Good for you. for asking questions!
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Can i ask some basic questions too? Im confused by the riding pants- the difference between ones you use to school in vs ones for shows. And i see some people wear more showing type clothing in general for lessons while others wear tshirts and tights.
Yesterday I saw a girl new to the barn but who had been riding for years wearing what i thought were show clothes (including long sleeves) and it was 100 degrees and she was soaked through before she even got on the horse… it seemed kind of ridiculous to me but we are at a very casual barn.
thanks!
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She might have been wearing a sun shirt or such. Some people prefer to stay covered with a light long sleeved shirt on the very hot days.
Some people also think that it shows respect for their trainer to at least wear a shirt with a collar.
I do not own any tights. I wear breeches when I ride. I have never found any tights that I think are comfortable for my body shape.
If your (general you) barn does not have a dress code then it seems like whatever the rider is most comfortable riding in works fine.
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It is definitely local colloquialisms as people have said. I have always called the barn “the barn” ie ‘I’m going to the barn’ or ‘which barn do you ride at?’ I have one boarder who calls it ‘the stables’ and I always laugh because it seems so formal and generally in my area (southern Ontario) we just say ‘barn.’ But its all the same in the end.
I don’t even usually say grain or feed either, I normally just say ‘breakfast’ and ‘dinner’! My boarders know that means the grain meal the horses get. Hay is 24/7 so when they get ‘dinner’ it means the grain. But again it’s all right, it’s just local culture (like how some people say ‘soda’, some say ‘pop’, but it all means the same).
@NC001 I wear breeches to ride in all the time, I just find it more comfortable. All my schooling ones are dark colours though, since they take a beating–my light coloured beige ones I save for shows. Depending on personal preference, some people will dress nicer to go to the barn or especially when they are taking lessons–when I was schooling with an outside coach, I always wore show breeches, a polo and my tall boots so I looked neat and professional. Was the person you saw taking a lesson? Even at a more casual barn people will dress up more for a lesson a lot of the time. She also could have been wearing a sun shirt–they are long sleeved but usually have mesh on the undersides so they are actually quite cool.
Other than that it is just personal preference really. I tend to get disgusting at the barn because I also help run it, so I am always doing chores at the same time–mucking, troughs, whatever–so I am not going to dress nicely do that kind of stuff!
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I use this expression too, but many times, non-horsey friends think I’ve said I’m going to the bar. Maybe I should install a Margarita machine in the tack room and I could do both… :winkgrin:
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I always ride in breeches, and don’t own tights.
my show breeches are always beige, whereas schooling can be in multi-colors, or the formerly-show breeches almost ready for retirement.
sometimes I school in t-shirts, I generally prefer polos and sunshirts, but untucked. I keep my horses at home, and when I’m casual, I’ll use half chaps. When I take a lesson, it’s conservative breeches and belt, collared shirt tucked in, and always tall boots. I think it’s respectful of the trainer to dress up a little. Different barns have different vibes, and may shift over time as clientele and/or trainers change. the new rider may soon realize the barn is casual and adjust her attire next time.
OP, welcome! and feel free to ask away!
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I wear full seat breeches everyday, a poloshirt in summer, and usually tall boots. My every day breeches are darker colours, but before I was riding every day and only had one pair of breeches, they were beige. I prefer cotton knit tops so I don’t wear show technical fabric tops.
The only difference between my schooling and show breeches would be color.
Honestly it ended up making more sense to have correct riding clothes for comfort and performance than to try riding in slippery yoga pants or tops that slide off the shoulder or show too much skin.
But I am an adult. When I was a teen I certainly rode in cutoffs, tank tops, even tried a tube top once (bad idea).
I have to say nowadays I don’t like the look of too much bare skin around horses. I imagine huge road burns from falling off or hay getting down cleavages. Visible bra straps always look sloppy to me. Etc.
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My DH and I met at a barn. I have to spell B-A-R-N to non-horsey folks. 
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The old ones were. Susan Harris wrote the U.S. Pony Club versions.
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Well, in Canada the PC coach still tells the little girls my chestnut frame overo Paint is a skewbald. Which technically she is, I guess.
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Mine, which are the most current printing, still have lots of terms that are more commonly used over the pond than here. Not saying the term is wrong but I do not very often hear anyone in my part of the world call a saddle pad a numnah or call the throat latch area a throttle.
And what Scribbler said above…
Again, not saying those terms are not accurate, just not used around here usually.
They are great books. Full of good stuff.
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That’s a great suggestion! Thank you.
I laughed out loud at that.
Thank you all again!
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I grew up saying “pad” of hay. I’ve heard others say “pat” like a pat of butter (which is probably where “pad” derived from, and makes sense as a bale of hay is shaped like a stick of butter). I have since switched over to “flake” to fit in. Damn peer pressure.
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I have show breeches in white, and schooling breeches in a variety of colors and some with fun details (I ride dressage) but they are all the same basic full-seat style. I can’t stand tights - I haven’t found a pair comfortable for riding in.
I ALWAYS wear long sleeved shirts (mostly with a collar) because of a family history of skin cancer. They usually end up soaked in sweat after a lesson, but so did my tank tops back before I learned about skin cancer, and the performance material dries really quickly and does cool you off some, especially if it isn’t horribly humid. I enjoy wearing fun colors and looking “put together” with a belt and coordinating colors even if I am going to be dusty and sweaty at the end of the day, so now I have a collection of sun shirts in a rainbow of colors.
I generally refer to the place where I board “the barn” and yes, that sometimes gets mistaken for “bar”, but we have been known on occasion to enjoy a cold adult beverage after lessons in the evening, so it is sometimes appropriate. I don’t hear many people use “stable” or “stables” here in CA. Ranch is more common here.
I sometimes refer to my trainer as my coach - she teaches lessons and rides/trains horses, including mine, but I use both somewhat interchangeably.
We also tend to use “feed” here as a verb (or sometimes “lunch/dinner”), even though the food consists of various grains and pellets.
I will admit to saying “worming” when I mean “de-worming”.
to the OP - the only stupid question is the one you don’t ask. I think your employers and their clients would much prefer you ask questions than make mistakes. Where I ride we are a big mix of people - some who have had horses for decades, and some just entering the horse world. For the most part the more experienced folks are more than happy to share their knowledge.
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Knowledge is one thing and terminology is another. If you have the knowledge you can easily adapt to new terms, between regions or disciplines. The pony club manuals are great for knowledge and you can usually figure out if the terms are different locally just by listening. The further west you go in North America the more Spanish or cowboy terms infiltrate English as well as Western riding. Sorrel for chestnut. Pinto for piebald/skewbald. Girth or cinch. Etc.
Then there are things where the definition itself is more slippery.
For instance many modern pelleted horse feeds contain no actual grain, maybe beet pulp, soy, or alfalfa meal.
In casual conversation it’s fine to call them grain.
But if you are having a discussion about nutrition choices, you might need to end up distinguishing between actual grain (oats, barley, corn, wheat) etc as only one option among bagged feeds or concentrates. If someone says “I don’t feed my horse grain,” do they mean the horse only gets hay, or that the horse gets hay plus a bagged feed that is based on nongrain ingredients?
My horse doesn’t get 24/7 hay (or she’d be obese) so feeding her can mean hay or grain. So at my barn we tend to refer to hay and then “mash” or “bucket” to refer to our personalized “grain” meals (it’s self board and we each have our own little recipe). But grain would totally make sense too.
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In holland/belgium, some other places in europe a boarding and/or pro stable might be called a manege…but not by me haha although I’ll call it a yard.
I use box and stall interchangeably now, but never use stable to refer to an individual stall although some others do.
I never refer to a saddle pad or half pad as a numnah. The word annoys me.
I never use the word headcollar.
I’m from “out west” and in my experience we use girth when speaking of english, cinch when speaking of western, with other similar discipline-based rather than regional-based distinctions.
If I had a dollar for every time someone thought I said bar instead of barn I could afford like, at least a new thinline.
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I still do a double take when a British rider refers to a horse float meaning trailer.
Float in my world means a parade vehicle, usually covered in paper roses with the local Miss Pumpkin Queen or the Mayor waving regally. I imagine a very calm horse up there nodding away to her admirers.
But in the other hand after about two days driving around England with a British friend I was putting the luggage in the boot, not the trunk 
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This is interesting, here silage is fed to horses, not all of them but enough that we always have one big round of it open at our barn for the horses who take it as opposed to hay.
Yeah we fed mostly haylage in Holland and belgium, but we collectively pretty much all just called it hay.
I think haylage is a little different from cow silage, and it’s fed in Britain/Europe. In North America I think the cow silage isn’t considered safe for horses or perhaps the climate is better for making dry hay.
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