Humans domesticated horses more than 5000 years ago for various purposes such as work, travel, and food,… We still think of the brave images of horses associated with knights in battles.
To honor the strength of horses, nowadays, many horse-pulling competitions are held every year.
Do you know how much weight a horse can pull?
This article will help you get the most accurate answer.
How Much Weight Can A Horse Pull? – The Exact Number
The weight a horse can pull is difficult to determine because it depends on many elements, such as the horse’s weight, surface, weather conditions, etc.
If we ignore other factors and focuses only on weight, the states of the horse can be listed as follows:
- 10-15%: horses can move normally.
- 15-20%: horses show relatively little indication of stress.
- Over 25%: horses have noticeably faster breath and higher heart rates when pulling amounting to 25% or more of their body weight, and these became accentuated under 30% loads.
Based on these results, horses are not loaded with greater than 20% of their body weight.
The Unity Of Horses
The strength of the horses when teaming up is beyond our imagination. Two horses pulling together not only drag twice as much as one.
But they can also actually pull three times their body weight. Each horse of two pulls 240 pounds alone when teaming up can pull 720 pounds together.
If the two horses that are pulling together have trained with one another and have worked together before, they can even pull four times as much working together as they can by themselves.
So, The Highest Weight Is…
Well, the highest weight recorded by 2 Belgian horses weighed 4800 pounds. They pulled 17,000 pounds over seven feet. This weight is over 3.5 times their body weight.
We can see the strength of horses when they get trained well.
However, horses are not often used to pull heavy objects because of their unideal stamina.
While a horse might keep going with the heavy load and hurt himself, it will not be a concern with a mule. That’s why donkeys are more popular in freights.
Source:
- http://www.bellcrowncarriages.com/resource/weight/
- https://www.horsesciencenews.com/horseback-riding/how-much-weight-can-a-horse-carry.php
