I want to do a hitching rail, like this: http://www.lemen.com/hitchrail1a.JPG
I am wondering how deep the vertical posts need to be set into the ground to prevent a horse from pulling them out? Should they be backfilled with cement when we do them?
Also, the top horizontal rail - how best to attach it to the two verticals to prevent it from just being pulled off?
Thanks in advance!
Tom King is probably the one to ask about this, if he doesn’t see it I’d PM him.
I would imagine you’d want to cement them and put them in fairly deep.
Yeah, I’m envisioning a horse running down the drive with a telephone pole attached to the other end of the lead… :lol:
One place I boarded had a long 2yo filly break one in half :eek: An ass that was ‘training’ there beat the living hell out of her, while she was tied to it. It was a 4x4 on at least 10" round posts sunk pretty deep and attached with bolts. On the plus side, the rail didn’t come with. I was about sick…
We generally set posts about 3’ in the ground, 5’ sticking out.
The trouble with getting the rail too high, some horse may try to walk under it and if too low, one that gets scared may try to jump it.
Have seen both happen and it is not good when they are tied to it.
The last one we set, it was 4 1/2 thick wall pipe, set 3’ down in concrete and a horizontal pipe, same size, saddled on the uprights at 4’ 8" high.
It was about 4’ close to the wall of the barn, so horses were not too apt to try to walk under or over it.
Never had a horse get in trouble there and we tied plenty of colts there to teach them to get baths.
What you may find with wood, you may have the rare horse scratch on it and get a splinter and an abscess from it, especially if the wood is treated wood, very caustic.
That is why we went to pipe for ours.
With wood, you don’t need to use concrete, just pound the dirt back in there properly and it will hold a horse pulling on it.
Concrete is also fine, we have had plenty we did that with and if you do, one trick to keep the wood sound longer is to wrap it in some thin, black “roofing felt” material.
As for the cross brace, that metal strip in the picture seems strong enough to hold it there if a horse were to pull back.
I have seen some just cross tied with a 1" rope to the uprights and that seemed to also keep everything in place.
[QUOTE=Bluey;7952938]
We generally set posts about 3’ in the ground, 5’ sticking out.
The trouble with getting the rail too high, some horse may try to walk under it and if too low, one that gets scared may try to jump it.
Have seen both happen and it is not good when they are tied to it.
The last one we set, it was 4 1/2 thick wall pipe, set 3’ down in concrete and a horizontal pipe, same size, saddled on the uprights at 4’ 8" high.
It was about 4’ close to the wall of the barn, so horses were not too apt to try to walk under or over it.
Never had a horse get in trouble there and we tied plenty of colts there to teach them to get baths.
What you may find with wood, you may have the rare horse scratch on it and get a splinter and an abscess from it, especially if the wood is treated wood, very caustic.
That is why we went to pipe for ours.
With wood, you don’t need to use concrete, just pound the dirt back in there properly and it will hold a horse pulling on it.
Concrete is also fine, we have had plenty we did that with and if you do, one trick to keep the wood sound longer is to wrap it in some thin, black “roofing felt” material.
As for the cross brace, that metal strip in the picture seems strong enough to hold it there if a horse were to pull back.
I have seen some just cross tied with a 1" rope to the uprights and that seemed to also keep everything in place.[/QUOTE]
Thanks Bluey! The rail will be along a wall, so not likely to have someone try to go over or under it!
You can e-mail, Bob about it, too. He is a font of information. (The man who runs the site.)
In fact, King and I are on his site: http://www.lemen.com/friends.html
He’s a good guy. http://www.grandrapidsmn.com/news/cowboy-bob-lemen/image_869c0202-95da-11e4-9517-3b03219e68ec.html
We have our tie rails placed behind the posts and bolted. That way if they pull on it, they are pulling the rail into the posts.
I know a pony who broke her back and died after being tied to a hitching rail. She fell and got up with the rail over her back. She struggled, broke her back and had to be shot on the spot. In front of her little girl. It was horrific.
I would never make one. If you have a wall, just make tie rings. There are no compelling reasons why a rail is better, and lots of reasons why they are worse. They are too low for safe thing anyway, you are supposed to tie to a point above the withers.
[QUOTE=arlosmine;7958845]
I know a pony who broke her back and died after being tied to a hitching rail. She fell and got up with the rail over her back. She struggled, broke her back and had to be shot on the spot. In front of her little girl. It was horrific.
I would never make one. If you have a wall, just make tie rings. There are no compelling reasons why a rail is better, and lots of reasons why they are worse. They are too low for safe thing anyway, you are supposed to tie to a point above the withers.[/QUOTE]
May help avoid that if you make a two rail hitching post.
The reality, there are many one bar hitching posts being use out there in millions of places and very few accidents with those, not any more than if the horse that acts up was tied in any other place when he acted up and was injured.
Horses, like humans, have ways to get hurt no matter what you do to keep them from it.
I agree, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a boarding stable that didn’t have hitching rails somewhere. Cross ties can be dangerous, posts can be dangerous. They are huge animals.
Correction: One eventing stable did not have a rail.
[QUOTE=Bluey;7959028]
May help avoid that if you make a two rail hitching post.
The reality, there are many one bar hitching posts being use out there in millions of places and very few accidents with those, not any more than if the horse that acts up was tied in any other place when he acted up and was injured.
Horses, like humans, have ways to get hurt no matter what you do to keep them from it.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=SuckerForHorses;7952940]
Thanks Bluey! The rail will be along a wall, so not likely to have someone try to go over or under it![/QUOTE]
They’re horses… they’ll go behind it.
Our 6" poles are sunk in crushed bank run about 3 feet tamped not cemented. Then we hole sawed through and ran a 3" steel pipe through them for the “rail”.
When I tie I tie at the junction of a pole/pipe. The pole holds the horse, the pipe keeps them from wrapping around the pole. Whatever you use for your horizontal you will have to take into consideration if the horses can work themselves closer together if they aren’t tied at an upright.
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