How to Hook the Girth of an English Saddle: Part 2

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Kelli on behalf of Expert Village. I am going to show you my technique for saddling a horse with an English saddle. Now that we have our girth hooked up, we are going ot make sure it is really nice and tight before we go to get on our horse. So since we just put this on really loose, I am going to go around to the right side to tighten it up a little bit more. So walk around enough distance so that she can't kick us. So we are just going to put it up a few notches on this side because when we would lead her to the arena we are going to tighten it on the left side before we would mount her. So now we've tightened it up a little bit on the right side. You see it is still pretty loose. So we are just going to pull it up a few notches, get it nice and tight and a lot of times horses will bloat themselves, hold their breath and suck up air so that you can't really get your girth nice and tight. Usually by the time you walk from where you have your horse tied and saddled to the arena, it is enough time and they have let out their breath and you can tighten it a little bit more before you mount. But you always want to make sure your girth is nice and tight. Otherwise when you try to mount, the saddle could slip or if you are riding along and if you tend to get a little bit off balanced, your saddle could slip and you could end up underneath your horse which is a very dangerous place to be. So it is really important that it is nice and tight. "