[nik1979]

I'm in vacation here in the Philippines' mountain province and former American military base, Baguio (“Bag-yo”) City. One of the only places in my country you can pay for horse rides and hikes for up to 8 hours at $8 an hour. I was talking to the horsemen who provide these services and care for the horses and here are some interesting answers that arm chair discussion should consider.

These horses are 12.2 hands high (at their hithers). They are around 550lbs (250kgs) on average and eat, at a minimum, 6kg of feed on a work day and 4kg when there is no work. Larger specimens eat as much as 8kg.

These ponies are modestly cared for and can be ridden in the lightly forested mountain trail about 8 hours with reasonable breaks now and then (to feed and to rest). I don't think this is sustainable daily. According to the care takers, these ponies can sustain a gallop of up to 5 minutes (which would require additional feed and water above the working average for the day if required). Safely a minute of gallop would be enough if the total encumbrance would be (probably) at 200lbs.

This horse would wearing riding saddle, stirrups, bit and bridle of up to 35lbs (30 to 45lbs). They can carry along with the riding gear up to 300lbs (but cannot gallop at this level of encumbrance). In all the horse would fall under the ST20 range.

Their feed is a mix of grass grown specifically for animal feed (good quality for grass), molasses, and corn grown for animal feed (bad quality for corn).

Things I can't see for my self and confirm as easily are its speed and its galloping speed (if it is x2 or x1.5 at full move). Cost wise it is not polite to ask, especially its pries too close to the costs of their profession.

The strength and working endurance of this pony is much better than the Basic Set stats. So much better that they would probably be a more common key piece of equipment if only we had a good source of prices. Arm chair speculation with a lot of discussion and hearsay woud put the horse such a pony at around $1000-1,500* (if you're familiar to the buying process). I would put their quality at around poor/cheap with a certainty that it doesnt fall under good condition. I would put HT at 10 and the speed would probably be around 6 (from 7). I think a privately own horse would be in a much better condition. These horse would fall under the 35 years old age.

*this is relatively expensive given that this is a mountain province and horses are a novelty. In a location where they are more common and widely used expect the price to fall.