Big, Little, and a Lot In Between

So I was asked recently, is that horse a baby? Is a baby horse a pony?

This question immediately makes the innate horse lover cringe! But alas, I will walk you through this without the eye rolling :)

Ok here's the deal horses are measured in hands (1 hand = 4 inches) it's an oldie time thing, so don't stress over it, just accept it.
To measure a horse you use a stick - they make specific devices for this, but you could use a yard stick (if anyone still has one of those around) or a tape measure, do some math and poof you'd know how tall in horse speak your horse actually is.

So where do you measure a horse. Well like other four legged critters you measure from the shoulders to the ground. In horse speak you're getting the height at the withers.

So why is this important in discussing ponies vs horses vs baby horses.

Well ponies have their own breeds, but a lot of their classification revolves around height and we are keeping this simple.

So here are some words for the horse beginning
(or parent of horse beginning, FYI HH means hands high)

Foal - A baby horse, baby pony, baby equine critter
(babies can be defined differently, equines are weaned generally at 6 months old and stop growing around 3 years old, however many continue to grow a little until they hit around age 5)

Average Horse Foals at play (via Google Images) Note these babies are taller at birth than some full grown ponies.

Pony - An equine that is under 14HH (some registries disagree and say it's under 14.3HH, but again keeping it simple)

Mini Horse - Smallest of the Ponies (via Google Images)

Icelandic Horse - referred to as a horse though is pony height (via Google Images)

Shetland Pony (via Google Images)

Welsh Cobb Pony (via Google Images)

Horse - An equine over 14HH (with the tallest horse presently being over 20HH or 82.75 Inches tall at the shoulders)

QuarterHorse (via Google Images) these guys are what US Midwesterners think of as average horses

Dutch Warmblood (via Google Images) these are what Brits think of as normal

Shire (via Google Images) these guys are just plain big no matter where you're from:)

The debate over pony vs horse size can be a very heated one, as certain breed enthusiast have very strong beliefs regarding the classification of their favorite four legged critters!

Worlds Tallest and Shortest horse share a moment (via Google Images)

One thing we can all agree on is that we LOVE our horses, no matter their size!

So in closing, to keep it simple and look smart most of the time, here is the breakdown - Foal is a baby horse, Pony is a shorty short horse, Horse is a 'normal' horse on up to big old Budweiser Wagon pulling guys.

There are over 350 different equine breeds and the breed specifications are vast within those, clearly it's a very BIG topic, so height generalizations are just the beginning!
Don't try to get too detailed about your descriptions until you have absorbed enough knowledge to sort of instinctively know, otherwise you're likely to make yourself crazy :)

Also remember, if a person is riding it and other horse people are supporting that situation, then the horse being ridden is not a 'baby'.  They could be still young enough to be referred to as a Filly (girl baby horse critter) or Colt (boy baby horse critter), but they are old enough to be in training to take a rider and to are trained to be able to perform in front of people.  Horses do not instinctively know how to do things that riders ask of them, so any time you see someone riding, that horse has been taught to do what it is doing and if you see that horse in front of a large crowd they have been/are being conditioned to accept that chaos and environment.

In general a horse being ridden is over 2 years old, the exception to this falls into the horse racing industry, where starting a horse can depend on race seasons and other variables so the age might be a little different.

So for the question I was asked, which boiled down to 'are the small horses in the arena, babies, ponies? what are they' they were horses, just not ones as big boned, tall, fleshy as the ones you are used to.  Each breed has different characteristics and within each breed there are variations.

For instance a quarter horse is supposed to have big bum, but then you see my guy Pistol and his is sort of meh on that scale. Just like people, horses come in all shapes and sizes.