How to TACK UP a HORSE, Parts of the Saddle + Putting a Bridle Together AD This Esme

took it all apart i had to google how to put it back together again it was a stressful time so whenever i um like to put my bridal back together i don't know why but in my head i always think okay i'm the horse this this is how everything goes okay [Music] hello everybody this is me and today's video is going to be all about tack and how to tack up a horse so here we have casper who's going to be our demo pony today hello yes um so before you need to tack up your horse your horse must be clean you also groomed it first so if you'd like to see how to groom horse i actually have a video on it already so i'll leave a link in the description below um so casper i have already cleaned believe it or not he's still not the cleanest it's winter he's a grey and they like to get very dirty but the reason why you have to groom your horse before you ride them or before you tack them up is because if not if your horse's face is really muddy or if it's wet from being out in the rain um that can actually cause your horse's tack to rub especially on the face area on the saddle area and also where the girth goes here so those are the key areas that you need to make sure clean um so although casper is a tiny bit yellow stained he is clean there isn't any dust there brushed all the dust off um so he's going to be nice and comfy so anyway first things first i'm going to go and grab my tack and put it on i'm going to show you how to put it on and then i was thinking afterwards i could maybe talk about the different parts of the saddle different parts of the bridle how to put a bridle together but first i'm actually going to show you how i tack up good man all right so the first thing you'll need to put on your horse is the saddle some people have different personal preferences some people like to put the bridle on first currently it's winter so i always like to put the saddle on first this just also warms up their back a little bit um so here i have a saddle pad some people like to call this a saddle cloth i always find the thicker more square ones i like to call a saddle cloth if it's just general like to call it a saddle pad some people it's more of a british term but a lot of people like to call it a numbner i always think of numbness being the um saddle pads sort of in the shape of a saddle but um you can call it whatever you like any of the three and so i'm going to call it saddle pad just because people watch my videos all across the world and that's kind of more the general term for it so what i like to do is just gently put it on i always put it a little bit too far forward and then kind of just slide it back to where it seems natural it doesn't really matter too much if you put it a little bit too far forward or a little bit too far back to start with because it's when you put the saddle on that you need to make sure that it's on in the right place so now that's on also if you want to make sure which way round the saddle pad goes because some people can get a little bit confused i the strap here is where the girth goes through is always going to be closer to the hall so if it's back here it's on the wrong way round also saddle pads tend to have a little bit more of a swoop so then they have an area for the withers so it's giving them a bit of a wither relief so it's not just pressing down on them so if it's a little bit higher at the top then you're in the right track and also some sample pads have a bit of velcro that's always going to be at the front as well this one doesn't some do some don't it depends what you have but that's another indicator on if you've got it on the right way around this it is just down to personal preference it can also be due to the fit of a horse's saddle sometimes horses saddles fit better if they have a half pad i like to use one with casper so i'm just going to pop that gently on top also the reason why horses wear saddle pads is when they get sweaty and warm this will absorb the sweats and then it doesn't rub so that's why people tend to ride with a saddle pad rather than without one some people don't ride with saddle pads for things such as showing because they want to show off more of the horse but for general day-to-day use most people use one alright so now i have my saddle and also my girth the girth is kind of like the horse's belt so i'm just gonna put that there on the side because we will need that very soon with my saddle i always like to keep a saddle cover on it just to keep it clean keep it tidy it's also waterproof as well so um that's brilliant so i'm just gonna take that off now voila okay so this is a gp saddle later on i'm going to talk about the different types of saddles gp stands for general purpose so with this saddle i could do jumping with casper i could do dressage with him really depends what i'm feeling like so i'm just going to gently pop this on now there we go so you might be thinking this isn't quite in the right place i want to make it nice and comfy so what i like to do is um i like to just put that slightly further back i like to lift up the front here to make sure that it's nice and comfy on his withers just give it a little bit of an adjust lift it all the way forward which seems a bit excessive but it means with a well-fitted saddle if you slide it back it generally kind of stops in the correct place it should be if you're kind of forcing it to go back then you fall it's too far back casper doesn't have the best confirmation i always say he's built like a sausage dog he has a very long body for his height um so when you're looking at a horse and you're looking at where the saddle should be a lot of people kind of think oh it shouldn't be um a lot of people think casper stand is actually too far forward because he has such a long body because there's a lot of room here but actually it's very perfectly and nicely on him and also you should be able to fit three fingers when you fit a saddle underneath here as you can see he's got a lot of room here a lot of weather clearance so it's not going to be pressing down on him so he's going to be nice and comfortable so next i'm going to grab my girth and what you need to do is lift up the saddle flap here we have i'm gonna go through the different parts of the saddle later but um what you need to do is with most saddle pads there's a little area here that you go under and through and then i'm just gonna do the buckles up i like to do the buckles on the smallest hole first just because casper does like to puff his tummy out he likes to be a bit of a practical joker and um make my life difficult so um that looks all nice and tidy the saddle pad isn't all scrunched up um so i'm just gonna gently put this down here and i'm gonna pop over to the other side and do his girth up all right i am now on the other side so i'm just gonna gently bend down and pick up casper's girth i think he's having a bit of scratch oh no he's just putting his head down over there um so then it is time to do up the buckles i'm really weird and i like to put this on my head just so i can actually see what i'm doing with the buckles and we'll also see how much is casper puffing his tummy out oh not too bad got on to number three um so as you can see there is a little bit of room here casper does have an anatomical girth so it means that when he is moving he his shoulder can move so he's got a little bit of space here so that's also how you know where the girth goes for example it can depend on your saddle and also what discipline you are so for example in icelandic riding i know that they have their saddle a little bit further back than we usually do um for well i'm a show jumper but for show jumping um so that is looking good we've got a little bit of space here not too much i like to just pick up casper's leg oh excuse me i know you want a bit of a scratch i like to give him a bit of a stretch just because he's quite sensitive and it just means that i can make sure that the girth is in the right place that the skin underneath the gut isn't all kind of under there and folded it's nice and comfortable for him so when he moves it's not pinching him yes i know you want the attention so no that is looking pretty good obviously i will do my girth up again later on as i'm tacking him up and i'll do it up once again before i get on him as well and maybe after i've warmed up too just because you do like to puff your tummy out and you like to make it difficult for me yes but no checking your girth is very important because you don't want to be riding along your girth being too loose and your saddle going and sliding off the side all right so next i'm going to be showing you how i put on casper's bridle so this is a caverson one this means that the noseband is in this sort of shape you can get lots of different ones such as a grackle which is kind of like an x and crosses over you can get a flash which is an added attachment that you can have but no caspers is just a plain old caverson there are also lots of different bits out there because all horses are different all horses use slightly different tack but i'd say this is pretty much standard of what you usually find so what i like to do when i put on casper's bridle is i actually undo the lead rope now this is really important with what i'm going to show you later so i undo it but i have it through the baler twine just like this so it's going to take him a while to walk away he he's pretty good he just stands here but it also means that if i you can either undo the buckle or you can undo the little clipper here i do have a video on how to put on a head collar as well but what i like to do is slide it over onto his neck now this is really important that if you do decide to do this that this isn't tied up it means that if casper does spook this isn't going to pull on his neck and hurt him but it does mean that he's still half tied up he's still here and he knows that i've got him and he's not going to go running off i also like to put the reins over his head at first just so then again i have a little bit more on him next what i like to do is i will kind of have his head very close to mine i will grab the top with my right hand and then i'll get the bit ready to put on in his mouth very gently so casper is usually very good and it goes straight in and then what you want to do is quickly put the right ear in first and the left next so i say the right because i'm tacking him up on the left most people it's standard to tack up on the left especially here in england and that's because you want to put the outside ear through first just so then it's a bit easier um for when you put the second one through so what you need to do first is do the throat lash up so um this is usually the hole i have it on if you don't know what hole it usually goes on it's quite easy to tell you should be able to fit about a fist underneath there so this just stops the bridle from slipping off so that's why i usually like to put it on first and then next i'm going to be putting his noseband and doing that up so what you need to make sure when you're tacking up is that the noseband goes underneath this strap here underneath the keepers that's attached to the bit he's getting a little bit impatient because he finds a bit tickly when it's not done up so i'm just going to do that up now on his usual buckle make sure that's all comfortable for him and that's through all the keepers so it's not going to be accidentally being undone and then to make sure um if your bridle is fitting correctly for the nose band i always say it's good to fit around two fingers underneath there to make sure it's not too tight on him and not too loose either so now casper's bridle is on i can quickly undo his head collar pop that away pop that on the side and now casper is tacked up so next i'm going to show you a few more bits of tacking up that not all horses have such as boots and breastplates just in case there is a horse that you need to stack up that does have them so i'm going to quickly put his bridle back on now um i'm actually going to put it over the top this is what a lot of people do if they need their horse being tacked up but don't want them walking around or going anywhere um while they still have their tack on so i do this a little bit looser just because it's got to fit over all of his tack and of course once you've done that you need to make sure your horse is tied back up again because you don't want them wandering around good man there we go you look very smart good boy yeah this is a breastplate this one is actually joey's it's not casper so it probably won't quite be on the correct settings for him it might be a little bit too big because again joey is a little bit bigger than casper but i'm going to show you how to put it on in case you guys need to know how to put on a breastplate again not all horses have this depends on the horse i like to use one on joey because this actually has a martingale attachment um this again i'll show you how to put it on but the reins go through this and it just makes sure that your horse's head doesn't go way up high in the sky um i'm very lucky that i don't have to use one on casper i did used to back in the day but not anymore again with tack and with horses you can change it depending on the horse and how they are going at the current time um with joey i've actually changed his bit recently and i'm finding he's going a lot better in his new one so as i say all horses are different all attack is different so i'm going to show you how i put this on some people like to put this on before putting on their saddle some people like to put it on after some people like to put on when they're putting on the bridle it really depends i personally like to put this on first if i am tacking up with the martingale but i'll show you how to put it on because i didn't want to show you at the start so it wouldn't be too overwhelming all right so i'm going to show you how to put it on so i'm just going to take off the lead rope very gently slide this over casper's head as you can see he is a pro when it comes to being tacked up just gonna attach his lead rope again to his head collar so he doesn't go walking off and wandering off also some people call a head collar in different countries a halter i'm british i'm used to calling it a head collar so that's what i'm gonna call it for this video um so with a breast plate this is actually a five-point breast plate because there are five different points um two here one here one down here and then two the other side um so my reins are a little bit tangled with the breastplate at the moment so i'm just gonna get those through so they're a little bit separated so you can see that's the reins that's the breastplate um so um some have like a little clicker mine have buckles so i do the top ones through the d-ring and then just do up the buckle as so and then there's a one lower down here um so with this you actually oh casper's gone for a little wonder caspy can you stand please trying to film a video um so i'm gonna undo my girth and what i like to do is i will thread this keeper through the girth so it goes over the buckles there we go that's now through with a bit of wiggling and then it's time to do the girth up again which casper's gonna make my life a little bit tricky is he puffing out his stomach no he's being good boy there we go do that back up and now that is through obviously you can adjust the buckles to make sure it fits them again this is on joey's settings and then this little bottom bit here it depends on your girth so sometimes this can fit through the girth as you can see um if your girth is this thickness all the way through then that would fit fine all the way through but because casper's is an atomical girth there's a little thicker bit here so it wouldn't fit so he actually has a little buckle right underneath here which i'm gonna undo and then you just loop that through do the buckle up again and there we go it's on so some people like to use breastplates without the martingale attachment mine you can take off so you can use it for a breastplate or a martingale people like to use breastplates especially for things such as cross country where your horse is going to be going over quite big fences your saddle might move around a little bit if your sound's moving around too much then that could be caused by an ill-fitting saddle but if you're galloping at high speeds and if you're jumping over big fences then um your saddle is going to move a tiny bit however well it's fitted so i'm just going to clip this back on and we're going to show you how to put on a martingale some martingales don't have a breastplate attachment so it's a little bit less complicated it's just a single strap that goes all the way around and then the bottom strap down here so what i'm going to do is undo the buckle on my reins and then what you have to do is slide the reins through now when you use a martingale you must make sure that you have stoppers on your reins if not the um the loop here could go all the way up and get tangled which would not be great casper has just chucked his reins on the ground um and then you're going to get the other little loop pop your reign through and so slide up and over and then do the buckle up depending on if you're at a riding school and maybe you've been given some tack and have been asked to tack up your horse sometimes the martingale will be attached to the reins so it's easier to put it on once your saddle's already on it really does depend um but there you go i just need to slide the slot the stoppers up to the top and casper has now got on a breastplate and martingale okay so i'm gonna quickly take off his breastplate and then i thought we'd quickly talk about the different parts of the saddle and also the different parts of the bridle all right so here are all my saddles i thought i would show you guys so you can kind of see the difference between each one because they all are slightly different as you guys know i'm also very lucky to be a sponsored rider by voltaire design so they are all voltaire designed saddles so here this is my jumping saddle this is the one i mainly use for joey the difference between the jumping saddle is that they are a little bit more forward cut so it means that my leg can be in a nice position for when i'm doing my jumping position or jumping here we have my gp saddle i kind of think of it as if a dressage saddle and a jumping saddle had a baby it would be a gp saddle because you can do absolutely everything in this so you can see it's not as forward cut as the jumping saddle but it still is slightly and then also the dressage saddle we have over here the reason why this one is slightly different is because it has a deeper seat so you can see that this seat is deeper than this one but this is the deepest also the dressage saddle is a little bit more straight so it means when you're doing dressers you tend to have longer stirrups as well so your legs can be nice and long so yeah here is the difference between them all you can kind of see a little bit more which one's which a lot of people tend to think oh if it's a black saddle it's a dressage one if it's a brown saddle then it's a jumping one you can identify saddles that way however it's not the best it's better to look at the shape because some people do have brown dressage saddles than people do you have black jumping saddles it really does depend on what you have so anyway now i thought i would talk through a little bit more about the points of the saddle i'll take these guys away so we have a bit more space and i'll talk about it on my gp saddle all right so we are back with my general purpose saddle and i thought i'd go through the points of the saddle so this front bit here is called the pommel to remember i always think of a camel how they have a hump i don't know why but a pommel makes me think of a camel so we have the pommel at the front and then at the back we have the cantle which again sounds like canter so i kind of think of it as that canter at the back or cancel at the back pommel at the front um if we lift up this bit here it's called the skirt we lift up you can see there's a little ring here this is called the d-ring um then we have the seat which is where your butt goes very self-explanatory we have um a keeper here which is where your stirrup leather goes through this is the stirrup leather if i put that back of course we have the stirrups if you want to know how to do stirrups up and down it's very easy you just pull it down to pull them down and then to put them up there's two different parts of the syrup rather the top bit and the bottom bit if you push it up the bottom bit all the way to the top and then with your remaining bits you just slide it under pull and then your stirrup will stay up which is very handy to know if we lift up the flap um also this saddle isn't a monoflap saddle my other two actually are so the girth straps all the way down here but no if we lift it up here we have the billet and then we have the little billet straps here um so you can find them there this bit just protects your saddle from the buckles the billet strap and then here we have the knee rolls um with my jumping saddle i have very big knee rolls which is nice to put my knees in when i'm jumping um so i feel very secure so if i pick it up we can have a little look underneath so here we have the flaps panels and then right down here in the center is the gullet and then right inside we have the tree which is sort of like the spine of the saddle so anyway i am going to go and pop this back and then we can go through parts of the bridle all right so as you've seen before this is my bridle and i thought for the parts of the bridle we're going to go hardcore i'm going to completely take it apart and go through piece by piece putting it together and i just feel like it will make it seem a little bit less complicated i remember the first time i completely cleaned my tack took it all apart i had to google how to put it back together again it was a stressful time so whenever i um like to put my bridal back together i don't know why in my head i always think okay i'm the horse this this is how everything goes okay um so i'm going to take everything apart and show you and talk about all the different pieces and what they're used for so i'll be back when my bridle is just a bit of leather straps [Music] alright so here i have the headpiece it can also be called the crown or the crown piece whatever you like i like to call the headpiece so that's what i'm going to call it then next we have the brow band so what you want to do when you're putting it back together oh i have a hair hair goodbye molting season is coming not for me but for the horses but anyway um what you need to do is slide the brow band through i'm really bad every time i put a bridle back together i always forget to put the brow band on to be fair there are some brow bands that you can clip on which are really easy mine isn't but um there we go it is now on it's starting to form a bridle guys we're getting there also my bridle is very easy to tell which way the headpiece is because obviously it's got the logo also it has these little cut out bits so your horse's ears can go here and move around so that's how i know which way the brow band goes next it doesn't really matter which way you want to go i'm going to put the nose band on first just so it seems more like a bridle so the nose band the strap that you need to use sometimes it's easy to tell because for example the throat lash one is slightly skinnier but the nose brand goes on the under one as you can see there's kind of three there's two at the top one at the bottom so the one that's behind or the one that's kind of under is the one that you want to attach it to um so with casper's bridle i know exactly where this goes because there's a little mark on where the buckle goes if it is a new bridle i would recommend kind of remembering which hole it needs to go in if not when you put it back on you'll probably be able to tell if it fits correctly but bridal fitting is a totally different thing but anyway this is now got the nose band on next we need our cheek pieces here we go this is the cheek piece to know if it's the right way around the buckle goes at the top and the sort of keeper goes at the bottom so the cheek pieces go on the thicker one or the one at the front so i'm going to add these on now do those buckles up do the keeper in there we go and then you have a second one as well that should be symmetrical on the other side so again put it through i can see where it's been there we go and then next we have the bit casper's bit's pretty old now i'm probably getting a new one he's kind of chewed through it but anyway so when you put the bit on you need to make sure it's the right way around so as you can see it's kind of it looks like a line and to most people that haven't put a bridle on before you're kind of thinking oh no which way does it go so i always think of it as a smiley face so and that looks like a smiley face if you're trying to do a smiley face this way it just it doesn't look quite right so it's more of a smile so that is the correct way to put it on um doesn't matter which side you put on i'm gonna put the left on first so um you also need to make sure that these keepers um that you can't see them so when they're on the horse you can't really see them at all so you do the buckle up and that is because just in case it gets caught you don't want it to undo also when you're putting them on i find it easier if you put it through the leather part first and then just like push it through and pop it on especially if your bridle is a little bit stiff but mine um i have conditioned quite a lot so it is a in a really nice condition actually it's um everything goes through very nicely so i'm just going to pop that through too it's nice and soft pop it through again through the leather leather first and then you can just press it down and it's on so there we go the bridle is um all put together all i need to do now is to oh wait i forgot we have the throat lash so i'm gonna put pop this on the right hand side first just because i find it easier again it's quite easy to tell what's last i always like to do the throat lash last as you can tell um because it's just the skinny it's the skinny one well it's the skinny one on my bridle there we go and then round and that can just go on the other side i'm not gonna do the buckle up completely because when i put my bridle away i like to do this cool thing with the reins um so yeah now it's time now it's time to finally put the reins on so um again with these sort of keepers or buckles it's kind of like a weird buckle um you need to make sure again that on the inside the buckle shouldn't be on the outside because again if you're riding um if you're if it catches on something you don't want it to undo if not you're not going to have any reins to hold on to and that would not be great so again put it through the keepers put it through the leather part and then pop it through and there we go just have the other bit to do again you need to make sure that your your rings don't have any twists in because you don't want twisty reins you have to make sure that they are nice and straight pop the last bit in and then your bridle is back together so what i like to do that i was going to show you guys when i put my bridle away with my throat lash is i undo this put the reins through and then do it up and then this just means when you put it away it's a little bit tidier your reins aren't dragging on the ground when you're carrying it and also some people i know like when they put their noseband on they like to twist their noseband around and then do the buckle just so it looks a little bit neater i'm sometimes a bit too lazy to do that but i do like to do the throwing lash just because it's easier to carry it very easy to do and walk around with so that is how you put a bridle back together i thought i would also talk about boots because this is another piece of tack or equipment that some people like to use again it can vary from horse to horse and discipline to discipline so personally for me i like to wear boots on my horses whenever i jump them i also use boots all the time on joey because he's a younger horse who can sometimes not really know where his legs are so if i pop the other two down here i have a pair of brushing boots they are actually inside each other if i take this one out you will be able to see the other one is here this is just how i like to store them so with brushing boots they actually have this leather panel here it can be different materials mine's this faux leather material so this panel is actually for when your horses are walk trotting cantering whatever they're doing it means that if their legs accidentally brush together they're not going to hurt themselves and the boots will protect their legs also when you are putting brushing boots on i'll take you guys down here and i will show you so when you're putting boots on it's always good to stand to the side of your horse if you're standing in front of them or behind them then you might be in the risk area of getting kicked also when you're doing this make sure you crouch don't kneel or don't sit down because when i'm crouching it means i can very easily run away or move away if casper does decide to swing one of his legs at me which would be very out of character but it's good to do just in case even if your horse spooks or accidentally steps on you that's not going to be fun so when you put on boots you just wrap them round i like to do the top first if you're doing boots that have three i like to do the middle first personal preference so you need to wrap them round goes on the velcro nicely very self-explanatory and easy to do to make sure you're putting the boots on the correct leg you need to make sure that the velcro goes from the front to behind so i always think of it as make sure that the velcro is like a little arrow and it's always pointing towards the horse's tail if not for example if i put this boot on the velcro would be going the wrong way because it'll be pointing towards the horse's head so always point towards the horse's tail there we go next we have tendon boots again these come in lots of different shapes and sizes mine have little poppers some have velcro depends on what you decide to go for so tendon boots very self-explanatory there to protect your horse's tendons they are found on sort of this part so that is the most protective part of the boot um i like to use tendon boots for show jumping just because again if they accidentally knock a pole or anything the tendons are going to be covered and they're going to be protected and lastly we have cross-country boots these are only really needed if you're gonna do cross-country however i do quite like to wear them when i go to the beach and that is because they have little holes here and this drains water so it means for example if you go through a water jump um cross country your boots aren't going to get really heavy and weigh your horse down so they yep they drain also they are very protective all the way around even at the front as well this is pretty solid um because you're gonna be jumping solid fences with your horses if you decide to do cross-country so i always wear boots when i'm doing cross-country because i definitely want to make sure the little casper over here or joey's legs are protected too all right everybody thank you so much for watching today's video i really hope it helped you if you didn't know how to tack up a horse before again all horses are different all tack is slightly different and people like to tack up in different ways this is just how i do it and hopefully it helped some of you guys out there let's say a huge thank you to casper for being a very well behaved demo pony today well done caspy i'll get you some treats in a sec but anyway guys thank you so much for watching today's video if you're new or have not done so already please like and subscribe because it really does help me out and i really do appreciate it and i'll see you all next time bye well done caspy you're so good yeah should we get you some treaties treaty time [Music] you

Channel: This Esme

Views: 269,389

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Id: pl6oHLOYN54

Length: 33min 55sec (2035 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 26 2021