Solving “Girthy” Behaviors When Saddling Horses
Working with a “girthy” or “cinchy ” horse can not only be frustrating, it can also be dangerous. Nobody likes getting bit at, having to worrying about their horse flipping over, or going screaming backwards every time they tack-up for a ride. The point of this post is to explain why horses behave “girthy”, and provide some solutions to help horse owners deal with horses that have already developed girthy behavior.
First off, it is important understand and acknowledge that horses are girthy for a reason, and its not because they are trying to “make their rider angry” or avoid being ridden. Horses simply do not think like that. Through my experiences, I have identified three main reasons horses are girthy. The first is a fear response, generated from improper saddling and/or girthing when training a green or unbroke horse. Second, the horse has been trained or ridden by an inexperienced rider or operator with poor horsemanship practices, resulting in negative and dangerous learned behaviors such as “fainting”. Last, there is a physiological discomfort such but not limited to ulcers, ill fitted tack, misalignment in the withers/thoracic vertebrae, or sensitivity to pressure on the vegas nerve.
Throughout my years of experience, I have seen many horses that had issues with girthing. I rode a horse that would hold its breath and present as severely lame for the first few minutes you were on him. This horse needed a very long warmup, and to be girthed hole by hole with a lot of walking in between. We got a horse in at the barn that you could not tie/cross-tie him without a total meltdown, this was fixed with time and tacking up in a calm slow manner. Then there were a lot of other horses that displayed varying behaviors including anything from ear pinning, head bobbing, grinding their teeth, grabbing/biting the cross-ties, biting at the person tacking them up, or all of those things. I am sure that a lot of people out there deal with these issues on a daily basis, hopefully you can get some help from this post.
Fear Response in an Unbroke or Green Horse
When teaching a horse to accept a saddle and girth, it is important to go slow. I know there are still a lot of people who subscribe to the old style cowboy way of things, and just jack the girth up and let them “buck it out”. One argument for this is that a loose girth can result in a saddle sliding under the horses belly which, can be dangerous and very scary for the horse. Some people will tie a horse to a post and let them flail, and some will just let them go in a ring or a round pen to bronc it out. I disagree with both these methods. Horses seem to have an uncanny ability to remember negative experience well. They also learn through repetition. If every time you girth an unbroke or green horse and it has a negative experience, you are teaching the horse that the saddle and girth are bad. In addition to repetitive negative experiences, tying a horse and letting it “fight it out”, or running it around till its to tired to buck anymore, can do physical harm to the horse.
When you tie a horse to a post and let it “fight it out”, you are risking serious injury to the horse. There are two likely scenarios when going this route of saddle breaking. The first occurs when you are using a nylon or rope halter, and have the horse tied with a material that will not break. If a horse is fighting hard, it can (and there have been some that have) break its neck. The second happens when a horse finally breaks the halter, lead rope, or cross-ties. When a horse pulls back/sits down on its hind end, it is almost a guarantee it will flip over backwards. A horse that flips is at great risk of a head, neck, hock, or severe hind end injury. When they are fighting to get loose, the horse has all is weight on its backend, with all of its weight being unequally distributed, creating tension thats waiting to be released. Think horsey catapult.
The second common way of “letting them fight it out” is letting them lose in a ring or round pen. Some horses get so freaked out that they flip over which, is bad without a saddle (as discussed in the last paragraph) but if they have a horn, it can do severe damage to their spine. In addition to flipping, they can run fast, slip and get hurt that way. Also, remember that most people that use round pens or out door rings have either panels or fencing that a scared horse can get a lose stirrup stuck in or, if they are really panicky, they can get a leg stuck. When a horse is in flight mode, they are thinking of one thing, in this case its getting away from saddle pressure, and many will go through anything in their way. Years of evolution tells them to.
When starting a horse under saddle, take your time. I start by putting the saddle pad over their back, let them walk and get used to that, and add the saddle (no girth), and let them get used to that. I make a point of removing it and putting it back on enough times to where the horse dose not care. When you are ready to add in the girth, you can use a lead rope to wrap around them, using pressure and release. Once they seem ok with that, try using a bareback pad with a girth and see how that goes. The risk of it sliding under them is less. And if it slides, a pad is far less scary and dangerous then an actual saddle. I highly recommend walk, trot and cantering with a bareback pad or a surcingle WITHOUT side reins, until the horse is ok with the feeling. The other benefit in using the bareback pad or surcingle is that you can keep it looser to start with, then increase the pressure as the horse becomes more comfortable it.
Learned Behaviors from Poor Horsemanship
I am certain that this section will raise the most eyebrows, or emotions, as I know especially in the western world, that a lot of people put the saddle on, run the girth right-up, and don’t think anything of it. When I see people do this, it tells me that they either do not know better or, they cannot be bothered to take the extra minute or two it takes to ease the girth up slower. Girthing is not the same as tightening up the belt your now 10 pounds to heavy to wear, but wear it because you refuse to buy a new one, and accept your new holiday heft. Remember, a girth is being tightened around sensitive nerves, the rib cage, and it effects the sensitive thin skin behind their front legs. Additionally, pressure is not distributed evenly over the circumference of the girth. Next time you tack-up, pull the side of the girth, then try to stick your hand in between the horses chest and the bottom of the girth (between the horses leg), you will find it much tighter underneath the horse. This means that if you are judging the tightness of the girth based on how much room you have on the side, it means that the girth is putting more pressure then that on the underside of the horse. Be kind to your horse, tighten the girth slowly and let them walk in between each time you tighten.
Back to the point, when people do things like over tighten the girth, run the girth up as tight as they can in one go, don’t give the horse a minute to “walk it out”, and then “punish” the horse by kneeing it in the guy to get it to suck back in, slam on its face when it pins its ears or [insert any disciplinary action you can think of here] you are conditioning or “training” the horse to respond. The horse will quickly learn that in addition to having to deal with the discomfort or pain caused by the girth, that it can now expect to be knee in the gut etc. Horses learn to expect this pattern of behavior, the same as they do the halt at the end of a dressage test or, like when a barrel horse get hot at the gate because it knows its job in the next few seconds is going to be to run. Once a horse falls into this pattern, its hard to break. The horse I wrote about at the beginning of this blog, the one that you couldn’t even tie, eventually was able to be tacked-up on cross-ties, girth and all. But it took a very long time for that horse to learn a new pattern of behavior. Some people have horses that “faint” or sit back when you start grooming them in anticipation of tacking-up.
If you have a horse that can’t be tied to tack-up, faints, sits back, runs backwards you have a long road ahead to fix that behavior. My recommendation is to tack the horse up untied, on a soft surface. You want to eliminate all potential for a negative experience. If the horse cant tie, don’t tie it. Tack it up in a stall where its easier to manage the horse in a small space. If you have a fainter, flipper, or one that sits back, find soft ground in an open area like a sand ring. You don’t want to be in an enclosed space where the horse doesn’t have enough room to go down without smashing itself on something. And you also do not want a horse going down on a hard surface.
Go back to baby steps, and check your emotions and anger. If your getting mad chasing the horse around the stall trying to get the tack on, find a way for the horse to have a win. Decided that if it lets you put just the saddle pad on and off without running in a circle, that is a good stopping point. I shamelessly use treats, obnoxious cooing voice, and scratches for rewards. I know how most people feel about treats and food rewards, and I disagree with the anti-treaters. Unless your working with a naught pony that attacks its kid for treats in the jog and thinks people are Pez dispensers. Slow and steady wins the race here. Not only are you training a new behavior, your also trying to get rid of an old one.
Physiological Pain
If only our horses could speak (in plain English) and tell us what hurts, we would not only save a lot of money on vet bills but, I think we would be surprised at how pain manifests horses. I recently read a really great piece published by a vet in Australia. Ive linked the article below and highly recommend reading it. In the article they discuss the process they went through in helping solve a new severe aggression during saddling in a therapy pony. The quick and dirty summary, is that they identified the issues causing pain in her withers, and once that was fixed through chiropractic and body work, the pony returned to normal in a matter of months.
If you have a horse that has a reaction to being saddled up, especially if it comes out of the blue, there is a really good chance the horse hurts, or at the very least, is pretty uncomfortable. My beset recommendation for horses that didn’t have a bad start, and have been handled by experienced, patient horse people, is to have it vetted. A horse that bites the air, grinds it teeth, bites at its sides violently while being girthed, might have ulcers. If your horse has a very aggressive head bob and is ear pinning, maybe your saddle is pinching. Having the vet out to do an exam and check your tack fit is a really great first step in fixing these issues, and it is where I would recommend you start.
Summary
In addition to vetting, I have really good luck with switching out tack. Using a stretchy fleece girth on my very sensitive thoroughbred made all the difference. This horse was given to me (free horse, yikes!), and I was told by a previous trainer who worked with him, that he was hard to saddle, and was at risk of flipping. I found that with this particular horse, he was very sensitive where the vegas nerve is, and that mono flap saddles made him worse, dressage girth’s made it worse, and western saddles were a big ole NO. But, when I used a stretchy fleece girth, I got zero response. I am lucky, this horse only ever balled up and acted like he gong to bronc but, if he started to act like that I removed the saddle immediately. Through trial and error I figured out what he liked. Through training, we have gotten to the point where he is ok with the different feeling of a mono flap saddle and saddles with lower cinch points.
Bottom line is, all horses are different. Some are tougher and hide pain, some are highly opinionated and will not tolerate discomfort, and have no problem letting you know. But, if you tack your horse up slowly, walk in between increasing holes, use properly fitting tack, and make sure they are healthy and sound, then you can start to solve any learned or taught behavioral issues, and eliminate any pain response girth issues.
I know that some horses are just girthy, be kind and just go slow with them.
I would love to hear about any particularly difficult cases you might have in the comments below!
Related Article Links Worth a Read
Saddle Fit and Bad Behavior Part II - Schleese
My sensitive guy