Advantage Girth werd onder de loep genomen ! Deel 1

Soooooooooo, we were very excited when the Advantage girth arrived to test it.


Read below how the first of 2 tests were. 




Hellooooo Advantage girth ! Love the finish and the leather.
Nice finishes, nice quality. Smells good too ! 
The design looks like it makes sense !
(What isn't always the case) 

So in short : We were very enthousiastic to start our test part 1 

The first girth to test was the slim model, we choose to test it on a large young dressage horse.
This one has the buckles in one double ending. (Not the model with seperate buckle-endings)

This very sensitive boy is a little picky on what you use, and clearly shows it in his gaits if something is bothering him.
So we thought he would be the perfect test-horse for this girth ! 


Let me explain why I thought this girth might be a good match for him. 

1) He is young so his body shape is still changing as he gets older.
So a model without a certain 'give' to how it shapes seemed not a very good option as I would have to buy too many different models to fit him through his body-shaping journey growing up.
And I prefer investing in long lasting tack, than changing 10 times.
As I have noticed once you find what your horse loves, it can be very difficult to find something else they prefer. 
2) He is sensitive (like I said above) so he clearly shows when he doesn't like something.  
3) He has nice scopy paces that when irritated clearly change and become hurried *big give a way with him*
4) He doesn't have too much room behind the elbow, as his girthgroove is not wide. But being a very tall young horse we have to be careful not to use a girth that pulls the saddle forward. Which is a little the danger with young horses that don't have much whither yet. 
5) His previous girth was a plain straight one, but did tend to pull his saddle forward slightly.
6) The fact it shapes to the body and also doesn't sit 'crooked' on the chest when the saddle straps are not 100% in line was also a plus.



So.... off I went to test this girth. This one is in the lush brown leather.
A perfect match for my liver chestnut, that I lovingly call my little Coffee-bean.

Putting it on was straight forward, just line it out nice and central so the pad sits nicely central on the chest.
Do it up left and right and again left and right to get it symmetrical.
 

Would give the tip to be sure to girth up on both sides and be sure that the girth is in the same holes left and right of the girth straps to be sure the chest-pad rests dead in the middel or it could perhaps interfere with the elbow skin.
And/or pull your saddle crooked too ;-) 

Want to see the model we used? CLICK HERE 
 

What I noticed right away is that I could manually choose to have the front or back strap a little higher without the pressure being higher on one of both straps. Which for my saddle is a plus, as my girthstraps don't line up 100%.
Because the straps where the buckles are attached to, run through rings they keep the chest-pad nice and flat againt the horse, without putting a lot of pressure on the front rim of the girth or the back rim, (what you sometimes can see with anatomical girths that are not fitted well.) 

I didn't get a negative reaction girthing up.
I was satisfied with how it fitted, so first I lunged him to look at how the saddle sat using this girth.

This primary test was already good. My saddle stayed in place, it didn't start to wobble or sit crooked. The girth rested in place, didn't cause him distress and didn't pinch him. 

Girthing up after lunging him was also very straight forward without a negative reaction. So now happy with the fit, I got on to ride too. 

Without having to girth up too tighly, I got on (with a stool as usual) and my saddle didn't slip. 

Good start :-) 

We started riding and my horse felt relaxed and not stressed at all. He is still very green and does tend to be a littly 'ticklish' but he took it in his stride and made no fuss of it. 

We had a good stress-free ride, his paces were the usual floaty ones. So I can say he liked it ! 

And what made me very happy was the fact my saddle didn't slip to the front, it stayed in position... And this without having to tighten the girth too much. (Sometimes I did have the feeling with my other girth I had to do it up too much when riding to keep my saddle in place)

So I can say... approved by Mr Sensitivoooo. 

After riding I did a thorough check of his body to see if it rubbed anywhere, or marked him. As he has the thinnest of silky-skins my little hunny-bunch. But no marks to see anywhere... Only a little sweat from working. 

 

If I have to give a remark it would be just one :

Jusy one little detail I would change (which I have already spoken of with the producer and they are willing to adapt) and that is the strap keepers.
Now they have made them in a very stylish shape as part of the design, but they are very difficult to use when you are on your horse as they are not rigid but very floppy.
Which meant I left my straps flapping around...couldn't get them in the design-styled-keepers.
But the nit-picker in me just doesn't like the look of it like that, so I think adding some 'normal' keepers would finish it off even better.
And in my case safer when sitting on a green horse.

 

Last tip for those interested in buying this girth. 
The producer advises to choose a size 5cm larger than the length of your normal girth. Which I did too.
But I notice this is still quite short. For my horse it could have been 10cm longer instead of the 5cm longer advised. 

So be sure to choose a length that's long enough ! Want to order yours now? Buy them HERE

Won't take long before we are going to test Part 2, with the wider model on a different type of horse !