Imagine your horse tied by his reins to the top fence board at your neighbor's farm. You rode over for a visit and are only planning to step into her house for a quick glass of tea. You figure your horse will be fine for the 10 minutes you're there. Suddenly, a gust of wind blows, and from out of nowhere a plastic shopping bag bounces by behind your horse's back.
As well trained as your horse is, the bag is just too much for him to handle. He frantically pulls back on the reins with all his weight. In the span of a second or two, he has ripped the top fence board off the post. Then he takes off in a panicked gallop down your neighbor's driveway.
You really don't want to imagine the rest of this story, but the same ending occurs all too often in the equine world. The board "chases" the horse wherever he goes until it either comes loose or injures him severely.
This scenario can happen whenever you tie your horse to an object that isn't secure enough to prevent him from pulling it loose should he become frightened.
This article will help you to understand why many objects that people use to tie and restrain horses are just not safe and can cause severe injury, if not death. In fact, many of these objects are so unsafe that tying to them may put you at risk for injury as well, if your horse panics while tied.
All Tied Up
• Horses are creatures of flight:
whenever they become frightened, they choose to flee rather than fight.
• The average horse weighs between 800 and 1,200 pounds, but can easily exert twice that much force when panicked.
• Train your horse to move toward pressure rather than pull away.
• Before you tie your horse to anything, exercise common sense.
Fright & Flight
Whenever you tie your horse, keep in mind that he's a creature of flight. All horses are hardwired to flee a scary situation, an instinct that helps them survive in the wild.
When frightened, your horse can easily become panicked, causing him to rely on instinct and disregard the fact that he might be tied hard and fast to an object.
An average horse weighs between 800 and 1,200 pounds. He can easily exert twice that much force when he panics and throws his entire body weight into pulling back against whatever object he's tied to.
Even things that we can't foresee may cause a horse to panic when tied firmly to an object. Something as seemingly minute as a horsefly bite can create a flight response in a horse. It's truly not in a horse's best interest to be restrained, but amazingly, he can adapt quite well to the idea with good training and common sense on his handler's part.
Give-to-Pressure Training
To teach your horse not to pull back when tied, first train him to move toward pressure rather than pull away. The Lyons method of teaching this training technique is fairly involved and can't be fully explained here. For more information, go to www.myhorse.com/perfecthorse. From here you can search for the article "How to Tie a Horse," and you can also watch a 2-part video clip with John Lyons on this subject by clicking on videos
