[medicinehat]

I was looking at pictures from a PtHA show I went to, and was looking at some of the Western riders outfits. I LOVED some of them, they looked great with not only the horse, but the rider as well. Others were wearing lovely shirts but overall looked distracting and were not particularly flattering to the pair.

Anyways! I want to know what kinds of outfits you guys like. What do you look for in a shirt(color, pattern, materials)? What color hat and chaps do you wear to accent you and your horse? Do you prefer a certain color on a certain horse? Do you purposely wear a color to make you look shorter, taller, etc.?

I'm just looking for different peoples opinions. Feel free to post pictures of an outfit you have/ would love to have. This can also pertain to in hand classes.

[leviijeans]

Honestly depends what I am doing in the show. Usally I wear three outfits. One for halter, one for pleasure/trail and the third for gameing.

Halter: Im useally in boot cut dress pants and a colored top under a fitted jacket. Pants and Jacket i like black and or dark bown, under top depends on the horse

Pleasure: I like it bold but elegant. Shinny matalics and glitter but dont over do it. I like dark jeans black or blue light or dark with frilly chaps.

Gaming: I chose casual when you are going that fast you need to be comfy but look good doing it. I do like plaid.

Here is what i use to help me match colors


Chestnut
Go with: blue, blue-green, deep purple with blue undertones, light sand, dark green, black or white. Rust can work if it has a significantly red undertone and matches closely with your horse’s red undertones.
Buckskin
Go with: Black, dark green, teal green and some rusts.
Red and Blue Roan
Go with: Rust red for red roans and blues for blue roans. Be careful to meticulously match your horse’s undertone or your outfit will clash.
Dun and Brown
Go with: Deep blue, purple, blue-green, black or bone on most duns.
Sorrel
Go with: Royal blue, dark green, emerald green and black.
Gray
Go with: Dusty rose, mint green, green, cornflower blue or pale purple with light gray horses. Choose red, royal blue and purple with dark gray horses.
Bay and Black
Go with: Red, royal blue and purple.
Palomino
Go with: Sage green, royal blue, chocolate, rust, most pastels and cream.

Hope i did you some help

[MissJosieBee]

I wouldn't do red with a bay. I considered it but then heard many object to it and now I agree it is kind of contrasting.(Depending on the exact coat color.) I've also seen people wear light colored chaps with bays and I just don't think it looks that great. I have black hat, chaps, and pad. That way you can mix and match tops and blouses. The black goes well with my horses black points.

[medicinehat]

I guess I should fill this out too :]

I wear either black or tan chaps with my horse. Since he's white, the black is a really big contrast, but the tan also make him look very white(whiter than he usually is!). I prefer toned down colors on him, although loud ones look equally good, his markings are pretty loud already! I usually am in a mint green shirt and black chaps, or navy and white blouse and tan chaps. I'll post pictures later :]

[robison19]

Hobby Horse has a color wheel to help with horse color and outfits...here's the link

http://www.hobbyhorseinc.com/09_dres...rs/index.shtml

I just got a sorrel mare and am trying to decide what colors to go with now....I like blues, but I like pink too!

[taylor~paint08]

These are the 2 outfits I have
Showmanship/Halter


And then
Western Pleasure/Horsemanship

[e_watson09]

I prefer showing in one outfit for small local shows. If it's bigger shows I actually use my showmanship outfit. But I never wore it at all this summer haha but I also had a very green horse all summer and he got really nervous when I'd leave him. I'll probably go back to multiple outfits next summer.

Here's my boy in his pink, I think he just looks stunning in it and he's technically a liver chestnut so with darker horses even with a red tint you can get away with some pinks and reds. (he looks great in red as well)


Here's our contesting outfit, I only did contesting once and I just used a pink button up that I already had. I forgot my saddle pad that actually matched the shirt at my house that day so I had to use my light pink one so the pinks don't match but I really didn't care I was doing it for fun anyways.


Then here's my showmanship outfit. It's just the same black pants that I use under my chaps and a white slinky with rhinestones and then a black jacket with rhinestones. I think I might get a new outfit next year but it's what I have been using.


Oh and this is my old horse that I use to show and my extra show shirt that I never really use anymore because I got my pink shirt. I think red white and blue looks great on white horses personally. I do use this in 4th of july weekend shows. I actually used this as my contesting outfit in 2008.
(it also looks great after you win first place)


Then here's some pictures of my friends sportin their outfits

This was summer 2008 my friend and the horse she was leasing. I'm not really a fan of her outfit vs. horse combo I just think there is too much black for such a light horse.


Same girl and horse I think it looks much better with the rest of her tack and such.


This is another of me that I found. This was summer 2008 before I bought a railshirt.


Here is a excellent example of a bright red chestnut and blue. I think that color combo is AMAZING you just have to watch out it's a really common combo.


Kind of hard to see but this is my friend summer 2008 showing her black and white paint in contesting in a pink shirt. She looked really good.


Here was the same girl's showmanship/western pleasure outfit. Keep in mind that now vests like this are out of style but this was her first year showing and it was a good cheap vest.


Then here's my friend and her bay in pink for western pleasure


Then here they are again in teal for western pleasure, she also had teal chaps but I don't know why they're not in this picture but the outfit looked really good as a whole.


Then here is her again in a natural color outfit for western pleasure


Then here is her with another horse she showed in a showmanship outfit. She has a lot of outfits lol.


This is one of my other friends and her horse this year in teal, for contesting she showed in a purple and white outfit I don't have a picture but it looked really good.

[Celia_Vienna]

my favourite in this thread so far is taylor´s dark blue halter outfit. just wow!!!


i own a brown/bay gelding and i love flashy colors for any discipline.
my basis are a black hat and black custom chaps.

for smaller shows i take my purple shirt. it´s sparkling enough for trail, pleasure and horsemanship and not too overloaded for reining. so haven´t to change outfits which means less stress. the shirt is a cheap one upgraded with a lot of rhinestones.

for bigger (=regional) shows i´ll take the purple for reining too and for the rest my teal one. it´s custom but was pretty cheap.

for next year i have a black/yellow custom railshirt for hms/tr/pl, which is extremely eye-catching. but no pictures so far.

greens and blues are a good choice for any colored horse, i think. my friend sometimes take my teal one for her palo and it looks also great.

and here´s a tool for checking out showcolors:
http://www.ekedie.com/index.php?article_id=30
just drag and drop the colors onto the pic.

[Knievel]

dont forget your gloves in halter classes!!

[Luv2LopeQH]

Originally Posted by medicinehat

I was looking at pictures from a PtHA show I went to, and was looking at some of the Western riders outfits. I LOVED some of them, they looked great with not only the horse, but the rider as well. Others were wearing lovely shirts but overall looked distracting and were not particularly flattering to the pair.

Anyways! I want to know what kinds of outfits you guys like. What do you look for in a shirt(color, pattern, materials)? What color hat and chaps do you wear to accent you and your horse? Do you prefer a certain color on a certain horse? Do you purposely wear a color to make you look shorter, taller, etc.?

I'm just looking for different peoples opinions. Feel free to post pictures of an outfit you have/ would love to have. This can also pertain to in hand classes.

Western outfits should always complement both the horse and rider. As a couple other people posted, there are certain colors that work for horses depending on the color. Bay/Brown/Black horses have the most versitility when it comes to colors that work with them.

For classes such as Showmanship and Horsemanship, outfits need to conceal/hide rider flaws. For Horsemanship shirts, the top should blend into the color chaps you are wearing. If the rider doesn't have the best shoulders, i.e. has trouble keeping them back, then light colors such as white should not on the shoulders at all.

For classes such as Western Pleasure, Western Riding and Trail a jacket can be used. Many designers can also design jackets to make you look slimmer buy using designs to slim the tummy area.

Many people ride in rail shirts (myself included) as you can buy them off the rack and they fit. They are good for WP, WR, Trail and even sometimes SMS if it is cut long enough. I wear mine in HMS as well due to the fact that I don't have a HMS shirt and just tuck it in at the large shows. It works, but sometimes they don't have the best fit as a HMS shirt should slenderize you.

Depending on your base color of your outfits, depends on what color hat you should wear. Some people do not wear black hats because it washes them out or just doesn't look good on so they will wear a lighter colored hat that works with the outfit.

Youths are able to be more open to colors then Ammys.

As for myself, I prefer black chaps as they are versatile and chaps are an investment piece. Currently I have been wearing mostly black/white rail shirts as it looks good on my gelding as he has 4 white legs. For showmanship I have been wearing a white blazer with black pants and a black hat as I just didn't have the money at the beginning of the year to get something custom done.

I am currently working with a designer to have a SMS, HMS & WP jacket made. I am still sticking with a black base as I don't want to spend the additional money on new chaps and black is slimming. The outfits are going to have corresponding colors of white/bronze/copper.

If you want to see great outfits at a look at Jeff Kirkbridge and KC Montgomery photography. You can see various outfits from the larger shows.