I want to talk about tying horses.
To summarise a 1000-word essay into just one sentence; “every horse should learn to tie up brilliantly, but very few horses should ever be tied.”
Let’s start with the first part of that statement.
“Every horse should learn to tie up brilliantly.”
I want to trust that if I tie my horse to something solid, it will still be there 2hrs later. During that 2hrs, I want it to feel comfortable. I want it to feel safe. I want it to experience a minimum of anxiety. I don’t want it to ever lean back on the lead rope. I don’t want it to feel fidgety or scramble. I want it to feel secure. I want it to feel like it is in a happy place no matter where or to what it is tied.
I published a post arguing that the most important lesson we can ever teach a horse is to lead brilliantly. The majority of horses that do not reliably tie-up are horses that have holes in their ability to follow the feel of the lead rope. Like so many issues we might have with our horse, the root cause is often problems with how well a horse leads.
However, it’s not always the case that tying up problems are due to leading problems. Occasionally, a tying-up problem comes from a trauma a horse has experienced. In this case, the leading still needs to be brilliant, but some tweaking may be needed in the tying-up lesson to re-shape a horse’s auto-response to being tied and help them find a different response than sheer panic.
However, it is my experience that if a horse learns to follow the feel of a lead rope from the very first lessons, problems with tying up later are rare.
Now let’s consider the second part of the statement.
“Very few horses should ever be tied.”
This is probably a little controversial because there are instances when tying a horse is necessary. But let me clarify that when I say “should ever be tied”, I mean “should ever be tied to something solid with a knot that is fixed.”
When I tie a horse, it is almost always in a way that the lead rope can slip if the horse pulls away. If a horse reaches the end of the lead rope, I want it to step forward to put slack back in the rope. This is what good leading teaches a horse.
But if a horse reaches the end of the lead rope and pulls harder, I want the lead rope to slide to give the horse room to move. There may be some resistance in the lead rope that requires the horse to put in an effort if it has a strong thought to leave the scene. But the resistance in the rope should not be so strong that it creates a life-and-death struggle to see which breaks first - the rope, the fence, or the horse.
This means I don’t tie the lead rope with a knot. Instead, I use some type of method that allows the lead rope to slide around the fence or rail. Often it just involves wrapping the lead rope around a post or rail 2 or 3 times. The number of wraps depends on how much resistance I want the rope to have when a horse leans against it. The more wraps, the more resistance. Other times I will use a gadget, like a Blocker tie that can be fixed to a post or rail and allows the lead rope to slide if enough force is used. The photo below shows a ring bit that I cut in half and used to tie my mare, Chops. It allows the lead rope to slide and can be adjusted to apply different degrees of resistance.
My horses are seldom tied, even with a rope that slides. They ground tie really well. If I take them somewhere new and challenging I can tie them safely with 2 or 3 wraps of the rope around a post or rail.
So why do I not recommend tying a horse to something solid with a fixed knot?
Any horse can be startled or frightened resulting in them pulling back. In a state of fear, being tied up without a way to escape will often lead to panic. This is when horses fall and injure themselves. This is when tie-up rails break causing injury or panic. This is when spinal damage can occur. This is when somebody standing nearby can be run over.
If a horse gets a fright and pulls on a lead rope that can slide and go with the horse, very often it diminishes the feelings of panic because the horse feels escape from the life-ending threat is possible. For a nervous horse, I suggest using a long rope of say 7m (25ft). I have never had a horse pull to the end of a 7m rope. They have always stopped long before reaching the end. They may have pulled back to 4m or 5m, but they always stopped and remained tied.
I know some people will be concerned that a horse may pull back enough that the rope unwraps around the tie-up post and get away with the rope dragging. They fear it will run onto the road, and cause a car to crash into a power line. The power line will fall to the ground and break a gas line. A spark from the power line will set off a gas explosion and houses will be destroyed. A military satellite will see the explosions and interpret them as an attack from a foreign enemy. Nuclear weapons will be armed and the world will be put on a war footing. All because somebody did not tie up their horse with a solid knot. Yes, it could happen. But on the bright side, somebody will make a lot of money from the Hollywood movie.
To ensure nobody misinterprets the message of this essay I will repeat it.
Every horse should be able to be reliably and safely tied to a solid post with a solid knot. But very few horses or on very few occasions should it be done.
Chops tied outside the round yard. The lead rope is looped through a ring snaffle cut in half so that the rope will slide (with some resistance) if Chops is startled and feels the need to escape