponsors have brought in the science of embryo transplanting to pretty much dictate the body type of off-spring. Others of us are just lucky to get whatever comes down the polo sales conveyor belt. In any event, this game is a ton of fun on whatever sized horse one might happen to be aboard. So, I wish you four inch hands and a steady horse to measure!!
Feedback: E-mail: polotom@usapolo.com
