Girth help needed!

[roz84]

Hi everyone

My gelding has bucked all over the road today and I am sure that the reason is his girth, or possibly the saddle.

He has a nice heather moffett saddle which I'm fairly sure is really comfortable, however he objects to his girth being done up and try as I might I cannot get the damn thing to stay forward -either his girth groove is very far back or...? Today I put a breastplate on and we went out, he was fine to begin with, until after about 20 minutes he started showing signs of irritation (twitching, swishing tail)- I got off, checked everything was as it should be and got back on, ten minutes later he buckarooed across the road which was frightening to say the least! He was very upset and I ended up getting off and walking as there was traffic about! His girth was sitting in its customary position, where it always ends up, which is really far back, and the hair was really ruffled. Has anyone got any ideas of what I can do about this? I'll try a girth sleeve, but do treeless/ soft tree saddles often have this problem of the girth slipping back? I don't think it was an issue when I rode him in a crappy wintec!

 

[mandwhy]

Are you sure the saddle is not slipping back onto his loins causing the extreme reaction? When you got off was the saddle definitely in the correct place? I had my saddle adjusted too wide when I first had it and it slipped back, the girth ended up very far back. Maybe your saddle fitted but horse has lost weight?

Which girth straps do you use? Assuming you have 3, do you use straps 1 and 2 rather than 1 and 3?

Some horses do have oddly placed girth grooves, do you have a picture? You could try a sheepskin girth sleeve but no specific recommendations here I'm afraid.