Free horse SVG files

Legs, manes and what size to cut

A horse is the hardest farm animal for a cutting machine, because its legs are long and thin. Every file here is 100 mm on its longer side, and at that size the cannon bones of the whole horses are about 5 mm wide. That is fine in vinyl and card down to about 50 mm. In 3 mm plywood or acrylic keep a whole horse at 120 mm or wider, or choose the head, which has nothing slimmer than the tips of the ears and the mane.

The mane and tail are drawn as separate pointed locks. Points are the first parts to lift when you weed vinyl, so peel from the nose towards the tail, in the direction the locks point, and press the tips down last. On the head, the line of the mane and the cheek are slits about 1.5 mm wide: at half size they close up, so cut the head at 80 mm or taller if you want them to show.

Horseshoes

The two horseshoes are 100 mm across with nail holes about 4 mm wide. The plain one makes a frame: put a name, a date or a pair of initials in the opening. For wedding favours, cut it at 50 mm from metallic card. Whether a horseshoe should hang points up or points down is a matter of local custom, and the file works either way round.

How to open the files

• Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
• Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
• LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
• Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
• Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions