Very early in life, I met (we owned) a horse who could not be tied. AT ALL. He was a QH, my mother bought him as a recreational riding mount for herself. He was a “cast off” from a BIG NAME reining trainer, and previously owned by a billionaire, who had him in training with this trainer. The quality of the training he was given and the experience of the trainer was not at issue. But they gave up on him because they could NOT get him to neck rein, and he did not tie, and he would NOT get a flying change, several of these things pretty much disqualified him from being a competitive reiner. He was a very quiet and easy to ride as an english horse, uncomplicated. I rode this horse for years as a junior hunter and junior jumper, and he did learn how to do flying changes, when it became apparent to him that it was necessary. He was a lovely jumper, and I won a lot of classes with him.
So, the first thing that happened when I was 7 years old, was that he was going to be tied, and we had the huge tree (5 foot diameter truck) with the high monsterous branching spot, to which the inner tube was affixed with unbreakable attachements, unbreakable ropes, and unbreakable halter. We had input from trainers, the rope tied in the bolen knot around the neck, around the barrel at the girth. And he was tied there, daily. We tried everything. And he pulled and pulled and pulled, his eyes rolled back in his sockets, collapsing on the ground, in sheer and unadulterated panic. He learned nothing, and nearly killed himself. Eventually, we no longer had the heart to continue with this plan, fearing his death. We learned how to handle the horse without tying him. If he even THOUGHT he MIGHT be tied, panic was close to the surface. Other than the tying thing, he was a great horse.
A “phobia” is described as an “irrational fear”. People have phobias. People are frightened of harmless spiders, harmless snakes, elevators, a huge variety of harmless things, things that most people can rationally accept as not something that it is rational to be frightened of. People with phobias can take psychological help, from people who are trained to attempt to deal with these phobias in humans, sometimes with SOME success, sometimes with NO success. Because rational explanations and learning have little effect on irrational fears. And there is no language barrier or species barrier between the phobic person and the psychologist. When the individual with the phobia is a horse, it is more difficult to communicate these things, in an attempt to influence opinions and behaviour.
All horses have installed into their nature the option to flee if frightened, it is part of what has kept them alive to procreate in the milllenia before humans decided what was breeding stock, and what wasn’t. The option to flee is instinctual. As trainers, we work to reduce the instinct to flee in many situations, and use it in our training and competition goals, “go, run, race”. It is unlikely that with a truly phobic horse, that it can be overcome, even with quality training used. Many horses CAN be taught to tie hard, the true phobic can not. If you have not yet met one who is truly phobic about this sort of thing, perhaps someday you will. I have some horses that I tie hard, if necessary. I have had others that I do not. Those who lack self confidence are usually not candidates to tie hard, but may tie just fine in situations where they have structure around them, to make them feel safer, protected. Horses who have lots of self confidence AND confidence in their trainers, AND adequate training, can often be taught to tie hard. However, there are always instances in which the training is no longer in effect and instinct takes over.
On a week long trail ride, in the mountains of British Columbia decades ago now, our group of riders was enjoying lunch break. Horses were all tied to trees, saddles loosened. All horses were good trail horses, experienced, dependable, and tied hard. Then, a helicopter came by, and landed in an open spot near the horses. PRACTICALLY all the horses pulled back, and got loose. It was a park ranger, complaining that we were in an area where we were not allowed to be. Catching all those loose horses took hours. Apparently, if a helicopter lands next to your well trained horse who is tied hard, it is enough of a fearful situation to make these horses break their training, and flee. So, if you think that your horse is fully “broke to tie”, I am here to tell you that probably it isn’t, and it just depends on what happens nearby that your horse may find to be frightening.
