Horse Bridles Review, My Top Choices From Years Of Use

The Horse Bridles I've Used The Most.

When you spend as long as I have in the industry both riding and coaching, bridles come and go. Often tack stores will have a huge selection of English bridles so finding one suitable for your horse can be somewhat daunting.

I've been partial to a few different brands so I've chosen a varying price range and picked my favorites from the cheapest to the most expensive I've owned.

HDR Pro Mono Crown Fancy Bridle

HDR is a perfect blend of quality and affordability. I've used these bridles as part of my home hardware and I have many students that use them as their only bridles. They're great for everyday use and look smart enough for the show ring when we go to competition. I also see many riders at top-rated shows use these bridles.

Features:

• Padded and contoured headstall

• Patent leather accents

• Mono crown with elegant fancy stitch details

• Comes in black or havana

Pros: Affordable, nice entry-level bridle

Cons: Not the best quality leather you'll find but still smart enough for showing

HDR Mono Crown Bridle

Stubben RFS Leitrim Bridle

Stubben is a German brand that has been around for a long time and makes super quality and stylish products. I've had two of these bridles in the last decade or so.

One of them I gave away with a horse I sold, the other I've had for 15 years and although you can clearly tell it's been around the block it still looks great when given a thorough clean.

Features:

• High-quality, full-grain leather

• Removable flash

• softly padded headstall

• silver color fittings

Pros: Great quality leather, nice stylish bridles

Cons: A little hard to find if you want to buy one, not a huge range of styles

Stubben Leitrim Bridle

Antares Signature Flash Noseband Bridle

I fell in love with the Antares brand over a decade ago, they make top-quality leather goods and other horse equipment and I feel like even their lower-end range is always better quality than most other brands' equivalent.

My Antares bridle is one that I keep for showing my stallion and you can see and feel from the moment you pick it up that it's a top-class bridle. The feel of the leather is better than anything I've owned and the stainless steel hardware pieces are a unique but very functional design.

This'll be the bridles 5th show season, it still looks fantastic and I have no intention of replacing it.

Features:

• Flash noseband bridle, padded anatomic headpiece

• Fancy stitched, padded noseband and browband

• Removable flash

• Stainless steel fittings

• High-quality buffalo leather

Pros: Beautiful quality leather, stylish bridles that look classy for competition

Cons: A little hard to find places to buy them

Antares Bridle

Equiline Bridle

I picked up an Equiline bridle on my last trip to Ireland, equipment is often cheaper there, and with added discounts, it can be worth leaving extra room in your suitcase.

When I took that trip I had just started a young horse I owned so I wanted to buy a new bridle for him.

Equiline has superb riding wear for both in and out of the show ring but during that trip I found they also made some tack items.

The bridle I found looked beautiful, the color was a little lighter than I wanted but I knew with cleaning and oiling it would darken so I bought it.

I used it at home to work it in a little, and through this I found the quality was not what you would expect from Equiline.

Although the bridle is stylish, with nice stitching through the browband and noseband, and the rubber reins that came with it feel nice in your hands, the top layer of leather wrinkled over time.

Features:

• Italian leather

• Decorative fancy stitching

• removable flash

• Padded crownpiece

• Padded noseband and browband

Pros: Beautiful bridle, padded crownpiece is a nice feature

Cons: Leather is not the quality you would expect from Equiline

Equiline Flash Bridle