I would never tie to a stall board in a show stall, because those will break, which is unsafe. The only time/place I ever, ever, ever tie a horse to something designed to break easily is on the trailer, where I tie to a loop of bailing twine that is tied to a zip tie that is attached to the trailer tie ring. In the event of an accident, I want the tie to break easily but the horse to still be wearing its halter. In every other circumstance, I tie short and securely, with and to something that will not break. I donāt tie a horse until it has learned to give to pressure and stand, of course, but a horse that wonāt stand tied is a danger to itself and everyone around it, and the fastest way to teach one to sit back is to tie it with/to something easily broken.
I think weāre swinging the pendulum a little too far if tying is going to be considered abuse. I think you could have snapped a picture that would have stamped the time and if the horse is still there 5 hours later said something.
But a horse tied for an hour or two without food or water is not abuse.
A barn I boarded at briefly - 2 weeks - had a mexican ādancing horseā as one of the boarders. The owner would regularly leave the horse tied in his stall depriving him of food and water, fully tacked including spade bit for up to 36 hours. The horse had that ā1,000 mile stareā there was nothing behind his eyes. I took off his bridle and untied him but he didnāt move. I called animal control but the horse at the time they visited was untacked and turned out. The barn owner was well aware and they used to host parties where the locals would bring their dancing horses and have a gay old time abusing their horses.
This is entirely different than tying a horse who is winding himself tighter and tighter pacing around a stall and screaming. There is nothing wrong with tying a horse to encourage them to settle. Itās done often with my young mare who gets wound up during turnout time. The second sheās tied the shenanigans quit.
That is so sad.
This horse did not settle though. I thought it was going to start pulling back at any moment. And the rope did come untied at one point. Like I said, I was on high alert because I had just read about Cobain and honestly, have not seen too many A show people tie a horse up to get it settled.
Thankfully, nothing happened. I have just wondered since if stewards can be notified about stall care. And now I know that it probably is not a steward issue unless it went on for hours. I truly hope I never witness that!
You can contact a steward at anytime if you think there may be a welfare issue. It is up to them to investigate and include their notes in their report.
When in doubt contact the stewards and let them decide . Thatās their job. Better to have it be nothing than to not say anything and let the animal suffer or worse
Animal cruelty is a criminal offense, its likely that nobody even alerted law enforcement and had a proper complaint and report filed away for future charges to be brought foward. This is an attempt to take action on the civil level, hopefully some criminal charges will follow. The horse world seems to have a problem with getting authorities involved during situations in which they absolutely should be called, but I certainly donāt have all the facts and hope to see an update soon.
This is horrific and unbelievable! Who does this??? Horrible humans. Wow.
Whatās amazing is she is still running her business like nothing has happened.
Really?! That is awful. Is the lawsuit still active?
I should not have looked at the pictures. I can never unsee that. She should not be allowed to ācareā for another horse.
Late to the party here, but how in the hell does a failure to load in a trailer result in hanging a horse tied in its stall? How is the horse supposed to relate the loading issue with punishment in the stall? Not only is this animal cruelty, its piss poor training. The trainer has no business hanging a shingle out and taking peopleās money.
She has been spending a lot of time out of state but appears to back in aiken again and getting her business back up and running here. She seems to be doing a lot with polo these days.
