Solid Tie up

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cobmum

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When i lived in Australia it struck me that the majority of owners on various yards around Perth would solid tie even those with dressage horses worth around $20-30k. I thought that this was really dangerous and for a flight animal could easily cause serious injury or even death. What are your opinions folks.....
 
It's common practice in the USA and Canada too, in fact they think we are mad for tying with baling twine
 
mines tied up in his stall with rope and stall log through a ring when he is in.he has leather headcollar on and leather neckstrap.i dont have any problems.he has never got his leg over the rope even if tied all night on the odd occassion he is in as we adjusted the rope accordingly and just got heavier stall log.
 
Solid tie where I grew up too and I still do it. *knock on wood* but I think problems from it are rare, I've never heard of one and it's what I am used too. Doesnt necessarily make it wrong.

Although if I tie up I don't wander off and leave my horse alone either.
Nor would I ever turn out in a headcollar of any make.

Different strokes for different folks. I think it's only the uk that does it. If you go by the numbers it makes it uncommon practice to use string.
 
I was daft enough to do it and my horse pulled back, panicked, and took the fence with him, flattening me in the process as I had been standing at his head with my back to the fence.

It was a post and rail fence and the tie ring was screwed into the rail at the post. I'm not going to risk it ever again.

I found out later that the horse had a history of pulling back, but didn't for the first few months I had him.
 
Not something i'd do - i've seen too many injuries caused by fencing getting broken and tangled, headcollars breaking and horses going over backwards - or once a brick wall coming down (granted it hadn't been a very well built wall in the first place).

Personally i'd rather spend time teaching a horse how to tie up and using baling twine. I can't bear horses that break string as a matter of course.
 
i normally tie up on string but on the odd occassion i will tie up/loop the rope round the bars of the stable, i never leave them alone though and it's normally when i'm just grooming.
however the other day i bought some equi ties and put them outside the stable, tied my horse up to it and another horse got her rug caught on her stable door so made a very odd noise, my boy got scared and pulled back, it didn't break away straight off but it did when he didn't stop pulling, so he got free and just stood there. no injuries.
if i had him tied to a solid place then he could have hurt himself quite bad. so from now on i'm only going to use the equi ties/string.
 
Interesting post.

My boy has unfortunately learnt that if he leans hard enough he can get free. Be it with string or one of those suposidly unbreakable bungee ties. I tie up to a reinforced concrete barn upright, with string of course and if the string doesn't break, his leadrope does... its a vicious circle.

One thing I would say is that tying to a fence isn't exactly what I'd call 'solid' and even with a bit of string between the horse and the tie ring it would be a tough call to bet on what would break first.
 
I tie my mare to a solid post as she breaks the string and bu**ers off :rolleyes: If she really panics then the peg will come away but for general naughtiness it holds :)
 
ISHmad said:
Not something I would consider doing in a million years. Never, ever, ever. Simply not worth the risk.
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i can understand in a way.like my post says i use leather head collar so it would break in an emergency.when in a stall tied up its the best option really.but my boy is good as gold and has never got loose in the night or any other time.
 
Would only ever tie to something that had very thin baling twine that breaks almost instantly when a horse pulls back!

My reason, my horse pulled back a few weeks ago tied to baling twine on a solid fence, nothing broke/gave and fence was eventually pulled out of the ground!

Horse was lame on 3 legs for a week, after numerous scans, nerve blocks he was eventually referred to Rossdales and we had put him down due to a fractured neck and subsequent nerve damage caused by pulling back. They said spinal fractures can be caused more easily than people realise from pulling back, their neck is a delicate thing!
 
I've had quite a few youngsters and they have always been taught to tie up to something unbreakable and never had any problems with pulling back. In fact the only two I have ever had that have pulled back were both acquired as adults! Edited to say that baling twine doesn't actually break very easily these days anyway.
 
On the yard where I livery my horse the tie points are often made out of very strong baler twine which does not break under pressure, but I only ever use a leather headcollar (nylon headcollars are the work of the devil) I have 3, one he wears, one as a spare in the trailer and the third is invariably in some state of disrepair being mended :D My trainer tied her intermed event horse to a chunk of this twine without realising, when the thing pulled back he went over backwards when the rope snapped and near bashed his brains out on the concrete floor :eek:
 
Faithkat said:
I've had quite a few youngsters and they have always been taught to tie up to something unbreakable and never had any problems with pulling back. In fact the only two I have ever had that have pulled back were both acquired as adults! Edited to say that baling twine doesn't actually break very easily these days anyway.
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Have to agree with you.

If a horse is trained to tie up safely from the start there should never be a problem of pulling back and breaking string. Years ago you never heard of so many ignorant horses that do that for the fun of it; they were taught to stand where they were tied, end of story.
 
Whilst it is definitely convenient to have a horse that will stay tied when necessary I'd rather have one that is tied to something it can break free from in the one-off circs of panicking due to air ambulance landing in field next door/fire/whatever than one that can't and hurts itself. If you want great 'tying' you can teach 'ground tying' (like 'stay' for a dog so no actual tying at all) and that is both very safe, convenient and probably a good reminder not to leave tied horses unattended too!
 
The last racing yard I worked on tied directly onto the stable bars no string or anything, I was a bit shocked at first but was told not to be so stupid when they saw me carrying around my own piece of twine. But no horse did ever pull back or try to pull back in fact the most mannerly horses I had ever worked with
 
As someone said in North America it is common practice to tie to a wall etc, no string.
Horses are trained to tie up and jolly well stand, they are expected to do it, so, in normal circumstances they do.
I expect mine to as well, I just would prefer my horses and my property to stay intact so I do faff about with string now, mine ground tie too. Swings and roundabouts really, if a horse knows it can break free then it is more likely to do it again, if it knows it shouldn't, then 95% of the time it won't.

They do think I am nuts to insist that they tie their horses to loops (narrow tubing with baler string - not plastic through it) they would tie to the stall bars (ignoring the tie ups) and I've already had one set yanked out :mad: I would rather be thought slightly eccentric than have bits of my barn flying around the place though :) When I am training foals to tie I do use my bars, just loop the long rope around them so that I can shorten them again easily if the foal moves back.

Everything gets tied to the loops now (when I am around anyway) they are everywhere, in stalls, in the aisle, on the hitching posts, if they aren't tied up to loops I just wander up, untie them and re-tie them then apologise "Sorry, force of habit" and bimble off again.

One horse (I wasn't there) pulled back and ripped an entire hitch rail (2 uprights and a horizontal post) out of the ground and 20' into the air, halter broke too apparently. Since then I have concreted railway sleepers 3' into the ground...they don't mess with those.

I frequently see horses tied to trucks (sorted out my situation with that now) not tied, but with the lead lines shut in the closed tailgate. :mad:

Someone mentioned tying racehorses, all our stalls had chains in them, we just clipped the horses on them.
 
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Top tip: a little piece of baler twine attached to the headcollar (so clip leadrope onto baler twine rather than the metal ring) means you can tie up anywhere and everywhere without having to worry. Is great when out hacking and helps keep the yard looking tidier (excet my yard which is a lost cause).
 
I only ever use bailing twine too.

I went up to my old yard after work one day and saw that there were 2 girls who had come to use the XC course and when trying to turn their 4x4 and trailer around on the grass had obviously got stuck, so I offered my services to try and help, and as I looked over they had unloaded the horses, tied them to my brand new trailer (only ever been used to move my boy to new yard) and they'd tied them directly to the ramp of my trailer with no bailing twine and one of the horses had started pulling back!! Luckily we managed to untie the horse before any injuries happened - I dread to think what the outcome would have been otherwise. Needless to say I was absolutely fuming!
 
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