I began riding in the late sixties when I was 5 years old in Westchester county in New York. My father would always take me to favorite stores in New your city called Kauffman’s and Miller’s to buy my entire horseback riding clothes.  They were both on 23rd street in Manhattan, a few doors apart.

 Then riding clothes were looking vintage even then. Riding apparel was closely based on the classic Fox Hunting styles. I regularly sported rust or canary jodhpurs, jodhpur boots, and a plaid ratcatcher with a square knot at the collar.  I was sure I was wearing the most stylish riding apparel. My boots were a classic jod boot that had a thin strap that crossed around your ankle and buckled on the side.  We wore our jodhpur riding pants with flairs at the sides, and the material they were made from was stiff and scratchy twills and wools.  There was no stretch in those riding pants!

Our show clothes were far more colorful than clothes of today.  Many of us wore dark green chocolate or royal blue show jackets.  These fabulous riding coats had velvet collars and contrasting satin linings.  Some had piping on the collars and down the front as well.  Plenty of adults and child horse show competitors were competing in wool tweed tailored jackets. Our show shirts had style. Ratcatcher collars were available in silk paisleys and prints.   Even our helmets were designed to match.  The velvets were hunter green, navy, chocolate and grey.  Black velvet was ordinary. 

When I was finally allowed to wear tall riding boots, the only style available was a dress boot. It has no laces on the front, so the ankles of the tall leather black boots were very wide.  We also wore our dress boots shorter and wider.  So much wider that you would happily store your crop down the back of you boot when you did not need it.  The boot tops tended to droop so much so, every tall boot came with a boot garter strap.  This strap that looks like a spur strap and passed through a loop sewn in the back of the boots and buckled tightly around your upper calf just below your knee. These boots were not very flattering. Many people rode in tall rubber riding boots.

Our saddler here at Maryland Saddlery told me in 1970 he was wearing Calvary Breeches made from summer weight twill with gigantic flairs at the sides, buttons at the calves and a button front flap.  He bought these breeches second hand from an old Calvary man who he was taking lessons from at the time. He said he was proud to be wearing them.

As the mid seventies arrived so did casual riding. Blue jeans and sneakers, hip huggers with bell embroidered bottoms and the dreaded body suit with a snap crotch.  None of these styles were ideal for riding horses, but we all looked cool.  I have photos to prove it!

When the eighties showed up I changed to three day eventing.  I discovered Harry Hall Breeches. Finally breeches with stretch.  They were a ribbed nylon and offered in may more colors than ever before.  Let’s see, I owned black, beige and of course, rust. I had to own a dressage jacket, stock tie and full seat white breeches. The cross-country phase of eventing brought with it the opportunity to color coordinate my horse and me.  We all wore rugby or polo shirts cross country, colorful saddle pads and horse boots.  Show jumping was still dressing like a standard horse show. 

In the mid eighties I move to Maryland and immersed myself once again in the horse show world.  By the time I opened up Maryland Saddlery I knew there was a need for correctly filling classically styled riding apparel for children, women and men.  I also knew that there was a need for schooling apparel as well.  Riding clothing we could wear everyday to the barn to ride, groom and muck in.  These schooling clothes need to go from the house to the barn to the food store.  Comfort, fit and wash ability was the key. As easy to wear as the schooling attire was, I wanted to bring to the show clothes an exquisite sense of tailoring and history.  I wanted my customers to walk out of my store properly tailored and ready to walk into a horse show ring.  We have continued this tradition for almost 20 years.