What tips and tricks does everyone have for fitting tack? Do you have rules of thumb? What do you look for and how do you decided whether something fits properly or not?

It's not something I do often, I have one bridle for each of my horses and two spares (one for the crew car and one for the vet gate). So that means I only ever have to 'fit' tack once for every horse. Biothane tack lasts such a long time and my taste hasn't really wavered from my navy and white combos for over a decade so I just don't need to buy and fit tack very often. But well fitting comfortable tack is surely a major part of having a happy performance horse.

With Endurance tack the headpiece of our bridle isn't very tight, it is basically a headcollar so we don't have the complexities of which nose band to buy and anatomical fittings because they just aren't causing any pressure. For me I'd like a fingers width of space behind the ears, a couple of fingers under the noseband and throatlash and a maximum 2 wrinkles around the bit for the headpiece tightness. If possible I like the headpiece buckles to be away from the eyeline too. I think I might need to get Qantas a slightly longer browband as there isn't much room behind his ears or around the front, what do you think?

The breastplate is one of the most important fits for me. I want to make sure that shoulder movement isn't being restricted, that they're not put off drinking and putting their heads down, I don't want any rub points but neither do we want too much flapping around and movement. I tend to have a hands width between the sternum and the strap, and 4 fingers width for the shoulder straps.

I'm really grateful to my friend Sue who got me the bridle for my Birthday from https://www.pioneerendurance.com/ and my brother who got me the reins for Christmas. We'll see how the white padding fares, it will get a lot of use because I use the same tack for training and competition because I like to be totally confident in what I'm using, I guess I could get identical tack for home and out and about but I still think I'd prefer to race in what I know.

Thanks for watching,
Beth