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Comment by MagsNMe on January 5, 2011 at 10:24am

When they are quite young, measure from the middle of the knee to the coronary band, and the number in inches is the number in hands. That said my baby is going to be 15.2. He's currently 13hh at six months...

At around the 18 month mark, the string from elbow to fetlock, and pull it up is close. You can actually do it on a full grown horse and 90 percent of them will be right.

That said... who knows?!?! When we bought a weanling 6 1/2 years ago, the breeder figured 16.2hh ... she's 17.3, and that's bigger than her sire. It's a crap shoot.

Comment by vickie lawson on January 4, 2011 at 5:33pm

the 'string' method is to take a string from knee to fetlock then take that measurement up twice from the knee - ie twice the length measured from the knee is supposed to be their final height. i just don't remember at what age it's supposed to be the best predictor.

 

i do ground work up till 2 1/2 or 3, depending on how 'mature' they look , then i start to back them.

Comment by Geoffrey Pannell on January 4, 2011 at 4:19pm

Never had much luck guessing final heights in youngsters. I've not heard of the string method, how does that work? I just look for the gap in the knee, the more gap the more growth.

Depending how they grow, I like to mouth them early and do a lot of ground work with them, if they get big enough I might have a sit on their back without a saddle, just getting on and off to get them use to it. Most are strong enough at 2 for very lite riding ( 15 mins at a time) , they dont really start to work til they are 3 or 4, depends on the individual.

Cheers Geoffrey