One of my sons really enjoys hunting with me. He has a black show jacket that is suitable for warmer weather hunting, and so far I’ve just had him wear his regular winter coat over that for cooler days. He’s enjoying hunting enough that I’m starting to keep an eye out for a warmer, thicker hacking jacket or even just a suitable looking blazer alternative. So far…nothing has come up on my radar. Any suggestions?
Shires makes a nifty kids tweed with buttons that can be set for boys or girls, and fairly reasonably priced.
That looks great 
and even just using the key word shires in an eBay search brought up a lot of options!
I don’t know how big the son in question is, but looking on ebay.co.uk might be a good option generally. A lot more kids tweed jackets there, some with boy/girl swappable buttons.
Yes, I seemed to have tapped into a bunch of childrens unisex jackets on eBay now, and most of them do seem to be in the UK…I guess I should just go with that and measure him carefully because I’m sure I won’t be wanting to send anything back to a seller in the UK. If anyone knows a vendor who sells these jackets in the US that would be great, but I think that eBay seems like it is going to be my best bet at this point.
I found a Ralph Lauren tweed with 3 buttons and a back vent for my son when he was about 10 that was identical to a hacking jacket. He now has a Brooks Brother tweed that works. Both were found at thrift stores for less than $10
http://www.ralphlauren.com/product/index.jsp?productId=37796326
USA; New Hampshire.
http://shop.shiresequestrian.com/p/childrens-huntingdon-jacket
I second shopping at thrift stores. You can find tweeds that will work for the short time they will fit in them.
Excellent, thank you all!
I’m pursuing some leads on eBay (UK). I might stop by the thrift store as well. I dread it because I’m a terrible shopper but I’m on a mission here. It’s annoying that the selection of boys’ riding wear is so limited. Anyway, I’m noticing that kids’ jacket sizes go up to 30’ or so, but then mens’ sizes seem to start around 36’. So what happens in the 32’-34’ size range? Just size up?
Thank you all for all your suggestions! Just to let you all know how it worked out, I ended up getting a Shires Huntington jacket off of eBay UK and it is great. The quality seems to be excellent and it is nice and warm for cooler weather hunting–he was very comfortable today with temps in the 30s and 40s. Now his twin is annoyed that he doesn’t have one!
FYI, Middleburg Tack Exchange carries those. Wish I had seen this thread earlier so I could have steered you in that direction before you had to buy from the UK! May have been cheaper, though. Don’t know.
But now you know where to get one for the twin!
I have a Shires tweed coat and I love it. I’m sure it will hold up for as long as he can fit into it, and then you can sell it on to another family. Glad you found one.
Also if you call the Middleburg Tack Exchange they will talk you through what they have and even send you some to try. You can send back what doesn’t fit.
Thank you for this thread. My 10 yr old son is also enjoying hunting and has been cold each time out lately despite his Under Armour shirt under the other clothes and light weight show/hunt coat. I’ll check out these ideas!
[QUOTE=yellowbritches;7896954]
FYI, Middleburg Tack Exchange carries those. Wish I had seen this thread earlier so I could have steered you in that direction before you had to buy from the UK! May have been cheaper, though. Don’t know.
But now you know where to get one for the twin![/QUOTE]
I did call Middleburg Tack Exchange, but the jacket was cheaper on Ebay UK even with shipping. But, Middleburg Tack Exchange DID have a nice used gents sandwich case that I picked up
Artsmom, my twins are also 10 year olds I ordered a 32UK for the taller one and it is large on him but still looks good. I just ordered a 30UK for the shorter twin. Our layering process has been just the Underarmor winter turtleneck, but I saw another young man hunting who did a white turtleneck with a thin neutral/coordinating color wool sweater (and stock tie) under his hacking jacket and I thought that looked very nice. Lands End has some nice thin sweaters/sweater vests we might experiment with layering with. Your temps might be a bit warmer than ours though, so the thicker jacket might be enough.
One of my co-workers hunts quite a bit, and highly recommends wearing a light yellow v-neck sweater (she prefers a cashmere blend for weight and warmth) instead of a canary vest.
The yellow V neck sweater idea is brilliant!
