Getting Ring-Ready For Equifest

If you're heading to Equifest this year (5–8 August, Arena UK, if it's somehow escaped your radar), you'll have noticed something happening in the warm-up ring that wasn't there a couple of seasons ago. Everyone's colour-matching their browbands.

The Browband Everyone's Suddenly Talking About

It's a small piece of tack doing a lot of work. The browband is one of the only bits of a traditional bridle where a judge's eye actually lingers, and riders have clearly clocked it. Rugs, jumpers, hair ribbons, browbands, all in the same shade — it's the "matching horse and rider" moment that's been building all season, and it's landed properly this summer.

The appeal isn't really about being loud. It's that showing has always asked riders to fit inside quite a narrow box, correct shape, correct proportions, correct turnout, and a browband is one of the few places you're allowed to let a bit of personality through without touching the fundamentals a judge is actually marking.

It's one of the only places in the ring you're allowed to be yourself.

Traditional Ring, One Rule Broken

If you're showing somewhere that expects the classic hunter silhouette, that doesn't mean you're stuck with plain black. Our Flat Hunter Style Browband keeps the trim, traditional shape and one-inch flat plait judges expect, but the plait itself is entirely yours to design, up to three Endless Colours, woven from weather-proof paracord and finished with 19mm BioThane loops that slide straight onto your existing bridle.

Which matters more than it sounds at an event like Equifest. Four days, a warm-up ring that's seen a lot of hooves and quite possibly some rain, and gear that's expected to look immaculate for every single class. No oiling, no cracking, no evening spent panicking over a damp tack room, just a wipe with a sponge and it's back in the ring looking exactly as it did that morning.

Or Go All In

If your discipline gives you a bit more room to play, our Custom Braided Browband is the one for a genuinely bold combo. It pairs a strictly weather-proof BioThane base with an intricate paracord braid, and you can go subtle and solid or build a proper three-colour masterpiece. Either way, it shrugs off rain the same way the rest of our gear does, and it's made to actually be noticed.

Getting Ready Without The Faff

The real appeal of doing this in BioThane rather than leather is what it does to your morning at a four-day show. There's no last-minute oiling before the first class, no worrying about it drying out overnight in a lorry, and no scrubbing mud off in the dark before the 7am warm-up. Wipe it down, and it's done.

That's really the whole trick to showing well at something the size of Equifest, less time spent maintaining tack, more time spent actually warming up.

Whatever colour you land on, get there early enough to enjoy the warm-up ring gossip. That's half the reason we all go.