Talking with DGD, I was wondering this. What qualities are we looking for to consider a pony horse-like? Is it enough if the pony is large enough for a person to ride? Does the pony actually have to like wearing a working saddle with stirrups? What if you give them a rubdown afterwards? Is clop more or less weird if these things are present?

2340998

A wild horse doesn't like wearing a working saddle. That's something a horse has to be raised in, or be broken to.

The idea of horse-like ponies I see as broad and open-ended, ranging from realistic representation of horse care to use of horse behavior (ponies in my stories greet each other by sniffing noses) to correction of one of the greatest plagues of Brony fiction, the incorrect use of anatomical terms.

2341176
Would the word 'alicorn', the horn of a unicorn, be one example?

2340998 I think weight is a big one. To often do I read HiE's and the human can carry the pony like a sack of potatoes. This is a pony we're talking about, put some weight on the damn thing.

2341600

Possibly, but since the word is used in fanon and now in canon for a princess, it would likely be confusing.

2341669

This is a big one for me. In my HiEs, I like to emphasize the ponies' weight. In real life, a grown man can carry only the smallest of miniature horses.

And that's another issue: a pony is a horse in a certain size class. As small as most Bronies make the ponies out to be, they wouldn't be ponies at all, but miniatures.

2341692

So what would be an acceptable height and weight for a average ponies in Equestria?

2342780

We have very little in canon to go on, but I for the sake of convenience make them the size of Shetland ponies. I say convenience because that's an animal I can look up the stats on pretty easily.

2342780
Personally I like putting them at Shetland pony height, it's still small, but not the teeny size people like to throw around sometimes. .

In my head, and in a lot of my stories, ponies are just about tall enough to turn doorknobs by mouth. Maybe somepony like Celestia would be tall enough to see eye to eye with an average person.

As for weight, I would think an earth pony or unicorn probably weighs more than the average person. They might be shorter, but they certainly make up for it by being longer. I like to think that pegasi are lighter so they can fly, but that depends on how much magic you want to bring into it.

I think someone used Equestrian girls to show that average MLP ponies should come up to the human waist, so maybe slightly smaller than a shetland pony, but they are definitely stockier and have denser bodies (except maybe Pegasi), so I could totally see a pony weighing as much as an adult human.

2344892>>2343289>>2342909>>2342780

I actually did an experiment to determine an appropriate weight range for the ponies as depicted in the show and assuming general fanon height.

THE LINK IS HERE
(blog contains all the experimental data, methodology, etc.)

In a nutshell, if we assume that Applejack is about 28" tall at the withers and is as dense as a real horse, and that the brushables are accurate models, AJ should weigh between 106 and 152 pounds.

2408920 Interesting.

2408920

Hmm, I'll go and take a look. And see if I can suggest a thing or two.

2408920

Interesting. That's certainly less weight than I would have expected for a horse of that size, but they do have pretty short bodies.

2409260

Me, too--I was in the 400# or so camp. But that's why I did the experiment