Yes.
I have a racing yoke so it is attached to the girth. I prefer this as I can bring the strap up to the horse’s ears if needed. Attaching to the upper part of the saddle seems to limit mobility of the the strap, if needed.
https://www.kbchorsesupplies.com/nylon-racing-yoke-royal-blue.html
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Why would you want to bring it up to their ears, though? Husband uses one on his big new hunt horse, and it has been great for helping him keep his hands soft and out of the way as he is going faster and jumping more out with the hunt…but we have been attaching it with bailing twine to the breastplate strap as I do NOT want that thing sliding up the neck when the horse is scrambling up and down our very trappy creek crossings and off-trail bushwhacking adventures. I’d love to find something a little classier for hunt season but I’d like it breakable for sure…
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I use a velcro wire-tie I got on amazon after it was suggested by some brilliant person here. Super! breakaway if a finger gets caught!
Are you sure? That was the impression I was under too, but at a horse trials I went to in May some girl told me I needed to take it off. Then my trainer agreed with her and I was so confused (and annoyed). I thought it was just FEI as well. Sorry, I dont want to hi jack this thread but I do want to get clarification.
Sorry that I can’t speak to the U.S. rules, but in Canada there’s a rule that I’m going to paraphrase that states that if something is not addressed in the rule book, then the FEI rules apply. Neckstraps are not addressed in our rule book, and therefore the FEI rule applies. I was pretty obsessed about clarifying this rule in order to be confident that I’d be able to use it at shows.
I think most people want to be able to slide the neck strap quite far forward to allow for a big release without letting go of the neckstrap. The whole reason I use a neckstrap instead of a saddle bucking strap is so that I can still move my hands as needed while still having something to anchor to so I’m not catching my pony in the mouth.
As for how to attach to the saddle, my neck strap is the neck loop off of a standing martingale I got in a tack bundle and had no intention of ever using. I snipped off the vertical strap, which left the little loop that the strap ran through on the neck loop. At home in the ring I leave it unattached, but I do use an irish martingale to stop the reins going flying over his head if I make an unplanned dismount, haha! For clinics and the one show we went to where I used it, I used a length of lightweight elastic stitched to clips on either end, short enough not to be a big risk of getting a leg through it, but long enough that I could stretch it and let the neck strap go almost to his ears if I needed it to, and clipped it between the neckstrap and middle ring on his girth. This worked better for me with his short upright neck than to try to clip to the saddle dees. The stitching would have popped in an emergency situation, but was secure enough to let me stretch it as far as I needed it to. Bonus that I was able to find flat vrown elastic so it blended into his bay coat
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