How do you stop a horse playing in his water?

I had one on loan who did this, French in this case.

I did the same as Gemmabel. Hay and a smaller water bucket just for dunking in one corner, drinking bucket in the other.

I tried soaking but he wasn't keen, I couldn't do it as well as he did it himself.
 
Could you put his hay and water in opposite corners? A lot more effort to keep going back and forth to dunk his hay then. Does he have haynets?
 
No More Twist said:
I could try that, what a nightmare bless him, he has a hay bar so will have to find a dustbin to soak it in, or two probably!
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We have one who likes to wash her hay, so I sprinkle it in the haybar with water from the hose-pipe. She objects to that actually, as she prefers to wash her own but it does stop her making soup in her trug.
 
I had one who would obsessively soak his own hay, even if it was 1) already soaks or 2) really really nice haylage - it was just a habit - teeth perfect, carried weight nicely etc. I moved ot a yard with waterers and had to have it switched off because you couldn't really clean them properly twice a day so it was grim pretty quickly. I tried tiny holed net on the opposite side of the stable and he would then trudge across the stable blade at a time to soak it (totally trashing bed in the process!)

In the end I accepted it was something he would do and had a big half filled bucked just next to his hay for dunking and a normal water bucket on the other side for drinking!
 
My Irish boy doesn't play with water however the American TB ex-racer is a nightmare. Actually I quite like it - shows a bit of character and he loves playing with water - in fact have to be careful washing him down as he tries to go down to roll in it.
 
My pet theory on this is that horses didnt seem to dunk hay until the advent of the powered hay turners , the rotary ones like the PZ Haybob. Then it seemed that all of a sudden they were all dunking hay. I think it is an attempt to wash off the soil dust that these turners throw up . The hay doesnt smell "musty" because it isnt mould, just plain old soil particles.The farmer I buy my best hay from only uses an acrobat (but does several hundred acres of the best hay around)
 
No More Twist said:
The dunking bucket and separate drinking bucket has worked. He is still making a bit of a mess but not as bad and he now always has water in the morning!
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the more he gets used to it the cleaner he will become. I just have to make sure when I go away the person covering me lays out his stable in exactly the same way :) He is now very particular about his layout!
 
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