What size english girth?

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Heres a picture of my boy.
I have the whole english set up, and the girth is way way too big.. I think its a size 52 but im really not sure. I have a wintec 100 16 inch and the billets are like 8 inches long probably. He is 17 hands and about 1200 pounds. Any ideas of what size girth I should get? From smallest to biggest.. Im not very familiar with the english discipline so thays why I need help! Also im not sure what size western girth he wears. He can fit into a size 34 western girth. Thanks for the help!:)
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What I did was tie a piece of bailing twine to the second lowest hole in the billet, ran the twine under the belly and to the second lowest hole on the other side. Then, I marked the twine and then measured it. It seemed to work alright for me, I'm not sure what the "correct" way is though :)

Hahaha, sounds like a pretty legit way to figure it out:) thanks so muchh!!
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That's a pretty good way to find the correct size. Do it a couple of times just to make sure you get consistent measurements. That's just the science geek in me talking though. LOL

I'd have thought 17 hands (medium build) is at least a 52", especially with a tiny saddle on such a biggie. Why not measure your existing girth before you do anything because they do stretch.

The last horse we had this height took a 58", and the most recent smaller ones have been 16.2hh(56") 16.2hh (48"-52" depending on the time of year) and 16.1hh (54").

If it is too big you might be able to roughly work out a new size from it. Girth strap (billet) holes are generally 1 1/4" apart so if your girth needs to be (for example) two holes shorter each side, come down 4" on the existing length for a new one :)

If we ever get a break in the weather (cold wind) I plan on doing the binder twine measurement as well. It's reliable enough.

I did a similar process to get my horse's girth size- I just skipped the middle man and clipped a measuring tape to the end of the billet on one side and ran it underneath to the other billet. I couldn't pull it very tight (or it would slip out of the clip) but it worked out- I measured 46", ordered a 46" and it goes up to the 3rd hole on each side which makes it easy enough to get the first hole, but also leaves plenty of holes to move to when the elastic stretches out a bit.

That's exactly what I did too, except I had a helper hold it on the other side.