Hello - i’m going to buy a double soon for my boy and its been a while since i’ve competed in dressage, so want to buy something that will be stylish in today’s show ring (assuming we can show someday soon post-virus!). I see a lot of patent leather, wide nose bands, but i need a bridle that i can school in as well as show and i’m worried the patent will look scratchy before long. Are rolled bridles still in style? what about white self padding on the nose band? My gelding is dark bay with a white star, a medium sized head. Any advice or thoughts appreciated! i don’t want to pay custom prices but want something good quality.
I don’t care what’s in style, I just buy what I like. :D”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹I don’t know how you can be so “out of style” since I see all sorts of styles at competitions. So it’s quite diverse here, not sure about elsewhere.
I like rolled leather and I don’t see it so much, but both of my bridles (snaffle and double) are rolled. I recently bought a Schockemöhle Venice double bridle for 225€ and it’s quite nice.
Assembling a double adds up, 2 bits, reins, the bridle itself, so get what you like.
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You can also make any snaffle bridle into a double with the addition of an extra bit hanger and a set of curb reins. If the slots in the browband are too narrow to run the extra hanger you can get another browband. You could also buy a fancy noseband for shows.
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i really like classic. I like hunter bridles. So I’m the wrong person for advice on bling.
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I scribe -a lot. I honestly don’t pay attention to the bridle other than to see if it looks legal, and other than potential issues with show ring legal - I can’t remember the last time I heard a judge comment on a bridle.
So I’m in the camp of “get what you like that won’t cost so much that you have to live on ramen for a couple months” type of bridle.
I got mine off of eBay brand new with reins (no bits) for just over $100.
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I don’t think there anything in or out of style in dressage bridles. Like rothmpp I scribe a lot, and see just about everything you can imagine: rolled bridles, wide and narrow nosebands, patent and plain leather, swoop and straight browbands, blinged out and plain browbands, self padded/contrast padded, you name it. That’s one of the things I love about dressage: as long as it’s legal, you do you.
I paid $50 for my double, a Vespucci that was gathering dust in a friend’s garage. It cleaned up beautifully. I had the bits and reins (they came with the horse on a Passier that I wasn’t crazy about). So, ask around. You never know what someone might have.
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I do like the rolled bridles with patent noseband on a refined head. And a thin browband.
Im not sure I would do white padding and patent but it would be good with the right head.
Bridle selection is the most fun.
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I got the double bridle from Solo Equine that has brown patent leather on nose band and bling brown brow band, looks really nice on a chestnut. I was worried that the noseband would look too large, but looks nice. Maybe I need some brown on my saddle!
Yes, I think this is an item you could find second hand lightly used for a great deal. Everybody can use a snaffle headstall on every horse, but if you sold or retired a higher level horse you might have no plans to bring another horse up to double bridle level again.
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Get what you like, you have to look at it every day. I don’t personally like white padding on my horses, but I see it often enough on other horses and I think it can look sharp.
The patent noseband I have cleans up well and I’m not particularly gentle with it.
I like a medium wide noseband and a curved blingy browband, both of which are more popular in real life than the impression I get on here, fwiw.
There’s a website that I can find if you want where you can make semi-customizable Otto Schumacher bridles for not totally outrageous prices. (ETA…just looked at the website again, the bridle I bought was a snaffle w/ drop nose band which accounts for it not being outrageously priced!)
I made a Franken-bridle double for when I started my older horse in it. I hated it and the bradoon hanger never sat quite right. I found a nice brown double on super sale and bought it. My youngster inherited the franken-double, wore it for a few months before I just got totally fed up with it, said screw it and spent the money to get exactly what I/the horse wanted. It can be used as a double or a snaffle w/ or w/o flash.
ETA: Here’s the website, I got my horse’s drop noseband bridle there.
I also want to add that there are a fair amount of used doubles out there. When I was shopping I came across a lot. My PRE is between a cob and full sometimes or a combo of both. So buying used was kind of a risk as I didn’t know what size he’d take and I couldn’t find some measurements or get sellers to take measurements, so I just went with new.
FWIW I’ve had patent nosebands in the past and I’ve never had an issue with them and they stayed in good condition. I don’t think they’re terribly hard to maintain.
I am not really a patent fan either. I do however like the bridles that are sold as individual components, so you can get exactly what you like. I bought mine from Equiture. All told it was less than $150 shipped. I have also had good luck with Bridle2fit but they are more expensive for basically the same bridle. The websites are equiture.biz and bridle2fit.com
I love patent. I’m very rough with mine but they always come up well with a clean.
I have a rolled Schockemohle double for my large headed PRE. Since she’s about to retire, it’ll pass onto my just as big headed Warmblood.
The only thing I wasn’t happy about was the browband fell apart, At least it’s an easy and cheap fix.
yes. My Luso’s double has cob cheeks, full crownpiece, full nose band, and oversize browband… LOL!
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AZ TD i really like that one! is it black leather all over except just brown patent on the noseband?
AZ TD i really like that one! is it black leather all over except just brown patent on the noseband?
AZ TD i really like that one - is it black leather with the brown jsut on the noseband? i can’t tell for sure on the website photo.
AZ TD i really like that one - is it black leather with the brown jsut on the noseband? i can’t tell for sure on the website photo.
[ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“medium”,“data-attachmentid”:10662367}[/ATTACH] Here is a photo, black leather with brown patent on top: ”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹
