all chained up.. leave alone or help?

Love

Love

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Ok, there are 2 new horses in one of the fields in my village. Both geldings, i'd say not much more than yearlings, maybe younger, one coloured and the other steel grey. Now i can say, that neither of them look mistreated at all, both nice size not over or underweight and have access to water (its a bit greeny looking but not overly bad... I've seen worse) however:

they each have a chain attached to their head collars. At first i thought they were tethered up, but the other end of their chains are not attached to anything... they're about 2 meters long and when the horses are walking, they are getting really tangled round their legs, causing them to trip and fall left right and center. and also, when they stand on the chains, the constant tugging on their head collars is bound to be cutting into their faces, they are doing it every other step!

So i really don't know what to do... the chains are only attached to the head collars with a simple lead rope clip... so it would be simple enough to unclip them and 'inconspicuously leave the chains on the floor in a neat heap in the hope it looks like they've fallen off' ... if you catch my drift ;) or leave well alone as obviously i don't know the reason for the chains and why they're there... but i hate to see them struggling so much with them :(

What would you do? when i went to have a look they were both extremely timid little things..

Love
 
I would say leave alone neds are clearly hard to catch and will soon learn not to stand on chains, how do you think teathered horses dont stand on what they are tied with?
 
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I think the chains will be so they can be caught if they are as u say timid. My old boss is a real old school farmer and he believed chain was heavy enough to drop and not tangle the way rope would. He'd never have had one that long on a horse though. Mainly used them for picketing goats!
 
This is an old Gypsy trick to get young stock that have never handled before to get use to someone coming and catching them and use to headcollar and the chain or rope is long enough for the person to slowly go up and pick up and gently reel youngster in with out them getting upset and it does work very well. So no leave well alone, as some would call it natural horsemanship and that is what it is.
 
Echo others. Leave alone. Some of our babies which are more timid have lead ropes left on for the same reasons. Highly annoying when someone 'helps' by unclipping it. ;)
 
Leave alone - maybe leave a note expressing your concerns though. When I got my mare I had to leave a rope coz she was unhandled and was impossible to catch otherwise. She soon learned though - it doesn't take them long :)
 
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