Does the Rug Fit My Horse?

Rug fit – how to check whether the rug fits

Autumn/winter is here and rug season has begun. Once again you arrive at the yard with a new rug, put it on your horse full of anticipation and cast a critical eye from neck to croup. Whether it’s a turnout rug, cooler rug, exercise sheet or horse walker rug: a surcingle here, a strap there, a bit more Velcro, and somehow the horse ends up wrapped up – but can it still move freely and feel comfortable under the rug? Plenty of question marks remain.

How to find the right size

Measure your horse’s back from the withers to the root of the tail with a tape measure to determine the length. Make sure the tape isn’t pulled too tight but lies flat and loosely along the horse’s spine. You should also take your horse’s proportions into account. For a more narrowly built horse with a back length of 145 cm, a 140 cm rug might be enough. If the horse is more broadly built, a rug that is 5 cm bigger might fit better. Our size chart can help you here, and in the end: trial and error beats theory, and every horse is an individual case.

When you try on a new rug, it’s best to put a cooler rug on your horse first. That way the new rug stays clean and can be exchanged without any problems if it doesn’t fit.

Health digression – when the rug causes a blockage

“I have been presented with countless horses that had been treated for months with every medication available – antibiotics, mucolytics, cortisone, teas and inhalations several times a day, in salt chambers and with ultrasonic nebulisers – but without success. And all of these horses had one thing in common: a blockage of the spinous processes at the withers.

At first I thought this blockage might have been triggered by the coughing, but then it turned out that once the blockage had been released, the illness suddenly subsided too – regardless of how long it had already persisted. As it turned out, this connection goes so far that blockages at the withers can even encourage the development of respiratory diseases. I came across this connection through, of all things, one of the main causes of wither blockages: horse rugs.

One October, when a great many owners had already clipped and therefore rugged their horses, an extremely large number of horses were presented to me with wither blockages and respiratory diseases. Horse rugs quickly came into focus as a possible cause, because during this time I was also examining plenty of other rugged horses that had no wither blockages or respiratory diseases.

So all the affected horses were rugged, but not all rugged horses were affected. When the rugs of the sick horses were checked, it turned out that every single one of them was too tight at the withers and was pressing, and in each case the owners confirmed the link in timing between rugging and the onset of the cough. In other words, the pressing rug triggered a blockage at the withers, which in turn made the horse more susceptible to respiratory infections.”

Julie von Bismark, equine osteopath and author of the book “Zusammenhänge im Pferd I und II”

The devil is often in the detail. If you have any questions about the fit of your horse rug or are unsure, please feel free to contact our service team at any time. We are always on hand with help and advice, because the health and well-being of the horse are our top priority.

Best wishes

Your EQM Team