Help your horse beat the heat and the bugs this summer! Dover has plenty of protective fly gear for all your equine friends. You may be wondering which brand is the best, what fabric is the most practical, and what sorts of accessories are necessary–neck and belly guards, for instance. Put simply, there’s more than one correct answer. When picking out a fly sheet, identify your main concerns and consider the functional purposes that it needs to serve.
In our recent posts, we shared tips to help equestrians stay warm when riding in winter. A good pair of winter breeches and winter riding boots are essential for winter horseback riding. But what about keeping your horse warm?
To blanket or not to blanket? That is always the question. Horses with thick, fluffy coats that are seldom ridden in winter may not need a blanket at all. These horses do well with natural protection, and may only need a mid-weight blanket to put on for extra cold or wet weather. Other horses will strongly benefit from the regular use of winter blankets. These include horses that are ridden in the winter months, clipped horses, older horses or horses that have trouble keeping on weight.
What happens when you combine 100 saddles, 25 Dover Saddlery associates, 12 Saddle Fit Experts, 8 horses and 1 big white tent? Dover Saddle Camp 2013!
We’re serious about saddles at Dover Saddlery, and we are equally serious about providing our employees opportunities to learn and gain knowledge. That’s why we recently brought key employees from all of our retail stores and from all of our call centers together for three days of intensive, hands on saddle training at a beautiful equestrian facility near our headquarters in Massachusetts. We affectionately called this seminar “Dover Saddle Camp 2013!”
Camp started with an introduction from Gary Severson, better known as the Saddle Doctor. Gary has an impressive resume as an equine physiologist and a lifelong independent saddle fitter, including some time as the official saddle fitter to the United States Equestrian Team! He provided an extremely thorough overview of saddle fit concepts, equine anatomy as it applies to saddle fit and correct use of shims and correction pads. Best of all, we used several different horses to visually demonstrate his points. It’s great to read about these concepts and learn about them in a classroom, but all the associates agreed that actually seeing the saddles on horses of varied shapes and sizes really drove the message home. Best of all, this overview provided everyone with a very strong foundation for the rest of the seminar.
We’ve been getting a lot of questions about riding socks so we reached out to our good friends over at Mountain Horse® for some helpful information! Let us know what you think!
Fact: All equestrians wear boots. It doesn’t matter in which discipline you ride or the type of boots you ride in, we all wear boots — cowboy boots, paddock boots, tall boots, work boots, muck boots, groom boots. And since you wear boots, you’ve got to wear socks. When it comes to the comfort of your feet, socks are almost as important as the boots you wear. Many times, we blame a shoe or boot for “not working right” when, in fact, it’s probably the sock you’re wearing.
In honor of Helmet Awareness Week we will be sharing valuable information about helmets with all of you all week! The first installment covers how to properly fit your riding helmet.
Does your riding helmet fit well?
A well-fitting riding helmet should fit snugly and not rock from side to side or from front to back. As helmets age they may not fit as well and may need to be replaced. Alternatively you could consider a helmet replacement liner. The first step to make sure that you get a helmet that fits is to measure your head correctly!
A little while ago we actually put together a post on How to Measure your Head for a Helmet. Follow these guidelines to measure your own head or ask a friend to help or go into any Dover Saddlery store for a helmet fitting. After you know your correct size you can have fun choosing a new riding helmet from the huge selection at Dover Saddlery.
It is now easier than ever to find the perfect riding boots that look fabulous and fit well!
Tall boots should look elegant and be durable, practical and comfortable. There are so many choices now in leather, design and technology – but a good fit remains the most important factor when shopping for that perfect pair of tall boots.
