Help! Girth Galls :(

[olivia]

I feel awful Last few times I've ridden Tilly I've noticed her coat getting a bit ruffled by her girth, but tonight we went for a longer ride and I got home and she's got huge great big red sore girth galls on both sides

Bless Tilly she must have been sore, but didn't fuss once on the hack.

I'm off to buy some surgical spirit in the morning and try and get a better girth guard, but is there anything else I could/should do? She's occassionally had small rubs there before but these are really big and sore.

[SuzieP]

Oh Olivia!! I'm so sorry to read this - just as you were starting to really enjoy your riding.

Salt dissolved in warm water and used to bathe the wounds might be less sore for Tilly - surgical spirit can sting a bit. I think I'd use something like Sudocreme as well to keep the skin soft and allow the galls to heal. Then no saddling up until the wounds have healed. Hope she heals quickly.

What sort of girth do you use?

[harveydales]

Oh no, try not to bet yourself up about it. These things can happen however careful you are and Tilly probably has sensitive skin, perhaps more so just now as the coat is coming out and the weather is hot. I would do as Sue suggets and bathe with salt water which will disinfect and help harden the skin.

Quest used to have very sensitive skin and it was hard to find girths his skin could tolerate. I had to avoid anyting leather "with edges". The soft synthetic Wintec or Thorogood ones were best. The soft string Stuben ones might work well too.

[Deleted]

I'm sorry to hear that! i hope Tilly's sores get better quickly! Was the girth too far forward?

[Debbie]

Did you do the leg stretches forwards to pull the loose skin out from under the girth? Also if the girth isn't snug enough, and Tills gets sweaty, the friction from the girth can cause the galling.

The worst girth gall I saw was caused from a sweating horse that had held her breath when she was being cinched up. The boy riding her (my classmate) didn't recheck her girth, so it wasn't as snug as it should have been. I didn't say anything at the time because it wasn't my horse, and not my place and I know a lot of people that like to ride with a loose cinch. I shall never ever forget the enormous girth sore she had when he undid the cinch, though. I could have easily placed my hand flat over the whole of it and still had sore all the way around. To this day I always check and recheck my girth.

You know, oddly enough, I would have expected it to be horrifically sore when he took the cinch off, but the mare didn't really react to the sore. He cold hosed it and slathered it with Bag Balm. I think that one took over a month to heal before he could ride her again, but as I said, that was a really, really bad sore.

Good on you for wanting to find a way to prevent it

[cutemangurdi1]

Olivia,
I have a stuben string girth I am not using at the moment if you wish to borrow it to try this type of girth. Not sure what size Tilly would need.

[olivia]

Thanks everyone. We've (well YO!) has been bathing it twice a day in salt water and it's look a lot better, though obviously still sore as she flinches away if you touch it

She was wearing her leather GFS dressage girth at the time which she's worn for a while with no problems. However she does have a homemade sheepskin liner at the moment, which is a bit pants (being home made ) so I'm going to look at buying a proper liner and seeing if that helps. I'm also going to have a good rifle through my loft to see if I've got any other dressage girths lurking up there. If not I'll have a think about alternatives.

Jacqui - if I get to the stage of needing a replacement can I get back to you about your string stubben? Several people have mentioned them to me but I'm a bit worried about if they would keep T's saddle stable, so giving one a go would be ace. Tilly is in a 24" girth at the moment, but could probably go a bit smaller and a bit bigger as a temporary measure.

I think T's as miffed as me at the no riding - she did 20mins in the lunging pen today which she LOATHES. Oh well it's helping improve her fitness so we can go further once she's healed up and we've sorted the girth - just try explaining that to a horse

Many thanks

Olivia