I also use the Dover Safe T cross ties with Velcro. Have been in my barn for 22 years and are great. They come apart when they need to but hold just fine. I have had ranch horses who had never been cross tied and they do fine. We first attach one cross tie then loop the lead role loosely through the other cross tie ring until they get used to it. One thing that gets me is when people attach the halter to the quick release snap. If a horse is struggling I want to be next to the wall and release it, then there is a kind of lead you can catch the horse with, instead of trying to get close to a scrambling horse’s halter to undo the safety release. Of course, not a real issue with the Velcro cross ties, but still. I have hay string loops in the trailer and on the tie rings on the outside of the trailer. If a horse really struggles while tied it can really screw up their neck and back.
I was wondering why no one else was mentioning the Velcro ties. The barn I board at has them, and I love them so much that I bought two of them for the trailer. Horse pulls back, Velcro comes undone, that’s it. You just Velcro the pieces back together. The trailer ties were maybe $20/each, worth every penny.
Here’s the one I have in case anyone else is interested.
Cross ties in the same brand.
Our barn is built so that there are stalls on each side of the aisle, with saddle racks etc. on the walls. So horses are taken from their stall or paddock and put in cross ties to be groomed / tacked up. Some people leave them here with no supervision - a pet peeve of mine.
Growing up riding in France we didn’t use cross ties. We tacked up in the stalls, or we tied the horses in the aisle just like you describe.
And you still live in Australia while the vast majority of forum members live in America. Cross ties are more common than not in American English discipline barns. Open fronted grooming “stalls” such as you described often have cross ties rather than a barrier like your chain.
It is simply a different method of management. Due to winter weather in much of North America dedicated grooming stalls are an extreme luxury not present in most barns.
I prefer to straight tie or groundtie, which my horse does both pretty well. But he’s 4 years old. So like in the washrack, there is only crossties and nowhere to straight tie. I can usually hold him but it would really help to have him tied a bit at times.
Those Velcro things look amazing and just what I need!! Thank you guys.
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Thank you so much Bluey. In the 2nd picture our saddle racks are attached to the wall. When you have finished with it they then fold down parallel with the wall, so they are out of the way.
The stalls are like the first photo except their is 2 wooden rails between each horse and the 2 chains at the front with no cross ties.
The 3rd picture looks like an accident waiting to happen. There is no way to get a horse out without affecting the horses in front of it. That looks dangerous to me and something I would never do.
In the 3rd photo, what are the horses standing on? It looks like each has their own Persian rug!
I have 2 sets of the Velcro crossties. They’re awesome. In my other grooming spot I have regular nylon ties but they’re attached with twine and a plastic safety release loop. Extra carefulcareful. My horse has x-rays to prove that pulling back on a fixed tie causes long term damage.
Those are outside rugs used there like others may use mats.
Those look like ponies.
Yes, when you need to take a horse out at a show and several horses are cross tied there, you have to hope everyone behaves and nothing happens, like a horse trying to bite one going by.
Everyone knows to watch for that, not that safe, why many trainers like to block a whole set of stalls for only their horses.
I expect those that a loose horse ran into their horse also have x-rays of the damage they suffered.
There are many ways horses get hurt.
I would say, insuring our horses don’t get loose to get hurt or hurt others would be also an important consideration.
Argh so you are going past horses you don’t even know. There is no way I would put myself in that position.
I would rather hold my horse all day, outside.
I have left him tied to twine to my float with no problems.
Most people move their horse when someone wants thru.
Still some people are not very nice and if busy just ignore you and you have to either barge thru or yell a little louder for them to move over.
Bigger horse shows with many horses are a mad house of horses and people all going every which way, not for the faint hearted.
I’ve seen waaay too many freak accidents on cross-ties to not have some sort of breakaway.
Like my dead broke, solid citizen horse who I would 100% trust with 90 year old grandmas. Unbeknownst to me, he was losing his vision in his left eye. Completely uncharacteristically, he panicked on the cross-ties when I was putting his saddle pad on and flew backwards, broke loose, and crashed into the horse behind him. We’re talking about a horse who had gone through professional desensitizing training with a police squad at one point in his life, but the early stages of losing his vision put him over the edge.
Or the been there, done that children’s hunter I took care of for years. I never saw that horse do anything wrong in all my time with him. Yet he went out on lease, flipped over on the cross-ties, and broke his neck. He didn’t come home. 
Or the sales horse in my care when I was a teenager who I was told was a solid citizen… but the owner left out the tiny detail that he was freakishly girth/cold-backed to the point of dangerousness. When I did up the girth the first time, he flew backwards and writhed on the ground like a fish on the line when the cross-tie failed to yield. I lost a saddle tree and a sales commission, as the horse was unsound after that and went home to recover. What an awful life lesson that was.
I understand the argument that you don’t want a horse to get loose or to learn they can break their tie. BUT, it doesn’t have to be one or the other when using a breakaway. You can both school your horse to respect being tied and also use breakaways on your cross-ties. In all my years, I can count on my fingers the number of times one of the hundreds of horses in my care has snapped a breakaway. It’s not something that happens frequently. But I’m sure glad when a breakaway gives and a disaster is avoided.
I don’t worry if my horses get away. They are trained to come when I call. I never tie solid.
I don’t think Bluey was referring to the annoyance of having to re-catch the horses, they are talking about the damage that can be caused in those first moments of panic when a large flight animal takes off. The ability to come when called isn’t going to stop a panicked horse from potentially running over a person or another horse in those first few seconds.
I don’t think there is a single answer to tying solid or not, it’s somewhat up to personal risk decisions and circumstances of the horse potentially getting hurt versus possibly hurting others.
And one of the reasons I would never enter an aisle like in photo 3.
@Texarkana :(I’m so sorry for all those horrible accidents. That’s definitely what I envision. Especially with the crossties wrapped so high up on the rafters.
I just keep envisioning a horrible accident. My horse is 4 years old so even more plausible still. But as you pointed out, can happen to any horse.
I know the barn would think I was pretty silly to bring it up. They think there are two types of horses-those you can tie and those that constantly pull back. But horses aren’t nearly that predictable.
I won’t use fixed cross ties either, not even with my current older horses. They all can spook and I’d rather have a fuse (hay string or whatever) break than the horse. Modern hay string will break, just had it happen last winter when my well behaved cob got scared by a cast horse down the aisle - he pulled back and pop pop went the strings (that I had added to the cross ties when I moved in). Same barn had fixed cross ties in the wash rack and I refused to use them - I would bring little loops of hay string to put between the cross tie and his halter, that was part of my wash kit with sponge and scraper!
I’ve had the velcro ties before and they worked mostly ok, but I did have a warmblood that was too smart for anyone’s good and he figured them out. He would reach over with his mouth and grab the tie and give it a yank to release the velcro. If he just did one, he’d stick around, looking like “see what I did?” but if he got both off, he’d take off down the aisle. He tested every new tie to see if it would release the same way but the hay string fuses held up.
My crossties are either tied to old fashioned baling twine loops (which will absolutely break, whereas the newer, nylon twines probably won’t) or are the safety crossties with Velcro. I also use the breakaway (with Velcro) trailer ties.
If you want something that’s a little neater looking/more durable that twine loops, what about the equi-ping things? It doesn’t take much force for those to pop open, and they’re easily refastened, and neater/not prone to fraying or tangling like twine loops.
My mare gets scared easily when tied. Once something spooks her, she will pull back until something breaks. If it doesn’t break she will launch herself forward. If she is tied to a trailer or solid wall she will launch herself into it. She doesn’t stop until she is free. I worry one day she will break her neck doing this.
In the past, I have always used the blue bailer twine, but I find its thicker now, so I tend to separate it and use only part of the strand. I’ve recently tired out the Equi-Ping Safety Ring. It’s a plastic ring that will open if pulled on too hard. There are different settings on how hard it has to be pulled. It works great. I like that I can attach it to what I am tying to (ie fence, trailer ect) or I can attach it to the halter if I am using a provided line (cross ties ect).
