Horsing Around with Horse Fashions

Living in Southern California and riding at a lot of show barns, horse fashion is a huge thing. Even if you just ride for fun, making your horse (as well as yourself) look fashionable to reflect your personality is an enjoyable experience. From blinging up belts, saddle pads and stirrups; to vibrant, colorful polo wraps, halters, fly masks, and blankets, there is always some new fashionable item out there to entice riders and horse owners with. Here’s a  blinged up saddle pad I’d love to have as it kind of goes with my color scheme for Horsing Around In LA. Diamond Saddle Pad If anyone wants to get that for me for Christmas, I wouldn’t complain. 😉

Image source:  Equestrian Clearance

As long as I can remember, all I’ve wanted was a horse of my own. Ever since I was a young child in elementary school I remember saving up every penny I earned so I could afford to buy all the supplies to take care of my imaginary horse with. I would spend HOURS upon HOURS looking through the catalogs that the online tack stores would mail out figuring out which items I would like to purchase. I cut out all of the items in the catalog that were on my wish list. Then I dug out of the garage an old Vans shoe box and glued on all my horsey dreams onto the outside of said box. Any extra money I earned from chores, good grades from my report card, birthdays, Christmas, went into this box to go towards my purchase of the items now plastered all over this box.

Fast forward about 21 years and here we are. I’ve always thought to myself, WOW! I could start my own pony camp with all the stuff I’ve managed to accumulate over the years. AND It’s all SUPER NICE stuff, so I’d have the most fashionable pony camp out there by far for sure. Only problem is… I don’t have the horses or ponies to do that with! OOPS… only one small minor detail right? 😉 Since I cannot afford to collect horses, it appears that I’ve been collecting everything but the horse instead. At least the horses I am lucky enough to take care of and ride will look super cute???

 Pictured above is Dakota. He is modeling one of the newest additions to my growing collection of halters. Although I have to say this was the first one I have bought in YEARS, and that was ONLY because I had a gift card to use  and I had already gotten everything else that I actually needed with it, so why not use the extra amount on another halter and lead rope?

Speaking of halters, take a look at this lovely find! I think this one would look great on Allie (he’s the tall black horse I am riding below). It is very unique. Check it out.  Union Jack Halter So what do you think of it?  Above are some more fun horse fashions. Festive in holiday greens and reds, even a super cute Santa Hat! How adorable is that? Shadow, the jumping black and white horse is looking elegant in our show gear.

Allie, above is looking just as handsome as ever in his matching baby blue and black saddle pads and boots! I also found a matching Union Jack Saddle Pad to go with the above halter. That would look striking against Allie’s shiny black coat, don’t you think?

Whether you have your own horse, just take lessons, ride for fun on friends or family horses every once and awhile, or even just on guided rides once in a blue moon; it’s fun to show some horsey fashion love to stand out from the crowd. When both you and your horse are turned out well, it just some how makes your ride that more enjoyable.

Happy Trails!!! 🙂

*Disclosure:  This is a sponsored post. However all thoughts, ideas, and opinions are my own.* 

Day 14–Jumping

Day 14–Jumping

By Erin

One of my most favorite things to do on this planet is riding horses, especially jumping competitively. I do miss this terribly! Taking lessons and showing have been a big part of my life.  I really hope to be able to afford my own horse someday that has the ability to do what I want to do as you are only as good as your horse, since you can’t exactly jump these jumps for your horse! Your horse has to have the ability, talent, scope, heart and desire to jump what I’d like to do.  I’d love to at least show in a mini grand prix someday and try some more medal classes. Until then catch riding what I can will have to do.  Jumping with a horse is like flying without wings. It’s an amazing feeling.  😉

Here are some other horse quotes that I love. 😀

There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.  ~Winston Churchill

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.  ~W.C. Fields

Riding:  The art of keeping a horse between you and the ground.  ~Author Unknown

It is not enough for a man to know how to ride; he must know how to fall.  ~Mexican Proverb

The wagon rests in winter, the sleigh in summer, the horse never.  ~Yiddish Proverb

Many people have sighed for the ‘good old days’ and regretted the ‘passing of the horse,’ but today, when only those who like horses own them, it is a far better time for horses.  ~C.W. Anderson

No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle.  ~Winston Churchill

People on horses look better than they are.  People in cars look worse than they are.  ~Marya Mannes

Horses and children, I often think, have a lot of the good sense there is in the world.  ~Josephine Demott Robinson

It’s always been and always will be the same in the world:  The horse does the work and the coachman is tipped.  ~Author Unknown

Heaven is high and earth wide.  If you ride three feet higher above the ground than other men, you will know what that means.  ~Rudolf C. Binding

He knows when you’re happy
He knows when you’re comfortable
He knows when you’re confident
And he always knows when you have carrots.
~Author Unknown

The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse’s ears.  ~Arabian Proverb

Ah, steeds, steeds, what steeds!  Has the whirlwind a home in your manes?  Is there a sensitive ear, alert as a flame, in your every fiber?  Hearing the familiar song from above, all in one accord you strain your bronze chests and, hooves barely touching the ground, turn into straight lines cleaving the air, and all inspired by God it rushes on!  ~Nikolai V. Gogol, Dead Souls, 1842, translated from Russian (above is combination of translations by Bernard Guildert Guerney, Richard Peaver, and Larisa Voloklonsky)

To ride a horse is to ride the sky.  ~Author Unknown

There is no secret so close as that between a rider and his horse.  ~Robert Smith Surtees, “Chapter XXX: Bolting the Badger,” Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour, 1853

A horse loves freedom, and the weariest old work horse will roll on the ground or break into a lumbering gallop when he is turned loose into the open.  ~Gerald Raferty

I bless the hoss from hoof to head –
From head to hoof, and tale to mane! –
I bless the hoss, as I have said,
From head to hoof, and back again!
~James Whitcomb Riley

Horses are uncomfortable in the middle and dangerous at both ends.  ~Attributed to both Christopher Stone and Ian Fleming

It’s a lot like nuts and bolts – if the rider’s nuts, the horse bolts!  ~Nicholas Evans

A lovely horse is always an experience…. It is an emotional experience of the kind that is spoiled by words.  ~Beryl Markham