Experiences with patience poles?

The Trooper

The Trooper

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Hi all,

I saw a post on FB about someone tying their horse to a tree as they do not have a 'patience pole'. This was the first time I had heard about such a thing.

Apparently it's used to teach horses to stand nicely, has anyone ever used one? Does anyone have any thoughts on them?

Cheers all.
 
If it is what I suspect then my only experience, indirectly, was not a good outcome, tying to something they can run around, get the rope tighter until they cannot move is not my way of dealing with any horse and I have dealt with many that are not good to tie up, they learn to be patient by me being patient not putting them at risk of serious injury or in the case I heard of a horrible death.
 
Trouper said:
Why would you need a special "patience pole" to teach a horse to stand quietly? Am I missing something here?
Click to expand...

It's not something I have or have a desire to have. I don't know much about them, other than what I read last night and it made some sense but not a lot.

Just looking to expand my knowledge really more than anything else.
 
Many, many moons ago I used to ride ponies in Wales. I rode for a couple of old boys called The Lewis Brothers. I had imagined before I met them they would be young, lean dark and handsome but....... they were in their seventies at least! However, this did give them time to have heard some stories and experienced a few things! They told me that in the past people would tie the Welsh ponies/cobs to a tree in a field to teach them to be patient and learn to stand still. They said that the next day they were tacked up and taken to the nearest ploughed field and then mounted and ridden round till they were pretty knackered........ this was the method of breaking in!!! I am pleased to say the pony I rode for them was delightfully well mannered and schooled and had been to the big Welsh shows and not been subjected to this manner of training.
They tested me out as a suitable jockey by giving me the pony with just a bridle on and told me to walk, trot and canter him in the field. At that age I never had any qualms about this...........
 
Its a term I come across in western a lot, usually there's some sort of gadget/swivel on the pole so they can't get tied up/wrapped in a knot and also it's somewhere where they can be seen and monitored.
This way you end up with horses that tie up really nicely and quietly.
As with everything its something that can be done well or badly.
 
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Aye, it's something you find in the States and works as Alibear described. The idea is that you tie the horse and let it fidget and dance around until it finally settles, and when it does, you untie and reward. I taught my horse to tie this way, although I didn't have a gadet or a pole -- just a quick release knot on a hitching rail. I'd tie her and then chat to other boarders, and the horse works out for itself that it's a lot less work to stand and chill out, because they'll be standing regardless.

It goes without saying that the kind, patient trainers don't do this with something that's totally rank or going to lose its mind at finding itself restrained. I would employ it with fidgety, impatient horses rather than scared ones. But people do use it as a method of flooding. I used to be on a US-based horse forum (not COTH, where you can get really good advice), and whenever someone posted about a horse who pulled back or who panicked at restraint, one of the regular posters, who was a professional trainer, would inevitably suggest tieing it to tree with a low branch using a swivel and letting it fight it out, even if it takes hours and the horse exhausts itself. Once the horse is standing, offer it food and water. It's a very old-school method, but knowing what we do now about flooding and learned helplessness, it's arguably not ethical. When they measure adrenaline and corticosteroids of animals which have been desensitised with flooding, they find the levels still indicate high stress levels, even if the animal appears to be standing quietly, which suggests that horses trained in this way, like the dogs in the original learned helplessness experiment, aren't okay or relaxed about whatever you've done to them -- they've just given up. And nevermind that most people aren't likely to have a suitable tree.
 
I used to be on a US-based forum where the standard method for teaching a horse to stand tied was to tie it to a long rope hanging from the roof of an indoor school, and leave it to sort itself out. Even the trainers whose methods I generally liked seemed to do this. On the one hand, it did seem to produce horses who would stand quietly tied for hours. On the other, as Caol Ila says, standing quietly doesn't mean they aren't stressed.
 
I should add that when I lived in the US, I never personally saw anyone use that method with a scared horse (as I said above, we used patience tying with horses who had been patiently prepped for it). But I hung out with a horsey crowd who were pretty enlightened and generally avoided crude, rough-and-ready training techniques.
 
Like anything, as CI says, this sort of method can be applied well - safely, under supervision, with an impatient (rather than scared) horse to teach some manners, or it can be done dangerously, with no regard for the animal's welfare. I wouldn't dismiss it - I've used variations with success, but I wouldn't assume it's appropriate for all circumstances.
 
A large polo organisation near me does this with their polo ponies. Not a pleasant experience at all in my view.
 
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