Cooler Rug: What Size Do I Need For My Icelandic Horse?

How do I find the right size for my sweat rug? Many Icelandic horse owners ask themselves this question, and we are also asked time and again by our customers about the right size. That is why we would like to shed some light on this question with this article.

Autorin: Karolina Kardel, 360 Grad Pferd, Veronika Conen

Probably the most important point to consider is:

It's not the height that determines the blanket size, but the back length.

This is an important point especially for Icelandic horses. An Icelandic horse with a height of 1.43 cm does not necessarily need a larger blanket than an Icelandic horse with a height of 1.33 cm, just because it has longer legs.

The size of horse rugs usually refers to the length of the horse's back.
If your horse has a back length of 123 cm, you would need a size 125 cm, if your horse has a back length of 133 cm, you would need a size 135 cm.

Determine the back length

To determine the exact length of your horse's back, you should use a moving tape measure. A fixed folding rule or a rigid tape measure would not be able to accurately reflect the swing of the back because they would not rest on the back at these points.

To determine the length of your horse's back, measure from the highest point of the withers to the base of the tail. This measurement is crucial for the blanket size.

I have a large Icelandic horse - does the Sportsfreund Cooler Rug still fit?

This question reaches us very often. And time and again we can reassure our customers: Yes, our blanket fits. Promised!

Our Sportsfreund sweat rug is one size 125 cm and still fits all Icelandic horses without exception. We can say this from years of experience.

The average height of an Icelandic horse is between 1.30 cm and 1.45 cm, but the length of the back differs only slightly. Just out of interest, we measured the backs of several Isis at the stable. The results were all between 115 and 125 cm and the back length of most horses was in between. A 125 cm long Isi back is really long and rare.

There are Icelandics that owe their large stature to their long legs, but still have a short back. And there are Icelandic Horses with short legs, which have a correspondingly small stature, but a relatively long back.

Or just think about the saddle: Most Icelandic horse riders have a saddle with a size between 17 and 18 inches. The decisive factor for the saddle size is on the one hand the height and figure of the rider, but on the other hand the length of the horse's back or the contact surface of your horse. Therefore, a 17.5 inch saddle can fit the 1.33 m tall Isi just as well as the 1.43 cm tall horse.

The Cooler Rug from Sportsfreund

The horse sweats most on the neck and chest. It is important for his health that this sensitive part of the body dries well. Here in particular, conventional sweat blankets are cut out deeply. They are closed with buckles at the front, do not fit and even gape. Our rug is high-necked and close-fitting to allow the horse's sweat to be absorbed by the fabric. In this way, it ensures optimal sweating. Harmful drafts are safely kept out.

This is how you put on a Sportfreund Rug

To ensure that our blanket fits all Icelandic horses without exception, regardless of whether they have long or short legs and whether they are sporty or chubby, whether they have a rather broad or a very narrow chest or whether their neck set is high or low (all these points also play an important role in terms of fit), we have designed a special multi-pass* fastening system with Velcro flaps that allows the blanket to be put on precisely.

This means that the flaps can simply be closed more loosely on a large, strong Icelandic horse with a broad chest or on an Isi with a long back than on an Icelandic horse with a very narrow chest. And depending on how wide, narrow, thick or thin your horse is, the blanket will hang down at the sides - a little more on narrow horses than on wide horses.

When putting on this blanket, it must be noted that it is different! It is created differently. 

The first impulse for many people is to put this blanket too far back. In order to be able to close the flaps in this way, the blanket would first have to be laboriously pulled up against the direction of the fur. Because that doesn't work, the assumption is that the blanket is too small and doesn't close - although at the same time there are still 30 centimeters of fabric hanging from the bottom. The trick is very simple! Place the blanket at the front of the neck and close the flaps first. This is how they are guaranteed to close! Finally, the blanket is pulled over the croup. So every horse, whether 130 or 150, is well packed.

In the following, we show you various Icelandic horses with different stock sizes and different figures, all of which can wear our Sportsfreund sweat blanket: