AMA: What’s the Difference Between a Hunter and Dressage Shadbelly?
What’s the difference between a hunter and dressage shadbelly? And why do riders wear them?
A shadbelly is a type of riding coat with tails. Different styles of shadbellies are worn among fox hunters, dressage (eventing, too) and hunter riders.
Traditionally speaking, a rider wears a shadbelly in upper-level classes, in dressage that could be Prix St. George and above. In the hunters, shadbellies are reserved for special events, like hunter stakes classes, derbies, classics and some pony/junior classes.
They stem from the original “swallowtail” coats worn by women fox hunters. (Men wore scarlet or “pink” coats.) Shadbellies are not required for hunter classes but are considered appropriate as “formal attire,” which is why you see them in major events, from FEI-level classes to international derbies.
Shadbellies for dressage tend to have longer, straighter tails that can reach the back of the rider’s knee. They are often weighted. Hunter shadbellies have dark buttons and have lightweight tails that flow freely behind the rider.
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