People using my tack without permission

[The Irish Draft 2022]

People keep using my girth without my permission. I know who is using it they don’t have a big enough girth and won’t spend the money on a new one. How do I stop them from using my girth I have taken my girth so they can’t use them but I am afraid they start using my other tack.

 

[Dave's Mam]

Take it home with you. Job done.

 

[ihatework]

Have you asked them to keep their thieving mitts to themselves?

 

[Pinkvboots]

I would take everything home with me some people are massive piss takers ?

 

[saddlesore]

I would tell them to leave well alone!

 

[FinnishLapphund]

Please note both that English is only my second language, and that the last time I sat on a horse was sadly well over 25 years ago so I'm not quite up to date on tack details, but I hope you'll understand how I'm thinking.
A part of the fastening which attach the girth to the saddle, isn't that basically a square shaped piece of metal attached to the girth in such a way that it's difficult to remove the metal part from the girth without causing damage?

If so, would it be possible to simply put a small locker through the square shaped metal thingy, and lock the girth on to something? Sort of like when people lock bicycles to various poles, or bicycle racks.

Or if your stable is large enough to have room for it, and if you're handy, could you perhaps be allowed to build yourself a tack locker in a corner of your stable?

If you're not handy, but still want some type of tack locker/box in your stable, or somewhere else on the yard, then for example this UK site seems to have a quite big variety of different options: https://tacklockersdirect.co.uk/

 

[Winters100]

Have you asked them not to do so?

 

[Keith_Beef]

Not a very nice situation to be in, at all.

A tack locker would be useful, if you can't take your tack home with you, but that might be expensive of maybe you don't have the space for it.

As suggested by FinnishLapphund: a small brass padlock through the buckle to attach to a saddle rack or if that's not possible you might just use the padlock to lock buckles on opposite ends of the girth to each other. For a bridle, you could make up a mesh bag from stainless steel wire rope and aluminium crimp connectors, and lock your bridle inside that.

 

[cauda equina]

Or one of these for your saddle
https://totally-tack.com/stubbs-lockable-saddle-rack-saddle-minder/
and everything else in a lockable box
As with deterring burglars, the main thing is to make your stuff harder to steal than other people's

 

[Lois Lame]

Excellent idea, FinnishLapphund, locking the girth up by its buckle.

 

[mini_b]

Padlock it to your saddle rack with a nice little note on it!

 

[FinnishLapphund]

Buckle, argh, of course it's a buckle, I knew there was a word for it, but it was annoyingly just out of reach inside my brain. I also stupidly didn't google, without wrote my reply thinking It will come to me when I write about it, but nope, it didn't.

Thanks @Keith_Beef , and @Lois Lame .
Glad you all got what I meant anyway.

 

[AmyMay]

Just take your tack home, as others have said.

 

[rabatsa]

Great idea to padlock the girth buckle, you could do it to a stirrup.

 

[Keith_Beef]

Buckle, argh, of course it's a buckle

Don't beat yourself up about not remembering a French word borrowed into English that sounds nothing like spänne.

Great idea to padlock the girth buckle, you could do it to a stirrup.

That prompted another idea... often a saddle has a few D rings for attaching pouches or tack; it might be possible to attach a girth diagonally over the seat, making both girth and saddle unusable.

 

[holeymoley]

Either take your tack home or tell the person not to use your stuff. Or put a generic message out to everyone making it clear you are aware someone is using it if you’re not keen on confronting.

 

[Hanno Verian]

Do you know when they ride? Is it for a day to day saddle or Dressage/Jump saddle? I would make sure that I turned up when they where riding using my girth and either get the YM over to see or simply walk up and unbuckle it whilst they were still in the saddle.......

Ok perhaps unbuckling it off the horse would be overly meladromatic, but you need to make sure the YM knows, this person is probably using other peoples stuff as well and its quite likely with that degree of entitlement that they are "borrowing" feed/supplements etc.

If you cant do that then lock it to your saddle/saddle rack something like this will do the job -
https://www.morplan.com/gb_en/86289...vK-yz9lZvEyHaMDG_JAG0eIQov7_W_3RoCYCUQAvD_BwE

Are you on a big/small DIY/Livery yard?

 

[mini_b]

I literally cannot believe the cheek that someone thinks it’s ok to use your tack. But nothing surprises me about humans anymore.

If you don’t want to confront them, which is understandable, I’d secure my tack so they can’t get to it. I wouldn’t take my tack home cos it’s such a faff on (for me personally.)

they might get the not so subtle hint with a padlock. I hate folk using my yard tools because they end up knackering the brushes, not sure how I can padlock a brush up. Maybe a bike chain drilled through the handle?

 

[Fjord]

You can get retractable wire cable locks, so you could tie everything up together.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Go-Travel-...rds=retractable+padlock&qid=1639734866&sr=8-3

 

[Fjord]

And I hate people who borrow stuff without asking, it's so annoying and selfish.

 

[Ellietotz]

That prompted another idea... often a saddle has a few D rings for attaching pouches or tack; it might be possible to attach a girth diagonally over the seat, making both girth and saddle unusable.

Love this idea, padlock the girth to the saddle D ring and take the bridle home or put it in a bridle bag which has two zips so you can padlock both zips together like one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rhinegold-...86017&pd_rd_wg=V2Ywm&pd_rd_i=B01MZXZBPL&psc=1

 

[Annagain]

Your English is far better than my Swedish, FL! Never apologise for making it easy for us to communicate with you by learning our language when we're too lazy to speak yours.

OP - I'd quietly tell the offender you're worried someone has been using your tack as your horse has ringworm and you're concerned the other horse will catch it. Then clip a couple of little bald patches into both your and their horse.

 

[Annagain]

OP - I'd quietly tell the offender you're worried someone has been using your tack as your horse has ringworm and you're concerned the other horse will catch it. Then clip a couple of little bald patches into both your and their horse.

For the avoidance of doubt, that is a joke - the clipping part anyway.

 

[sbloom]

That prompted another idea... often a saddle has a few D rings for attaching pouches or tack; it might be possible to attach a girth diagonally over the seat, making both girth and saddle unusable.

I'd not recommend it, girths can really suffer from being bent, and you can wear through the welting (seam between seat and skirt) by draping girths over the seat. Best kept separate -

.

 

[holeymoley]

See I wouldn’t be bothered (polite version) in doing any of these. Why should you have to go out your way by either spending time or money to secure something that belongs to you from the person that’s in the wrong. I would speak to the person directly. I suppose not easy for everyone to do though. You could say you don’t want to increase the chance of germs/infections from both horse or human…

 

[The Irish Draft 2022]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

1. could you put a padlock at one end and attach the buckle of the girth the the saddle rack, that way if they try take it they cannot.
2. you could put the girth over the saddle and padlock both ends to the saddle rack.
3. put a very thin chain or bike chain over the saddle and girth and then the chain through each end of the girth and padlock to saddle rack so they cannot lift saddle up either.

 

[canteron]

It Christmas!!!!

Buy them a new one and wrap it up in about 6 layers of paper (ie annoying to unwrap) with a note ‘I thought you would like one of you own so you don’t have to keep stealing my things’.

And wait for the reaction.

 

[Sealine]

Put a rude note on it! I got fed up of someone repeatedly using my wheelbarrow and leaving it in random places so I put on a note on it saying 'if you're going to keep using my wheelbarrow can you at least put mine back where you found it'. When someone kept using my hay soaking water which I leave ready to use I wrote a note saying 'this is here for my convenience not yours!' .

 

[Cowpony]

I have to confess writing on my wheelbarrow once "Is your name xxxxx? If not, why are you using my barrow? Please put it back!"