A friend just bought this girth, she’s wondering what the third strap is for. She thought I would know, well she was wrong, but I told her I knew a bunch of people who would know!! She was told “something to do with upper level dressage”
Some saddles have a flap strap, which would attach to that third buckle and stop the flap from riding up. I haven’t seen one in years. I used to have a Neidersuss that had one about 25 years ago.
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Oh my! I haven’t seen one of those in years, either.
Schleese Saddles sometimes have that overgirth.
Anecdote: My client had a saddle that used a girth like that for sale at a local tack store, with the girth included…the tack store sold the girth separately! So now she has the saddle with the strap off the flap that needs a girth like that, but not the girth, and they are quite hard to find! If your friend needs to sell it, she may want to try to find a saddle fitter that sells saddles with the flap strap as they may want it to sell to clients.
It was common when saddles were more close contact and had thinner single leather flaps that tended to get soft and ride up when the top of your boot caught it. Todays saddles often have doubled flaps with stitched edges and are generally much bulkier so the flaps don’t fold like that anymore.
