Basic Horse Riding Gear for Beginners

Getting started with horse riding is exciting. If you love horses, learning to ride a horse is one of the best ways to strengthen your bond with your equine friend. Horse riding is a great activity that both the rider and the horse can enjoy.

Aside from serving as an exercise for your horse, it helps the horse and the owner get used to each other. With more experience in horse riding, the horse can easily understand cues from its owner which means that their bond has gotten stronger through time.

Before riding a horse, you need certain equipment and gears to stay safe and keep your horse comfortable as well during the ride. Here are the basic horse riding gear your need to prepare when you’re still starting out with horse riding.

Table of Contents

Safety Gears

First of all, you’ll need to wear safety gears especially when you’re still learning and practicing to ride a horse. Falls and other accidents are common for beginners since they are still learning how to maintain their balance while riding a horse. You need to invest in a durable helmet to protect your head and a safety vest to protect your body and internal organs during a fall. Although you can’t avoid accidents from happening, wearing safety gear helps decrease the impact of the accident to the body.

Riding Clothes

The next thing you need to consider is the riding clothes. Although you can actually wear anything while riding if you want to, there are some clothing pieces that are basically safer and more comfortable to wear when riding a horse.

Any shirt will do as long as it is well fit and comfortable to wear. Pair it with breeches for complete leg coverage while riding and be sure to wear boots that are intended for horseback riding. Equestrian boots provide better stability and traction to your feet while riding the horse. Lastly, don’t forget to wear gloves for better grip and protection for your hands.

Horse Tack

Lastly, your horse also needs to be geared up before going on a ride. The equipment your horse wears during horseback riding is called tack. Since the tack needs to fit a horse properly, you should only buy it when you already have your horse with you to get the right size and dimensions of its body.

These gears are basically the rider’s connection to the horse – he or she will use these gears to signal the horse where to go and what to do. For starters, you’ll only need some basic tack – saddle, saddle pad, bridle, bit, horse reins, stirrup, girth, lead rope, halter, and cross ties.

Horse riding can be challenging at first but with all those essential gears above, you can have a safer and more comfortable experience in practicing how to ride a horse. With all those colourful and stylish horse-riding gear on shops, it can be confusing which one to pick. Stick to the essentials first and only buy what you needed to avoid unnecessary spending on things that you wouldn’t really need yet.