A shaggy brown Welsh mountain pony with a flaxen mane standing in rough moorland grass in Wales

How much does a horse weigh in stone?

Bymuntaseer

An average adult riding horse weighs about 78.6 stone — 1,100 lb, or 499 kg. A native pony is nearer 54.5 stone and a heavy draft horse can pass 126.

The arithmetic is simple enough that it is worth knowing rather than looking up: a stone is exactly 14 lb, so pounds divided by 14 gives stone. The awkward part is that stone is almost never written as a decimal in Britain, where it is used.

1,100 lb is 78.6 stone as a number and 78 st 8 lb as anybody would actually say it.

Why searching this mostly returns racing pages

Search for a horse’s weight in stone and most of what comes back is about horse racing, which is confusing until you realise the word means something different there.

In British and Irish racing, a horse’s “weight” is the handicap it has been set to carry — the jockey plus saddle, lead and kit — and it is quoted in stone and pounds because that is the unit riders are weighed in.

That figure has nothing to do with how heavy the horse is. It is a rule of the race, not a fact about the animal, and it is a fraction of the horse’s own weight.

If you came here from a racecard, the number you are looking at is the load, not the horse.

This page is about the animal. Everything below is the horse’s own weight, worked from measurements.

How much does a horse weigh in stone, by type

These are published ideal weights at condition score 5 — what each type of horse ought to weigh, worked from wither height and body length by the equation the research produced.

A real horse of the same height carries whatever its condition puts on top.

Typical adult weight in stone, pounds and kilograms — the published ideal weight at condition score 5
Type of horse Stone Pounds Kilograms
Shetland or small pony 32.1 st 450 lb 204 kg
Welsh or native pony, 13 hh 54.5 st 763 lb 346 kg
Cob or large pony, 14.2 hh 71.2 st 997 lb 452 kg
Arabian, 15 hh 76.0 st 1,064 lb 483 kg
Quarter Horse, 15 hh 81.4 st 1,139 lb 517 kg
Warmblood, 16.2 hh 100.6 st 1,408 lb 639 kg
Draft horse, 17 hh 126.3 st 1,768 lb 802 kg

Two things worth noticing. The spread from the smallest pony to the largest draft horse is more than five times, so “a horse” is not a useful unit of anything.

And height is a poor guide on its own — the equation needs body length as well, because two horses of the same height with different backs are different animals.

How much does a horse weigh in stone in pounds?

Both directions of the same conversion, for the weights that come up. The middle column is the decimal a calculator gives you; the one beside it is how it would be said aloud.

Pounds to stone, both ways of writing it
Pounds Stone, as a decimal Stone and pounds Kilograms
400 lb 28.6 st 28 st 8 lb 181 kg
600 lb 42.9 st 42 st 12 lb 272 kg
800 lb 57.1 st 57 st 2 lb 363 kg
1,000 lb 71.4 st 71 st 6 lb 454 kg
1,100 lb 78.6 st 78 st 8 lb 499 kg
1,200 lb 85.7 st 85 st 10 lb 544 kg
1,400 lb 100.0 st 100 st 635 kg
1,600 lb 114.3 st 114 st 4 lb 726 kg
1,800 lb 128.6 st 128 st 8 lb 816 kg
2,000 lb 142.9 st 142 st 12 lb 907 kg

A quick way to do it in your head: divide by 14 by halving three times — 1,100 becomes 550, then 275, then 137.5 — and you have 78.6, near enough, because 14 is two off sixteen.

It is close enough for a conversation and hopeless for a wormer dose, which is what the calculator is for.

Working out your own horse in stone

You need a tape and someone to hold the horse.

Measure the heart girth all the way round, over the highest part of the withers and behind the elbow, and the body length from the point of the shoulder to the point of the buttock.

Then:

stone = (girth × girth × length) ÷ 330 ÷ 14, with both measurements in inches.

For a 74″ girth and a 66″ body that comes to 78.2 stone, or 78 st 3 lb.

Add wither height and neck circumference and use the equation fitted for the horse’s type and the same animal comes out at 84.1 stone — the two-measurement formula tends to read light on a well-covered horse.

Do not trust a weight tape for the absolute figure. Weight tapes read lighter than a scale, by anywhere from 5% to 25%, which on a 78.6-stone horse is a gap of 16 stone.

Tapes are excellent at measuring change and poor at measuring weight, so keep one for the trend and take proper measurements twice a year for the number.

What a stone of horse is worth

One stone is not much on an animal this size, and that is worth internalising before worrying about a few pounds either way.

A whole condition score — the visible difference between a horse in good order and one carrying too much — is 2.6 stone on a stock horse, 1.6 stone on a pony and 6.1 stone on a draft horse.

So a horse two condition scores over its ideal is carrying about 5.3 stone of surplus, which is the sort of figure that actually matters. A 1.0-stone difference between two readings a fortnight apart is gut fill and time of day.

Common questions about horse weight in stone

How much does a full grown horse weigh?

Most adult riding horses fall between 64.3 and 92.9 stone — 900 to 1,300 lb, or 408 to 590 kg. The figure feeding charts are written around is 78.6 stone.

Ponies run from about 28.6 to 64.3 stone and draft horses from 114.3 upwards.

Is there a calculator for horse weight in stone?

Our horse weight calculator prints stone alongside pounds and kilograms on every answer, so there is nothing to convert afterwards. Give it four measurements and it also returns what the horse ought to weigh and an estimated condition score.

How much does a Clydesdale horse weigh?

A Clydesdale is a draft horse, so the draft equation applies: at 17 hands and a 76-inch body its published ideal weight is about 126.3 stone, or 1,768 lb (802 kg).

Individual Clydesdales range widely either side of that, and the draft equation is the one to use — the ordinary riding-horse formula reads badly on a horse this shape.

How much does a racehorse weigh?

A racehorse in training is a light riding horse, so it sits at the bottom of the riding-horse range rather than the top — somewhere around 87.2 stone for a 16-hand animal with a 68-inch body, using the equation fitted for light types.

There is no published equation for Thoroughbreds specifically that we have been able to read, so treat that as an approximation.

And be careful with the word “weight” around racing: the figure on a racecard is the handicap the horse has been set to carry, jockey and kit included, and is not the horse’s own weight at all.

What is a horse’s weight in stone in kg?

A stone is 14 lb, which is 6.35 kg. So 78.6 stone is 499 kg, and a round 500 kg horse is 78.7 stone.

Britain and Ireland are the only places that use stone for animals at all; everywhere else in Europe uses kilograms and the United States uses pounds.

How much does a pony weigh in stone?

Between about 32.1 and 71.2 stone depending on how big it is — that is a small Shetland type at the bottom and a 14.2 hh cob at the top.

Native ponies are heavier for their height than they look, which is exactly why measuring beats guessing when you are working out a wormer dose.

Related calculators and guides

Where these figures come from

Every figure on this page is published and cited. Where sources disagree we take the more conservative one and say so.

Our full approach is set out in how we source our numbers.