Tying a horse to a solid object

[rara007]

As my horses are trained to tie I can take the liberty to protect my stables/lorry/trailer (and also the off chance of a genuine bolt and neck break) to use twine!
They're routinely left tied pretty much unsupervised for whole days (up to 5 days and nights on the trot camping) (obviously people are about and checking them all the time, but not constant). Stalling blocks are too heavy for little ponies so they are just tied. I find it pretty strange going onto yards where they tie up next to hay nets but their horse their choice! I have a couple that get separation anxiety if left at the box by themselves at events (if come with a friend) that I wish a haynet distracted them!

 

[HashRouge]

So, what do people do when their horse starts pulling back? Do they just stand there and wait for the twine to break (or not)? What is their reaction?

It depends what you mean by pulling back. Generally most horses that I see only pull back against the rope for a short while before moving forward again as they're normally smart enough to work out that pulling back = poll pressure and if they want to avoid that they should stop pulling. So there isn't really any need to react. The horses who really need breakable ties are the ones who either freak out because of the poll pressure or for another reason and struggle against the tie until it or the headcollar snaps (or they pull the tie ring off the wall - I've seen that before!). And it can be quite hard to do anything when a 17hh horse is raging about trying to free itself, unless you fancy getting trampled under flailing feet. Although that was the expectation when I was an SJ groom as we were far less valuable than the horses! Even so, it can be quite hard to untie/ unclip a panicking horse even if you can get near them, so I'd rather rely on a tie that will break fairly easily. To be fair, the large majority of the horses I worked with were great to tie or cross tie, but there were one or two that I would never ever have tied to something unbreakable. And frankly, I don't know how you could have taught them to be 100% bombproof when tied up. Most of the time they would be fine, but if something really scared them they could and would absolutely freak out to the extent that they would throw themselves around so much you could hardly get near them. Which is why whatever they were tied to needed to break pretty quickly under that sort of pressure. I stress that this sort of thing happened very rarely, and only with a few specific horses. But we would never have risked tying any of them to anything unbreakable, especially considering how much they were worth

 

[Dry Rot]

I would think it extremely foolish to tie a horse to anything, string or solid, without a sharp penknife in your pocket.

I'd rather leave home without my house keys than without my knife. Am I alone?

True, I don't need it very often but when I do need it, it is essential. A couple of times I've had a pony get snagged by the head collar and I defy anyone to open a bag of silage without a sharp knife!

 

[Cortez]

If I see a horse start to pull back, even a panicking one that's thrashing, I will give it a tap on the bum (I once threw a dandy brush at the horses hindquarters, which also worked); 99 times out of a 100* the horse will jump forwards, release the pressure and calm down immediately.

*I have learned to NEVER say "always" where horses are concerned.....

 

[fburton]

How many panics have you had to deal with, Cortez? What are the most common causes of panicking?

 

[Cortez]

How many panics have you had to deal with, Cortez? What are the most common causes of panicking?

Not that many, maybe 10 over 40 years and 100's of horses? Our own homebreds (I've bred approx 200 foals) are all taught to tie as foals and I've never had one truly test the rope, but there are some "outside" horses that have had multifarious problems when they've arrived. The most common cause is panic; maybe they've had a fright, shot back and hit the rope and not known how to escape the pressure. The worst are the ones that do it just because they know they can (I have a Spanish horse who came from England with this as his party trick. He no longer thinks it is a good idea.)