[QUOTE=Pocket Pony;9036241]
No comments on clothing, but I LOVE your pony!!![/QUOTE]
I’m a wee bit obsessed with yours myself. Haha! (and her sire! He looks like a slightly more refined relative of my chunky monkey, I must say!)
I’m getting into reining after years of eventing and then dressage. I am dedicated to wearing a helmet but don’t want to look toooooo out of place. I have discovered the “hell hats” that many are wearing now.
You take a western hat and cut the hat part out of the brim, then fit it around your helmet and glue it onto the helmet. Cover the glue line with a hat band. They look actually all right! Here is link to a photo of a plain black one. But you can do a google search of “hell hat” and see lots of examples and directions on how to do it correctly. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/df/06/be/df06be897a79c2f59931c5f6d5006e99.jpg
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Love the hell hat idea. I ride English and have no problem with a plain helmet. But the hell hat gives you protection from the sun- Think I’ll make one!!!
Western show person here…breed shows…
Men wear dark denim jeans that are nice and long. No black, even under black chaps. Make sure your jeans are long enough to cover your boot heels when you’re riding. This will be VERY long when you’re not riding! Probably 2" longer than your normal inseam.
I wouldn’t worry too much about chaps for local shows. But if you do, men don’t wear ultra suede, just rough out. Black is always appropriate. Custom chaps are almost a necessity, as no one seems to fit into the off the shelf ones.
No patterned shirts. Get a nicely fitted, solid colored button down shirt in a color that makes you happy. Take it to the dry cleaners and get it starched. It will work for all your classes.
A solid colored pad is always ok, but patterned are most “in” now. Pick one with a few colors and you can add shirts that match if you continue to show. Put it over your everyday pad and pin your numbers to both sides of the show pad, not on your back. Mayatex makes some reasonably priced ones that are big enough to drape nicely. Your horse appears to have plenty of body so an oversized pad will be a nice splash of color. There are Facebook groups just for used show pads!
Your helmet is fine. Don’t do the western hat helmet thing. No one will notice or say a word about your helmet!
Have fun!
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Thanks @Bay Toby!
Are you talking an oversize PAD, or oversize BLANKET? Pony is short-coupled, but wide, so too much length front to back interferes with his hips. I’m not sure if it’d be as big of an issue with a flexible blanket rather than thicker pad though.
Luckily, finding long pants is no problem. Even the shortest inseam I can find is plenty long while mounted, because my legs are so stupidly short! haha
My 30" inseam understands what you are talking about!
I mean a patterned blanket, not really a pad. Sorry, wasn’t clear with that. And since it’s just a soft blanket, it shouldn’t bother him if it’s a little long. For it to hang right, it does need to be a few inches bigger than your saddle pad all the way around.
Something like this:
FYI that some types of glue out there will actually weaken the plastic of the helmet (in some cases, actually eat through it), and are not advised to use in order to keep the structural integrity (and safety!) of the helmet unaffected. So check with your helmet manufacturer before you add any after-market items to it yourself with glue.
Get longer jeans 
they should pool around your ankle when you’re off the horse. Add a pretty hunter green shirt,.or a rich purple color, and use your black pad, done. While I agree a pretty white shirt looks great, you just about can’t keep clean LOL
Honestly just adding a longer pair of jeans (please don’t dye them black) will clean up your look you need LONG jeans that was the first thing I noticed- your jeans are too short. See how long these are?
http://www.equisearch.com/content/content/31443/reining_potential_lope_B_250.jpg
this should make an impression, you know, about how long your jeans need to be
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/cf/45/fc/cf45fcb4289cf41edb967ae47437ea21.jpg
I got into the western world in college and was also on a budget. I bought a simple Harris shirt off a lady at the barn and found a silk scarf at a yard sale that matched. I had black breeches from riding hunters. I’m small enough that I was able to buy the cheap pair of black chaps from Hobby Horse - which are GREAT because they’re very thin and have elastic along the zipper. So for me them being thing was awesome because I wasn’t used to riding in chaps. I borrowed a friends hat and got a cheap black belt that I bought a nicer buckle on.
I would recommend trying to find a tack sale, expo or consignment shop near you! They’re fun to go and sometimes if someone doesn’t have what you’re looking for they know someone who does.
TMares: they definitely pool around my ankles and tend to end up under my heels when I walk. Haha! They look to me to be the same length as the pictures you liked to though? I can easily go up a length though!
Man in Black: unfortunately our consignment shop is not only mostly English in the apparel section, it is so poorly organized that the stacks and stacks of saddles are moulding and the whole shop reeks of decay. It’s a shame because there used to be treasures in there, but now nobody likes to go in because it’s so full of mold 
I’m much better off visiting the local “normal” consignment and thrift shops.
Maybe they are ‘too’ boot cut/flared and a little too short- they should still drape a little around your ankle when you’re mounted on your horse. When I showed western my 32" inseam became a 34" just for the length in Wranglers.
I just inherited some lovely black suede chaps from a friend, and they fit great in the hips/waist, but are literally 3/4" away from being able to zip at the very top of the thighs… Do you think a tailor or leatherworker would be able to tweak them? they’d fit nicely everywhere else in the leg if I could just get the top 2" zipped up!
ETA: I ask about having someone alter them only because I have no idea what brand they are and I don’t know if the hobby horse inserts would work with them or not.
Sure they can! Adding a strip of heavy duty elastic will do the trick
What TMares said.
Or, we used to get suede chaps wet, and wear them until they dried, zip up a little at a time as the wet leather stretches. Some dye may come off while they are wet, so do wear something old under them.
Maybe just wet yours at the top with a spray bottle of hot water?
https://www.rods.com/hobby-horse-ela…p-inserts.html
Or custom insert
[B]http://www.chapinserts.com/chapinserthome.html
ETA [/B]Ah I see you already saw the hobby horse insert. I will also second the posters who said get wet and jam self in. This is actually kind of how chaps should initially be fit anyway. I once ordered custom chaps with true thigh measurement and they didn’t really hang right. A local judge actually took them in for me…and then I cried and swore and eventually they fit correctly. Kind of like breaking in boots used to be.
