Coincidentally, I just saw a mesh jacket on one of the jumper riders in the Grand Prix of Switzerland. I would not have noticed the mesh aspect if they had not shown a slow-motion close-up of him.
They are getting ready to start the second round now with the top 13 coming back for it, if you scroll down the FEI Jumping Facebook page a bit.
On the topic of colored show shirts— and the lack thereof— I’m just going to post this link here. Anyone tried one of these? (Anyone willing to admit that they have?) 
Apparently they’re a viable option for breed shows like AQHA and Paint, especially during the summer. I had no idea. Now I’m wondering if a lot of the pretty, unique “show shirts” I see are actually… dickies!
Oh hell no to the padded bra idea. What is this, the 50s???
My mother sniffed at this idea when my sister and I were showing. She said that by the time we got done safety-pinning them to our shirts so that they laid well, we might as well just button a whole shirt.
Mom’s idea to keep us cool in the summer was that when our ratcatchers got too small, she would cut off the sleeves (hemmed off nicely, of course) and we would wear them sleeveless. But that wouldn’t look right under a hunt coat, so she also cut off the cuffs and we would wear the cuffs buttoned around our wrists so that you wouldn’t see bare arm between the glove and the cuff of the coat. I’m not honestly sure this made a lick of difference in terms of comfort but it certainly gave me another year out of a couple of my ratcatchers while I was growing like a weed.
I have definitely seen kids in the last few years showing in short sleeve shirts under coats that had shirt cuffs permanently attached to the sleeves of the jacket.
I never bothered to investigate how they got there, so I don’t know if they were manufactured that way, or if it was an add-on after the fact.
I wore dickies when I rode dressage, with the stock tie incorporated. You could leave the tie tied and pinned. There were times when I wore it over a tank top, not worrying about the lack of visible cuffs. At one particularly hot show, I had my coat and dickie off and the horse partially unbraided before I got back to the barn.
It’s a feature offered by Charles Ancona!
Mom is a very talented artist in several media- she refinishes furniture and has made some of her own formal wear. She is not the type to be daunted by children outgrowing their clothes. 
To keep this on topic, one of the shirts she made into a sleeveless version with a set of cuffs was a light blue with white gingham check. I wore it with a very dark teal hunt coat. I do not remember why I did this, but I wish I still had that coat.
I have procured the aforementioned grey jacket and a fresh pair of rust breeches. Might use my grown-ass adult ammy card to wear this on my baby hunter, but it will definitely be my non-classic day jumper look for the summer! 
!
Love that!
I was so close to wearing my rust for Upperville for our Too Slow To Go class next week, but my new boots came in, which have green piping, so green coat it is. For this year at least!
After doing some inquiries, this is what I’ve heard; you wear the dickie over a tank top, camisole or slim-fitting t-shirt. And I guess you have to pin it in place? Ugh. And yet, we are not above using Industrial Strength safety pins in the Paint world. What’s a handful more?
Guess what? Some of the custom dickie sellers on etsy also sell coordinating cuffs! So your mom was ahead of her time!
See, I don’t think this sort of thing is more comfortable. Anything sleeveless means sweaty pits against the lining of a hunt coat which, to me, is the most “ICK” feeling I can imagine. I’m so much more comfortable with a long sleeved or at least short sleeved show shirt on. Pit on coat just icks me out.
Agreed. Plus it is very bad for the lining of the coat.
Agreed! I don’t even like wearing sleeveless dressed with my good work blazers. And I’m unlikely to get sweaty enough at work that my arms are sticking. It just feels wrong.
Maybe it feels less weird with the mesh coats? I don’t think I’ve ever tried one of mine on without sleeves though.
Oh, agree on both counts! Yet I guess some of popularity for the abomination known as a “dickie” in the breed show world is because we’re really only doing a couple of flat classes (and let’s face it: we’re going pretty slow ) and dickies are an affordable way to add a pop of color and variety to your outfit.
Yet honestly, the vendors that sell the fancy $700 hunt coats on the AQHA/Paint/breed circuits shudder when asked if they carry dickies. Any amount of sweat, wicking into the satin lined, non-washable fabric, can ruin the hunt coat. Plus, clammy pits are gross.
So I guess the only option I’ve found for a traditional, long-sleeved colored show shirt is to re-consider the $150 - $250 ones in old timey colors and prints from the aforementioned hunt coat vendors.
Well to be fair the western world has been arguing about whether shirts with attached collars are show ring legal so the mesh jacket may have elicited a response because of this.
Does anyone still make detachable ratcatcher collars? While I miss the colored shirts, I sure don’t miss keeping track of those or trying to get them done up properly. Two snaps is so much easier!
And the little magnet on my Kerrits shirt is even easier.
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