Hippophilia
Well-Known Member
When I got my mare just over two years ago she had not hacked out in at least 5 years and I was told not to try as she is a TB and therefore likey to head for the horizon. After a move to a new yard and with the help of my very supportive and helpful YO I have been working on getting her out and about. It's taken a while but we have achieved our goal and have been hacking out calmly and happily for the last few weeks in company and alone so I am dead chuffed with that.
Of course now we have another issue: tying. Miss has never been good with tying and using one of those equi-ping thing'ys just taught her to pull even more so I decided to take her back to basics and train her tie like she was a yearling (she 26 BTW!). With the help of my YO we were working on tying her solid and using pressure from behind to encourage her to step forward when she pulled. This was going pretty well, her pulling had reduced to a bit of shuffling...until today. She tied nicely to be tacked up, we had a decent schooling session and I then tied her again to give her a groom. We were alone in the indoor school and there were no distractions, I was finishing up when she suddenly pulled back, reared and broke free. Thank god I was using and old lead rope which broke right away. She did'nt seem panicked and wandered to the middle of the school and let me catch her.
It did give me a shock though - is there any point in persevering to teach her to tie? I'm thinking of just teaching her to ground tie because she may wander off but she won't be able to break her neck.
Bloomin' horses.
Of course now we have another issue: tying. Miss has never been good with tying and using one of those equi-ping thing'ys just taught her to pull even more so I decided to take her back to basics and train her tie like she was a yearling (she 26 BTW!). With the help of my YO we were working on tying her solid and using pressure from behind to encourage her to step forward when she pulled. This was going pretty well, her pulling had reduced to a bit of shuffling...until today. She tied nicely to be tacked up, we had a decent schooling session and I then tied her again to give her a groom. We were alone in the indoor school and there were no distractions, I was finishing up when she suddenly pulled back, reared and broke free. Thank god I was using and old lead rope which broke right away. She did'nt seem panicked and wandered to the middle of the school and let me catch her.
It did give me a shock though - is there any point in persevering to teach her to tie? I'm thinking of just teaching her to ground tie because she may wander off but she won't be able to break her neck.
Bloomin' horses.