The Mackey Shaped Girth- A Review
Design
The girth is as it says, shaped, or as I like to call it, contoured. The girth is shaped in a way to be cut away from the elbow of the horse. This idea has come from data taken from a girthing scientific study.
The Study
The study is called "Girth pressure measurements reveal high peak pressures that can be avoided using an alternative girth design that also results in increased limb protraction and flexion in the swing phase" and it was published in 2013. The researchers put a pressure pad under the horses girths to gain insight into the distribution of pressure, once girths are tightened.
What they found was that the pressure tends to gather behind the elbow and at the sternum. You can see this from the image below the purple peaks are the elbow and the red and yellow are at the sternum.
Materials
The Mackey Shaped girth is your traditional waffle material. Easy to clean, durable and doesn't tend to cause girth galls (on my horses anyway). It is elastic on both ends and is quite tough, I don't see it lose its elasticity any time soon. It also has metal D rings on the sternum and sides, to attached clips for breastplates and martingales.
Rollability
I have a beautiful 15hh cob, that is an exceptional good doer and I battle with her weight all the time. She is very round in shape, has no withers and a flat level back. I have a Thorowgood Cob gp saddle for her, that was professional fitted and checked. However, the saddle can roll when she does things like buck or do full body shakes. As a rule of thumb I would say a correctly fitted saddle shouldn't roll, unless you have the trunk shape of a barrel, then it can have its challenges. What I found with changing my Waldhausen gel "straight" girth to the Mackey shaped girth was that my saddle was rolling much less. Even when she shakes, bucks or leans in the canter - the saddle stays. So I am delighted to see the saddle stability increase from the use of this girth.
Where can you get this girth?
You can find the Mackey Shaped girth from any Mackey stockiest. Below are some quick links to find them in Ireland:
- Equistore.ie
- Hoofprints invovations
- Orchard Equestrian
- Equine warehouse
Mackey Shaped girth video
Below is a little run through about the girth.
A note on girth checking sites
When you go to check your girth next time, check around the elbow and especially the sternum. As we have seen the peak pressures occur there, and checking your girth on the upper side can give a false sense of tightness (or looseness). This can then in turn lead to overtightening of the girth, reducing your horses performance, comfort and welfare.
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