My Picks: Turnout Blankets

Since I just purchased a new turnout blanket myself and it happens to be quite cold outside right at the moment, I thought I'd talk about my favorites.

The good ones:

Weatherbeeta Landa Original Turnout blanket:

This is what Jetta has now, as well as all of my other horses. Weatherbeeta is a pretty affordable blanket that is of good quality and will last for quite a while. Grady and Jazz are on the third year for their blankets, but of course they are easy on their blankets. Jetta's already has a small tear, but I've found that no matter the blanket, if they're going to rip it, they'll find a way! It's a basic blanket with a good fit. These blankets fit well and come with two buckles on front, cross surcingles and leg straps. If there was anything I would change, is that I would prefer snaps on the front since they are easier.

Rambo Wug: I must admit that I have never owned this blanket. Mostly this is because it comes with a hefty $300 price tag. But it is pretty nice, just not in my budget. It has the high neck that I like as well as a unique front closure that looks like it would eliminate the rubbing that occurs with many blankets. It has three belly straps as well as leg arches. The neatest thing is that it comes with a three-year warantee. So if you typically dole out $100 a year for a blanket, this might be a better alternative because you know that it will last at least three years!

 

Weatherbeeta High Neck Orican: This blanket it one that I've had my eye on for a while, but it's a little more spendy than the basic Landa style. It has a higher neck to provide that little bit extra coverage and also it has extra padding. There's the chance that a high neck could rub more than a standard neck, but this has extra padding over the withers and on the underside of the neck to prevent rubs. It also has the nicer buckles on the front. Checkmark115 did a good review on her Orican blanket here.

Saxon 1200D Turnout: This is the blanket that I almost bought for Jetta. It is a very affordable blanket, priced around $70. It has all the necessary items: double buckle front, criss-cross surcingle, leg straps and tail strap. Also, it has a higher denier (1200) which means that it should be harder to tear than one with a lower denier.

 

TuffRider Stretch turnout sheet: This is a really nice brand - it's affordable and tries hard to have neat features that the consumers want. I have a TuffRider Thermo Manager quilted blanket to go under Jetta's lightweight turnout sheet and I really like it. The only downside is that it has a tail cord and not leg straps. Tail cords, IMHO, are pretty worthless. The turnout blanket, however, does have leg straps. But they are well made and not expensive. This blanket does an almost copy of the Wug front closure (though the straps in the picture should be crossed!).

The bad ones:

 Weatherbeeta Taka Freestyle: I really like 99% of Weatherbeeta's blankets, but definitely not this one. Worst blanket I have every owned, besides that canvas one I had when I first bought Grady. It was pretty and had snaps on the front, a belly warmer (which I now avoid buying) and leg straps but it had the most atrocious fit. My horses are easy to fit (and are definitely not the same shape). They are by no means a hard-to-fit, funny shape. This blanket must have been made for the narrowest, narrow of horses. It rubbed their shoulders, it rubbed their withers and it rubbed their hips. It fit so badly that both horses had scabs on their withers. Needless to say I got rid of them real quick and I would highly recommend that if you find one of these blankets, don't buy it. Unless your horse is build like the narrow edge of a 2 x 4.

 Combo blanket: This one isn't specific to Weatherbeeta, lots of companies make combo blankets with the built it neck cover. But for most horses it doesn't work very well. The neck is usually much too short, so while grazing it doesn't cover at least 6" of their neck, which kind of defeats the purpose of this blanket. The other thing is that the neck cover causes the blanket to rub the withers a lot because of how it's attached to the blanket. It causes a pressure point when the horse's neck it down. A better option would be to buy a blanket with detachable neck cover. That way it won't create a pressure point on the withers are they are more often made large enough to actually cover the neck!

JT Supply Blankets: These blankets are super cheap, which could be good if you have a small budget. But you do get what you pay for. I have one of these for Jetta that I won, and it has held up pretty well though the waterproofing didn't last long and has had to be redone three times, but that's not a very large expense. But they tear pretty easily (Katy ripped hers to shreds) and I've had buckles break or randomly pop off. This company makes several different lines, so be sure to get one with the two surcingles (not one, it doesn't hold the blanket it place very well) and the higher the denier the better. They make them up to 1200 denier but also as low as 200 denier.