Different horse disciplines have different types of horse tack.
If you’re working with beginners, it’s best to keep it simple. Discussing the necessities like saddles, saddle pads and bridles for english and western riding is enough.
A more advanced group could talk about the basics plus some additional horse gear like martingales, breast collars, and the different types of bits.
Bring both western and english horse tack to discuss and compare if possible.
Kids love to feel the soft leather in their hands and the smell is always unique.
Explain the difference between the western and english saddles. Talk about why the western saddle has a horn but the english saddle doesn’t. Show them the different types of saddle pads that are used with each discipline. Explain the differences in the bridles.
Talk about the different materials that tack is made from like leather, nylon and biothane. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each one. If you can bring one made from each material, that would help them remember it better.
You could narrow it down to one specific piece of tack and really go indepth with it, like a bridle for example. You can talk about the headstall, the bit, the cheek pieces, the throat latch, the brow band, chin strap and reins. Go even further in depth and just talk about all the different types of bits.
The horse gear topic offers an infinite amount of material for discussion so get creative and have fun with this one!
Since there’s so many different types of horse tack, this is a really great subject for making an information booklet. They can use pictures of all the different types of tack for all the different disciplines or one with different styles of the same piece of tack.