Full wool Nuumed numnah rubbing?

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Christmas Crumpet

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Have got quite a fine skinned ISH (more TB than Irish!!). He does get rubs quite easily - neck is rubbed from reins and shoulders from breast plate. Breastplate rub was solved by buying massive breast girth cover. Rein rub not sure what I can do about that apart from put cheekpiece sheepskins over that. Its clearly from where he sweats and then the reins rub.

He's got 2 little rubs at the back of the saddle from where clearly the saddle has been pivoting a bit at the front and moving from side to side at the back. Anyway saddler arranged and no hunting again till she comes. The rubs occurred yesterday so hopefully I've caught it before it causes too many problems.

However I felt the Nuumed numnah I hunt him in today and it feels so abrasive and not soft and lovely like sheepskin should at all. If the saddle was moving slightly from side to side and the numnah wasn't soft then it is likely that it would rub the hair away and probably make the skins sore too especially after 4/5 hours in the saddle out hunting. Looked at label and its not sheepskin which explains it. It says its wool and it was in their sale online a few years ago.

So I won't use that numnah again. I like to hunt in sheepskin numnahs as the saddle is on their backs for a long time. I do have a Mattes numnah which I could use but is that proper sheepskin or the same kind as a nuumed? Otherwise would a polypad be any good? Do other people find the Nuumed wool numnahs can rub?
 
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I had a Nuumed wool numnah on my old lad who had sensitive skin, his rubbed him also, his saddle was adjusted, but it still rubbed at the back after, so i reverted back to his Roma Sheepskin saddle cloths.
 
That's interesting - I always use Nuumed half wool numnahs as mine has a very high wither and very little else will fit. It only rubs the hair away at the very back of the saddle in the winter when his coat goes very brittle. I never have a problem in the summer. It has never made him sore though (but I don't hunt and I rarely hack for more than a couple of hours at a time). His saddle is regularly checked but he has a short back so I think there is also more movement in that area than would be if he were longer backed.

I have a Mattes half pad and it is proper sheepskin as opposed to Nuumeds which I think must have the wool sown into them some how as you can wash them normally and they don't go hard. My problem is I have to use it on it's own as I can't fit even a thin pad with it so then the saddle flaps can rub his sides.
 
I have had this problem with a Nuumed numnah on my sensitive TB and have resolved it by only using full on quality dense sheepskin numnahs and not wool ones. Also my saddler felt the back of the saddle panels were sitting on the join where the wool and the quilt were stitched together on the numnah( if that makes sense), so I make sure that I get x large numnahs where available so that the saddle panels are just sitting on the quilt. I'm very careful to double check how the saddle is positioned on the numnah when I tack up and So far so good no rub marks. I have tried a Bartl, a Lemieux and a Roma one so far and my boy has no rubs so far this winter.
 
check out your mattes numnah - if it is marked 'platinum' then it will be sheepskin, some of the others are not. Look at the edges of the sheepskin/wool part, are they leathery or fabric-y?

If you can bear the initial financial hit, one solution for a sensitive horse is to get a sheepskin numnah made for them. Get one without quilting/fabric backing, it will then mould to the horse and if you look after it then it will last for many many years (I have one here that has been used daily for 20 years on 2 different horses)

PS one way of keeping them fluffy and soft is to comb them through with a dog slicker brush - it will gently tease out any matted bits.
 
Look at the Lemieux ones. I have both the sheepskin one and the new wool one which is great and gets even softer the more you wash it.
 
I'm at work so can't check Mattes Numnah but I do know it cost me about £100 5 years ago and is a correctional one.
I always use the dog hair brush to fluff it up after washing and it does feel far softer than the Nuumed one. I think it was a Silver numnah having looked at this one which I thought was quite nice!!

http://www.groomers-online.com/prod...silver-range?gclid=CJCDj4XGubsCFQMcwwodZBcA7Q

Its quite strange - I've got an every day full wool Nuumed one which was quite expensive and that doesn't rub him at all and feels far softer. I wonder if the xl one I use for hunting was from a slightly dodgy batch hence why I got it in the sale.
 
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