How to measure your horse for a rug?

Modern horse rugs tend to be fairly similarly sized between makes, and excepting the very cheap imported rugs (which tend to compound the issue by being badly cut) most horse rugs are fairly easy to measure for.

Rugs are measured along the bottom seam, so to find the ideal size stable rug the easiest way is to use a piece of string or bailing twine to measure from the centre of the horses chest (roughly where you can feel the horse breastbone) horizontally around his shoulder, along his side and just past the last point of his rump. You can then measure this on a tape measure, ideally in inches to give you the size. Horse rugs are measured every 3”, and if your horse is between sizes, for example 6’2” it is usually best to go up to the next size which would be 6’3” in this example. Stable rugs without a neck are best bought at the measured size, as are cooler rugs, sweat rugs and fly rugs without necks.

Most Turnout rugs and any horse rug including stable rugs with integrated neck covers are best bought one size larger to allow greater freedom of movement for your horse. Although sizes tend to run true amongst the different popular makes of turnout and stable rugs, the cut is sometimes slightly different and can suit different shapes and sizes of equines.

Mark Todd turnout and stable rugs have highly adjustable fronts and large shoulder gussets, and are especially deep which makes them generally a good choice of rug for any large chested or hunter type horse. The Weatherbeeta rugs have a good range of fitting, and will fit most middleweight horses as well as finer types such as Arabs and Thoroughbreds. Masta rugs are a very adjustable and deep fitting rug, and fit middleweight to larger horses best, but can adjust down to fit finer horses nicely too if required.