Choosing a Girth

Choosing a girth for a horse requires making sure that it has elastic at both ends to evenly relieve muscle pressure, avoiding the knife edge effect that occurs with thin leather girths and finding a contoured shape girth for a better fit. Find a girth that fits the horse well while keeping the saddle balanced with helpful advice from a veterinarian in this video on caring for horses.

One of the most important things in addition to choosing a correctly fitting saddle for your horse is choosing correct saddle accessories, such as how to pick the correct girth for your horse. There's three very important criteria to consider when choosing the correct girth for your horse. First thing, make sure that the girth that you pick has double ended elastic. On this particular girth, you can see it's what we call a traditional split end. Split end leather at one end, elastic at the other. Which means with elastic at just one end, you'll have uneven give and torque pressure which can pull your saddle off balance. And also only relieves muscle pressure on one side of the horse. This would not be an acceptable girth however it's quite traditional to be used in the show arena. Second criteria, in addition to double ended elastic avoid what we call the knife edge. This also is an old traditional style of hunter girth. You can see it has a very thin piece, narrow piece of leather through the center. The problem is when you do this girth up the only area of the girth that takes pressure on the horse is the tight band in the center which means that you can cause a lot of pressure and irritation to your horse's belly. Third thing, look for a girth that has contoured shape. This is an acceptable dressage type girth. It has a contoured sternal plate which means that it helps to distribute the pressure evenly on the horse's sternum. It has doubled ended elastic which means that it's going to help also distribute pressure evenly. And it has roller buckles which means it's a lot easier and kinder to the leather of your billets on your saddle.