As some of you may know, I splashed out on my first ever pair of white breeches for yesterdays dressage show (no more cream for dressage!) I decided to go for the Tottie Maven Knee-Grip breeches for a few reasons. I wanted a comfortable pair of fairly thick breeches, but not too thick around the leg to make tight boots/chaps even tighter. Looking at the Harry Hall website (includes Tottie, Caldene and other brands) this pair of Tottie breeches appeared to tick all my boxes and they were on sale!
£54.99
Despite me ordering them around 4pm, they turned up the next day! Which is fantastic service! They fit really well and are comfortable. I like the different material at the bottom. It is more comfortable under my chaps than normal breeches. However, if you were to compete in short boots with no chaps, I don’t think these would be suitable as the grey would look a bit odd.
I rode in them for the first time at the show yesterday and having never ridden in knee grip breeches, it did take a little bit of getting used to. I also noticed that they do sometimes make a bit of a squeaking/creaking noise against the saddle. So if you had a particularly noise sensitive horse you might have a bit of an issue. But for most people/horses they would be fine. I stopped hearing it after a little while which either means it stopped or I just stopped hearing it.
The knee grips certainly came in handy in our first test of the day where Scottie turned into a complete baby and put in a few spooks. They helped keep me fairly still in the saddle when I think I might have lost a tad more balance without them. So I can highly recommend if you have a spooky or big moving horse. The extra grip might just be enough to keep you where you want to be! However, I did find when it was time to get off, if your knee doesn’t really clear the back of the saddle, you can get a bit stuck! On my way down they gripped my saddle and led to a rather ungraceful dismount.
Keep your eye out for the rest of our new dressage competition wear reviews, including Caldene stock and Equetech shirt.
Last Updated on 07/08/2018
