Black or Brown

[The Moo]

I know this has been done before but i couldn't find the thread.

I have a real mish mash of colours of tack and had always gone for whatever colour saddle fitted the pony but now if i had the luxury of choosing a colour......

Is there a 'proper' colour for showing, not that I plan to take it seriously but if you are spending money on a saddle then it may as well be as versatile as possible. I had always thought brown was the right colour but that was in the days of tweed jackets and beige jods not the techicolour fashions and diamante browbands you see in the rings these days.

With a bright bay pony a black saddle may look nice to match her legs but may look a bit naff in a contrasty sort of way but a havana brown might not look good against her reddish brown colour.

Any comments welcome - I daren't go onto the Showring website LOL

[Deleted]

When they consult Lynn Russel in the horsey comics she is always most insistent about brown being the correct colour, and the show saddles she sell are all brown. I like black personally 'cos it's easier to match everything up, but I think she'd look nice in either. I've got a New Forest, she's a lovely ride and also marches out like she's on a mission, in fact yesterday we went much further than I intended in the rain as she didn't want to turn for home, if I'd had more time it would have been interesting to see where exactly she was planning on going! She looks a lot like yours, but dark bay with a star.

[loopylou]

I think it is meant to be brown, but only if you are planning to do showing in a big fashion, local shows they don't seem to be to fussed as long as it is clean and fitting properly.
My chap is a Yellow Dun Highland with black main, tail and his bottom half of his legs are black and to be honest he looks so much better in black than he does in brown.

[dalesponyrider]

So if you go to Olympia, are ALL the saddles brown?

[greydales]

I think tradionally it is brown, that is what I was told years ago when I started showing. Some of the havanas are very dark so not much difference to black anyway. I think at smaller shows it doesn't matter if you use black but not sure about county level and higher.

[shaklana]

no, at olympia/hoys you see both brown and black tack. i noticed a lot of black dressage saddles at hoys. any judge that allows tack colour to affect their judging shouldn't be there!

[mabel]

You can have either colour Jo so go with what you think suits Cherry best. I think she'd look nice in black or as Gill says some of the havanas are really dark so that would look good too.