How to Tighten a Horse's Girth Before Mounting

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Kelli on behalf of Expert Village. I am going to show you tips and techniques that I use when mounting/dismounting my horse. The most important thing you want to do before you mount is to make sure that your girth or your cinch is tight enough. So we are going to turn around here and we are going to check, give it a little tug to see if it is a little bit loose and needs to go up a little bit more. Now sometimes when you first put your saddle on and you tighten your girth, horses have a tendency to kind of expand themselves or hold their breath so it may feel like it is tight at one point, but once you walk into the arena it is going to loosen up once they let their breath out. So since we've walked her where we want to mount, we are just going to step over here and give it a little tug. It feels like that it could go up a little bit more so we are just going to flip our stirrup up there over our horn and we are just going to give it one pull up there and we are going to buckle it one hole. Pull it out so that the buckle lays flat and we will pull our belt back through and let our stirrup down. So that will ensure that the saddle is going to be tight enough so that it won't flip when we mount up or it won't slip and make us off balance as we are riding around. "