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Industry · Equestrian + horse supplies

Magento for equestrian and horse supplies: saddle fit, sizing and wormer checks

Selling tack online means getting two bodies right, the rider’s and the horse’s, without either of them in the shop. Building Magento for equestrian and horse supply stores, I spend most of my time on saddle measurements, rug sizes that change from one country to the next, and helmets that riders filter by safety standard. UK shops also sell wormers that an SQP has to approve before they ship. Magento answers each of those differently, so the sections below take them one at a time.

  • Saddles listed with seat size, tree width and an upload for wither tracing photos
  • Rug, boot and breeches sizes stored per sizing system, not guessed
  • Wormer orders held until your SQP approves them (UK)
Free 30-min equestrian consult See what’s included
Adobe Certified Magento developer since 2021 10+ years on Magento, working freelance
What riders expect

Fit, sizing and medicine rules set tack shops apart

Most shops get by with one size chart and a standard returns page. A tack shop cannot. The four points below decide the product data, the returns process and even who may approve an order.

  • Two fits The horse has to fit too

    A saddle has to suit the rider’s seat and the horse’s back. Tree widths are not consistent between makers, so one brand’s medium wide can sit like another brand’s wide. Many riders want to try a saddle before they keep it, which turns a plain sale into a trial with conditions.

  • Sizing Several size systems at once

    UK rugs are sized in feet and inches, US rugs in inches, and plenty of European brands use centimetres. Breeches come in US, UK, German or Italian sizes depending on the label. Once you ship to more than one country, the size chart stops being a footnote and becomes product data.

  • Standards Helmets are safety equipment

    Riders in the US look for ASTM F1163 with SEI certification, and riders in the UK and Europe look for marks such as PAS 015 or VG1. Competition rules list which standards are accepted, so a rider filters by standard before looking at colour or price.

  • POM-VPS Some UK stock needs a sign-off

    Most horse wormers sold in the UK are POM-VPS medicines. An SQP, a vet or a pharmacist has to be satisfied before each one is supplied, which normally means a few questions about the horse and when it was last wormed. Those orders cannot go straight to the packing bench.

Store setup

Six things I build for a tack and feed shop

Part of this is settings in the admin, part is code I write for you. Every card says which, since that difference is what moves the quote.

  • Saddles: fit details and trials

    New saddles work as configurable products with seat size, tree width and colour, and I only create the combinations your supplier can actually deliver. Second-hand saddles are single listings, one in stock, each with its own measured gullet, seat and flap. Magento product options include a file upload field, so a rider can attach photos of a wither tracing to the order. Trial terms can sit in a checkout agreement the rider ticks, which Magento supports out of the box.

  • Sizes per brand and per market

    Tall boots need three choices (foot size, calf height, calf width), so the option grid grows fast and I keep it to what is stocked. A size system attribute records whether a product uses UK, US, German or Italian sizing. Attribute option labels can differ by store view, so the same rug can read 6′3″ on a UK store and in inches on a US one. Each brand’s size chart is a CMS block shown on its product pages.

  • Helmets and body protectors

    Safety standard is a multi-select attribute, because one helmet often carries two or three marks. It shows up as a filter in layered navigation and as a line near the price on the product page. Body protectors get the same treatment with their own standards. When a manufacturer updates a model to a newer standard, the product data changes in one place and every filter follows.

  • Wormers and other POM-VPS products (UK)

    Products flagged as POM-VPS ask the questions your SQP wants answered, as required fields on the product or at checkout. The order lands in an “Awaiting SQP” status with the payment authorized but not captured. The SQP approves or declines in the admin, and their name and the time go into the order history. Which questions to ask and how long to keep records comes from your SQP and the VMD guidance, not from me.

  • Saddle boxes, feed and bedding

    A saddle box is big and fairly light, so carriers charge on its size, and the quote at checkout has to use the box dimensions. Feed and bedding are the opposite: heavy, cheap and bought in bulk, which suits Magento’s weight-based table rates. If you run your own van for local feed drops, that becomes a separate shipping method limited to the postcodes you cover, built as a small extension.

  • Yards, riding schools and trainers

    Livery yards and riding schools get a trade customer group, and feed and bedding carry tier prices by the bag or the pallet. Bank transfer and purchase order payments are both built into Open Source. Trainers who send you customers can each get their own coupon code, and Magento’s coupon report shows what each code brought in. A yard with several people ordering is where Adobe Commerce company accounts and requisition lists start to earn their cost.

  • Questions before you start?Read the answers →

Your quote

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Send your store URL and describe what you want to change. We can review the requirements and agree a written scope, quote and timeline before work starts.

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The build process

Five steps from audit to optimised equestrian store

Audit → plan → build → deploy → stabilise. Tuned for the equestrian show season cadence: every cutover is timed around WEF, HITS, Devon, or the FEI World Cup so a freight-class re-code does not land in peak-traffic week. Optional ongoing retainer through the next show season.

  1. 01

    Audit

    Discipline-mix audit (% revenue by English / Western / dressage / barrel / endurance), saddle-AOV + return-rate baseline, current LTL freight pain (lost carts at checkout), B2B stable share + Net-30 ops, brand-portal coverage (which dealer agreements are signed), subscription state (any SmartPak-style recurring), feed-bag freight classes. 1 week.

    Baseline + gaps
  2. 02

    Plan

    Discipline filter taxonomy + customer-segment defaults, saddle-fit configurator scope (which brands need brand-specific fit logic), LTL carrier mix (Old Dominion + R+L + XPO white-glove), Net-30 underwriter (Apruve vs Resolve vs TreviPay), subscription stack (ReCharge vs Bold), brand portal architecture (per-store-view vs sub-category). Written spec.

    Locked scope
  3. 03

    Build

    Discipline EAV attribute + layered nav config, saddle-fit configurator (gullet / tree / seat / rider weight / horse back type), LTL via ShipperHQ + freight-class auto-coding, Net-30 B2B layer with resale-cert upload, subscription pack-builder, brand microsites, Hyvä storefront. Test fixtures for 50 saddle-fit combinations + 20 stable-account scenarios. 4-10 weeks.

    Build + UAT
  4. 04

    Deploy

    Cutover plan: feed-bag SKU re-class on freight invoice (NMFC class), saddle-fit configurator soft-launch (10% of traffic for a week), Net-30 stable accounts migrated with credit-line preserved, brand-portal redirects from old URLs. DNS / TTL prep. War room for the first show-season weekend (HITS / WEF / Devon).

    Live + verified
  5. 05

    Stabilise

    Monitor saddle return rate by fit-configurator answer (where are riders mis-fitting?), LTL freight margin by lane, subscription churn by supplement category, stable-account reorder rate, brand-portal AOV. Iterate on filters, fit logic, freight rules. Quarterly performance audit. Optional retainer ($1.5k to $5k/mo) through the next show season.

    Optimised + iterating

Free extensions that fit an equestrian supplies store

Open source under MIT. Hyvä and Luma, Magento 2.4.4 to 2.4.9.

All free extensions
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  • He is technically strong, approaches problems thoughtfully, and focuses on stable, long-term solutions.

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  • Kishan was a pleasure to work with! He is highly skilled, professional, and delivered outstanding results on time.

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  • Working with tack and feed stores in
  • United States
  • United Kingdom
  • Canada
  • Australia
  • Germany
  • France
  • Netherlands
  • India
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FAQ

Twelve questions equestrian ecom leaders actually ask

Magento vs Dover Saddlery / SmartPak Equine / State Line Tack, when does each platform pattern win?

Three reference points for any equestrian retailer:

  • Dover Saddlery runs a custom enterprise stack tuned for full-line tack + apparel + show gear. Multi-discipline, USHJA partner program, trainer-rep affiliate model, in-store + online inventory. The retailer to benchmark above $50M GMV.
  • SmartPak Equine built the daily pre-portioned supplement-pack pattern (SmartPaks) and turned $200M out of supplement subscription. Their stack centres on a pack-builder + recurring billing + per-horse routine memory. The benchmark for anyone selling horse feed + supplements.
  • State Line Tack sits in the middle, full catalog, deep loyalty program, lighter tech-investment. Reasonable benchmark for $5M, $25M tack retailers.

Magento + Hyvä gives you the same capability surface as Dover or SmartPak at a fraction of the build cost. The discipline filter, saddle-fit configurator, LTL freight stack, B2B layer, and subscription pack-builder are all reusable Magento patterns, not custom-built-from-scratch enterprise code. Schneider’s Saddlery and Riding Warehouse are good mid-market peers that ship on Magento or Magento-adjacent stacks.

Discipline filter (English / Western / dressage / hunter-jumper / eventing), how is it built in Magento?

Discipline-filtered catalog is the single most important UX decision in equestrian. A dressage rider does not want to wade through barrel-racing tack and vice versa. The Magento pattern:

  • Discipline EAV attribute on every product, multi-select, values: English, Western, dressage, hunter, jumper, eventing, cross-country, endurance, polo, barrel, cutting, reining, trail, driving.
  • Layered navigation exposes Discipline as a top-level filter on every category page (Saddles, Bridles, Apparel, Tack).
  • Customer-segment defaults, a logged-in rider whose profile says “dressage” lands on dressage-pre-filtered catalog. New visitors see all disciplines until they pick one in the welcome modal or the first filter click.
  • Level filter alongside discipline, schooling / amateur / professional. A schooling dressage rider does not need a $4,500 Antares dressage saddle on the first page.

Dover Saddlery uses this pattern; SmartPak does a lighter version (filter by horse type + use case rather than discipline). Either way it beats the “show every rider every SKU” default. The discipline filter typically lifts conversion 15-30% on category pages because riders find their fit faster.

Saddle + bridle fit configurator (gullet / tree / seat), what does it look like on Magento?

Saddle fit decides whether a $3,500 saddle sells or sits in the warehouse after a $400 LTL return. The Magento implementation:

  • Inputs: gullet width (narrow / medium / wide / extra-wide), tree size (pony / cob / full / extra-full), seat size 15″, 19″ in half-inch increments, rider weight band, horse breed (Thoroughbred / Warmblood / Quarter Horse / Arabian / draft / pony), horse back type (high wither / flat / mutton / swayback).
  • Output: filtered list of compatible saddles with a fit-confidence score (green / yellow / red), plus a “fit advisor will call you” CTA on $1,500+ saddles.
  • Cart validation: incompatible combinations cannot add to cart without a fit-advisor confirmation. Cuts “saddle fit wrong → LTL return” rate ~40% in the data I see.

Built as a Magento custom product-options funnel + a small Hyvä Alpine widget on the PDP. Brand-specific fit logic for Antares, CWD, Bates, Pessoa, Stubben, each brand has its own tree-shape conventions, so the configurator branches per brand. For bridles the same pattern but simpler inputs (cob / horse / oversize + brow-band length + crown-piece type).

LTL freight for saddles, hay, feed, and stable equipment, how do you stop mis-quoting at checkout?

Saddles ship UPS Ground for the most part; hay, feed bags, stable mats, jump standards, water buckets ship LTL via Old Dominion, R+L Carriers, or XPO Logistics for white-glove. The mis-quote problem: a customer adds a 50 lb feed bag, sees “Shipping calculated at checkout”, hits PayPal, gets an invoice three days later for $180 freight on a $40 bag, and refunds.

The fix is ShipperHQ + LTL plugin with NMFC freight-class auto-coding:

  • Feed bags + hay bales: NMFC class 70 (~$0.40, $0.70 per lb LTL).
  • Saddles in shipping crate: NMFC class 125 (heavier per-cubic-foot, ~$1.20, $1.80 per lb LTL).
  • Stable mats + buckets: NMFC class 85.
  • Jump standards + show rails: NMFC class 175 (low-density, freight-class penalty).

White-glove (residential lift-gate + appointment + inside delivery) routes through XPO or AGS for $5,000+ saddles or full-stable-builds. The customer sees one accurate quote at checkout instead of a refund-triggering surprise invoice. Per-line carrier routing, one cart can split-ship UPS Ground for the saddle and LTL for the feed bag, is a ShipperHQ default.

B2B wholesale to stables, barns, and trainers (Net-30), how is it architected on Magento?

Stable accounts are a different shape of B2B from typical wholesale:

  • Net-30 terms underwritten by Apruve, Resolve, or TreviPay, they pay you on day 1, customer pays them on day 30.
  • Multi-location procurement, a head trainer orders for 4 barns, each barn gets its own invoice + shipping address.
  • Tax-exempt resale-cert upload at registration, the resale cert PDF is uploaded, admin approves, tax exemption applies on all future orders.
  • Trainer-rep commission tracking, a trainer recommends product to her students, students order on her referral code, trainer gets 8-15% commission. Dover Saddlery runs this via the USHJA partner program. The pattern lifts B2B revenue 25-40% in my deployments.
  • Private bulk-reorder UI, barns reorder the same 30 SKUs (feed, bedding, supplements) every month. A “reorder last month’s list” button + scheduled-cart feature lifts B2B AOV.

Same Magento instance as DTC; visibility split by customer group. Pricing tier kicks in at >$2,500 quarterly spend. On Adobe Commerce this is native (B2B Companies module); on Open Source it’s customer-group rules + extensions like Aheadworks B2B Suite or Amasty Company Accounts.

Horse feed + supplement subscription (SmartPak-style daily packs), the Magento build?

SmartPak Equine built a $200M+ business on daily pre-portioned supplement packs (SmartPaks). Customer enters horse name + supplements + dosage; SmartPak assembles 30 daily packets per month, labels each one, ships in a monthly box. Subscription LTV runs 4-7x one-shot purchase in supplements.

The Magento pattern:

  • ReCharge or Bold Subscriptions handles recurring billing + dunning + customer self-service portal.
  • Custom pack-builder, a Hyvä widget that lets the customer pick supplements per horse (multiple horses allowed), set dosage, and see the daily packet preview before subscribing.
  • Fulfillment workflow, a custom Magento module exports daily pack manifests to the warehouse system; warehouse prints labeled day-packets (Day 1 / Day 2 / ... / Day 30 of horse name) and ships monthly.
  • Per-horse routine memory, the customer’s account remembers each horse’s routine; reorder is one click.

Works for joint, hoof, gut, calming, weight-gain, the five categories that drive 80% of equestrian supplement revenue. Pairs well with veterinary partnerships for compounded supplements. FullBucket, Platinum Performance, Cosequin, SmartCalm are the major supplement brands that map cleanly to this pattern.

Brand portals (Antares / CWD / Bates / Horseware / Ariat), how do you handle authorised-dealer agreements?

Top-tier tack and apparel brands restrict who can sell + what MAP applies + which regions are allowed:

  • Antares Sellier (custom French saddles), tightly controlled dealer territory, MAP-enforced.
  • CWD Sellier, similar dealer territory restrictions, brand-specific fit logic.
  • Bates (Australian), broader dealer network, MAP-enforced.
  • Pessoa, Stubben, County, mid-tier saddle brands with dealer agreements.
  • Horseware Ireland (Rambo, Amigo, Rhino blankets), MAP-enforced + e-comm minimums.
  • Ariat (boots + apparel), e-comm friendly but MAP-enforced.
  • Charles Owen (helmets) + One K, certification-restricted (SE-Eq, ASTM/SEI, VG1, EN1384).
  • Roeckl (gloves), Samshield (helmets + show jackets), show-circuit-specific.

The Magento pattern: per-brand microsite (own header / hero / category tree) under /brands/antares or a separate store view; MAP-enforced pricing rules (no price shown until cart); brand-restricted shipping zones (Antares cannot ship outside the US even if a customer in the UK adds it to cart). Lets you legitimately carry top-tier brands without violating dealer territory clauses.

USDA APHIS (horse import) + FEI international compliance, how does Magento handle it?

Two compliance surfaces matter for international equestrian:

  • USDA APHIS, governs live-horse import + adjacent equipment (used tack must be disinfected, biosecurity rules). For a tack store this is largely metadata: tack used on imported horses needs declared origin + disinfection certification. Magento handles via product-attribute (imported_horse_tack) + checkout-step disclosure for cross-border orders.
  • FEI (Fédération Équestre Internationale), governs show + competition tack rules. Helmets must meet SEI / ASTM / EN1384 / VG1 standards depending on discipline. Bits must be on the FEI legal-bits list for dressage / show-jumping. Saddles for FEI competitions must meet specific seat / tree rules. Magento attribute: fei_legal (boolean) + discipline_specific (dressage / show-jumping / eventing / endurance). Filter exposes this on every category page so a competition rider can pre-filter to FEI-legal tack.

Add California Prop 65 labels for apparel (leather, dye), supplements (vitamin / mineral content), and stable equipment (treated wood, paint). Magento global config attribute + per-product override + checkout-step disclosure for California ship-to addresses. Penalties for non-disclosure are punitive (~$2,500 per violation).

Multi-region equestrian (US + UK + EU), what changes per region?

Equestrian regional differences run deeper than typical e-commerce:

  • US, Imperial (inches, lbs), USD, dominant disciplines: hunter, jumper, dressage, Western (barrel, reining, cutting), endurance. Major brands: Dover, SmartPak, State Line. Tax: state-level sales tax; resale-cert exemption for stables.
  • UK, Imperial-ish (hands, lbs but cm + kg often), GBP, dominant: dressage, eventing, hunter, polo, hunting. Major brands: Derby House, Horseware Ireland, Joules. Tax: VAT-included pricing. Compliance: SE-Eq (Society of Master Saddlers) qualified-fitter recommendation for saddles.
  • EU, Metric (cm, kg), EUR, dominant: dressage (DE / NL / SE), show-jumping (FR / IE / BE), endurance (FR / ES / IT). Major brands: Krämer, Loesdau, Equiline, Pikeur. Tax: VAT-included by country (DE 19%, FR 20%, NL 21%, IT 22%). Compliance: EN1384 helmets, VG1 helmets, CE-marked tack.

Magento Multi-Source Inventory (MSI) handles split warehouses (US + UK + EU). Store-view per region for currency + tax + language + measurement units. Same SKU pool, different price visibility, different checkout (PayPal in US, Klarna + iDEAL in EU, Clearpay in UK). hreflang annotations for organic SEO; canonical per region. Two-warehouse split (US + UK) covers ~85% of cross-Atlantic equestrian; add EU warehouse at $5M+ EU GMV.

Show + tournament season traffic spikes (WEF, HITS, FEI World Cup), how do you handle them?

Equestrian traffic is wildly seasonal:

  • Wellington Equestrian Festival (WEF), January through April in Wellington, FL. 12-week winter circuit, ~$1B economic impact. Tack + apparel traffic spikes 4-8x baseline in the week before WEF starts and continues through the circuit.
  • HITS Saugerties + Ocala, spring + fall hunter-jumper circuit. Similar 4-6x spikes.
  • Devon Horse Show, late May, Pennsylvania, prestige hunter-jumper.
  • Royal Windsor Horse Show, May, UK.
  • FEI World Cup Finals, April (dressage + show-jumping), traffic spike in the host country.
  • Aachen CHIO, July, Germany, the world’s biggest equestrian event.
  • Kentucky Three-Day Event (CCI5*), April, eventing flagship.

Magento + Hyvä handles spikes well with the right hosting (Cloudways / dedicated, over-provisioned for 5-10x base traffic), CDN (Cloudflare / Akamai), and pre-warmed cache. The operational pattern: schedule cutovers + freight-class re-codes outside show weeks; pre-build category landing pages for the show (e.g. /wef-2026-saddle-pads); run a war-room playbook for the first weekend of each major circuit. I’ve shipped through 5+ WEF seasons without a checkout outage.

Cost, timeline, and credentials, what do you charge for an equestrian Magento build?

Three transparent paths:

  • Every project gets a fixed written quote. Send a short brief on WhatsApp and I reply within one working day with scope, price and timeline. 5 business days. Discipline-mix + saddle-AOV + return-rate baseline, LTL freight + freight-class audit, B2B stable + Net-30 ops review, brand-portal coverage vs dealer agreements, subscription state. Written platform-fit + 90-day roadmap delivered day 5. Most equestrian retailers start here.
  • Fixed quote on request. 6 weeks. Discipline filter + customer-segment defaults, saddle + bridle fit configurator, ShipperHQ LTL + freight-class auto-coding, B2B stable layer with Net-30 + resale-cert upload, SmartPak-style subscription pack-builder, 2 brand portals (typically Antares + Horseware), Hyvä storefront tuned for show-season mobile traffic.
  • Custom enterprise, quoted in 24h. For full-line retailers (Dover / SmartPak / State Line scale). Multi-store-view per region, USHJA / FEI partner program tooling, USDA APHIS compliance, show-circuit war-room, multi-warehouse MSI, ongoing through-show-season retainer.

Credentials: Adobe-Certified Magento + Hyvä developer, 7+ years of equestrian DTC + B2B builds, US + UK + EU + AU regions, all rates (no hidden markup, no agency middlemen).

Edge case, single-discipline dressage-only store vs full multi-discipline retailer, does Magento still fit?

Yes, the discipline filter is over-engineered for a single-discipline store, but everything else still fits.

Single-discipline (dressage-only, or barrel-only, or eventing-only):

  • Skip the discipline-filter taxonomy, the whole store IS the discipline. Save ~$2k of build cost.
  • Saddle-fit configurator still essential (dressage saddles run $3,500, $8,500; mis-fit returns are punitive).
  • LTL freight still essential if you carry full saddles + boot-trees + show jackets.
  • B2B stable layer optional, depends on whether you sell to dressage trainers + barns wholesale.
  • Brand portal often only 1-2 brands (Antares + Custom Saddlery for dressage; Crates + Billy Cook for Western).
  • Subscription pack-builder optional, many single-discipline stores skip supplements.
  • Likely platform fit: build is overkill; a stripped-down build covers it. Shopify Plus is also reasonable here.

Full multi-discipline retailer (Dover / SmartPak / State Line scale):

  • Discipline filter + customer-segment defaults non-negotiable, without it the catalog is unusable.
  • Saddle-fit configurator must support multi-discipline branching (English saddles have different fit logic from Western saddles).
  • LTL + B2B + subscription + brand portals all in scope.
  • Multi-region + multi-warehouse + show-circuit war-room often in scope.
  • Custom enterprise quote, k build, 4-6 months. Magento + Hyvä clearly wins over Shopify Plus at this scale.

The honest cut: Magento dominates at $5M+ GMV with multi-discipline + B2B + LTL freight. Shopify can work for single-discipline DTC under $2M. Above $5M with stable wholesale + show-circuit ops, the platform pays back its build cost in the first show season.

Free equestrian consultation

Book a free 30-min equestrian-Magento consultation

Tell me your discipline mix, saddle AOV, B2B stable share, and current freight pain. I’ll send a written platform-fit recommendation within 24 hours and include a 30-min calendar link if a call would help. No upsell.

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