Butterball's Special Skin/2025 Gear Post

One form or another of this post has been relatively annual starting back in 2022, continuing in 2023, and then including Butterball in 2024 with a spring update to include his saddles. Overall though, there haven't been a lot of changes since our spring update. So this post is mostly focused on a weird skin issue. 

Nothing has changed in the saddle department, we LOVE the Patrick dressage saddle and Westhill and Son jump saddle. 

Dressage saddle in action

Jump saddle in motion

And I did upgrade to some very reasonably priced tall boots for shows to go with our brown tack. Moretta Gianna tall boots from Red Post. 

And at some point over the summer I gave up on replacing his double jointed happy mouth as he chomped little cracks into it. And I haven't really felt the need to put him in the full cheek Neue Schule that we started in. He now jumps and flats in the same borrowed double jointed KK that Ben wore. 

Now for the main point of this post, Butterball gets large skin crusts from certain leather contacting his skin, namely the crown piece of bridles and girths. I've tried very carefully sponging those areas after each ride, I've tried equiderma, I've tried intensive currying. None of it seems to help and the equiderma definitely made it worse. It does seem to be worse the hairier he is.  

You can kinda see the crusties peeking through the fur at his girth area

Mid-clip, poor irritated pink skin getting exposed

The girth was a relatively easy remedy once someone suggested it- switch to this nice mohair girth: 

It is soft, doesn't cause big, painful skin flakes, and is very easy to clean by hosing off and then letting air dry. I do use his fancy leather LeMieux girth for shows, especially cross country because he genuinely needs a stud girth. But his skin seems able to deal with a couple of uses without getting too mad.

Knees to nose and hooves to girth! 

The bridle has been an interesting journey though. At some point over the summer there was an accidental treading on the reins of his Antares. Instead of the reins snapping, the buttery soft Antares broke at a cheek piece. I struck out on finding repair or just a crownpiece available for purchase, so that is retired. RIP most expensive bridle I've ever purchased.

                                                    

But, silver lining that bridle seemed to cause him the same skin problem as every other nice bridle. I continue to want to put him in something fancy for his adorable head/face. But we've now tried two different monocrown bridles: the Kavalkade Ivy and the Shockemoehle Equitus Delta. Both seem to give him the same skin flakes across the crownpiece/poll area. 

Kavalkade Ivy 

Shockemoehle

I like the Shockemoehle better for the looks, but did read that having the bit attached to the same piece as the noseband can lead to extra instability for the bit because the attachment moves any time the noseband does. In sir chomps a lot, this seems like a legitimate concern. 

The only bridle that doesn't bother his skin? His plain 'ole non-monocrown-Black Oak schooling bridle that his owner gave to me when I bought him. 

Plain 'ole brown snaffle bridle in action

So there's the simple and cheap answer it seems. I have tried cleaning the other bridles with just water, with saddle soap, conditioning, not conditioning etc. And based on this happening only at his poll area and sternum area, it must have something to do with pressure + leather. Not an allergy to the leather or something on it. Which leaves me wondering if fancy monocrown bridles aren't actually as horse friendly as all the advertising says if the plain non-monocrown snaffle bridle doesn't cause this issue...