Reading the post about the two TWH loose in TN, wearing biothane bridles. I know leather has a chance of snapping under tension if a horse is caught by reins, how about biothane?
I use exclusively biothane. It is pretty tough but I’ve had it snap before when a horse stepped on reins
The weakest part of anything horse related is the hardware. I use nylon halters on my horses because I’ve only ever had a halter break at the hardware, leather or nylon. Same with leadropes, crossties, bridles, etc. Biothane would be just as vulnerable as leather tack at the buckles.
I think I’ve read that some driving peeps prefer leather harnesses since it’s more likely to break in the case of an accident and entanglement.
[QUOTE=enjoytheride;7939466]
The weakest part of anything horse related is the hardware. I use nylon halters on my horses because I’ve only ever had a halter break at the hardware, leather or nylon. Same with leadropes, crossties, bridles, etc. Biothane would be just as vulnerable as leather tack at the buckles.[/QUOTE]
I would gently disagree with that, as I saw a horse quite literally almost kill himself in a freak accident where his leather halter got caught on the eye of a screw-eye. The part of his halter that got caught was the metal square ring where you clip a cross-tie. After several minutes of thrashing, he ended up ripping down the stall partition the screw-eye was screwed into.
Having had horses get caught in all manner of things, the hard-ware for me has never broken. I had my sane gelding over the summer nip a fly on his chest while wearing a martingale. We were calmly standing, chatting with my SO, when he went straight up because he got a canine tooth caught in the metal ring of the martingale (the ring you slide the reins through). I got off before he broke anything (himself or the martingale) but it was quite scary.
I think that Biothane has a breaking point, but it is stronger than leather. I imagine a horse could break it, if the need arose.
Biothane is very strong. I had a horse pull back in a halter bridle combo and the brass hardware broke, biothane was fine. I would say it is much stronger than leather, probably about the same breaking strength as nylon.
I had a big, older horse that would stay tied as long as he felt like staying tied (never pulled back due to panic) and he probably broke at least a dozen halters/lead ropes/etc and it was always the hardware. If he couldn’t get enough speed up pulling back he’d actually lay down and hang himself from his head until his dangling body weight broke something. Jerk.
Biothane is a combination of nylon webbing and plastic … It has the strength of nylon and is much stronger than leather of the same dimensions. Had a 1200 pound horse pull back in a biothane halter bridle. The heavy brass under chin ring is now egg shaped.
[QUOTE=enjoytheride;7939544]
I had a big, older horse that would stay tied as long as he felt like staying tied (never pulled back due to panic) and he probably broke at least a dozen halters/lead ropes/etc and it was always the hardware. If he couldn’t get enough speed up pulling back he’d actually lay down and hang himself from his head until his dangling body weight broke something. Jerk.[/QUOTE]
I thought I had the only one… He was a jerk that way too. :lol: :lol: :lol:
Honestly had I known about rope halters he would have lived tied in one because he wasn’t a stupid horse. He never ever did it out of panic. He’d stand tied until he ran out of hay, then he’d pull back and just start grazing.
He was also good about standing tied while you were watching him. So I took to lurking around corners with a whip in my hand and as soon as he started gearing up I’d come tearing out screaming like a crazy person. So he took to carefully looking around for me before pulling back.
It was when I took to tying him in a stall so he’d hit a wall before the end of the lead rope that he showed me the dramatically throwing himself to the ground trick.
Now ask me exactly what the inside of one of those panic snap bungee cord things is made of. Cause I picked it up all over the arena about 5 minutes after I bought it.
[QUOTE=enjoytheride;7940047]
Honestly had I known about rope halters he would have lived tied in one because he wasn’t a stupid horse. He never ever did it out of panic. He’d stand tied until he ran out of hay, then he’d pull back and just start grazing.
He was also good about standing tied while you were watching him. So I took to lurking around corners with a whip in my hand and as soon as he started gearing up I’d come tearing out screaming like a crazy person. So he took to carefully looking around for me before pulling back.
It was when I took to tying him in a stall so he’d hit a wall before the end of the lead rope that he showed me the dramatically throwing himself to the ground trick.
Now ask me exactly what the inside of one of those panic snap bungee cord things is made of. Cause I picked it up all over the arena about 5 minutes after I bought it.[/QUOTE]
This thread is making me feel a lot better. I though that I was the only one with a horse like this. :lol: He tends to only pull this in the crossties.
Because he’s an Arab, he can get very dramatic so as to impress onlookers. But the minute he gets himself loose, he starts to quietly graze like nothing ever happened.
If I had a heart-rate monitor on him, I’d be willing to bet cash money that his heart rate only goes up a little bit, if at all. And this is how I learned that horses are capable of lying.
If he sees that I have a riding crop in my back pocket, he stands there quietly. Horses, man…
Biothane typically has a break strength of 1000LBS per inch of width. This is before any fabrication is done…holes, sewing, etc. The break strength comes from the polyester webbing we use. The coating we put on it protects the webbing and offers abrasion, water, and stain resistance.
Some of our very thin products have 500lbs of strength, and very heavy duty thicknesses have 3000lbs of breaking strength per inch of width.
It is stronger than leather of similar widths and thicknesses, but it will break.
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I’ve heard some driving people say this, but most I’ve encountered (including me) strongly disagree. When driving, having harness break can result in serious injury or death to either the horse(s) or human(s) involved. I like biothane just because it is less likely to break (plus it is so easy to clean). Anyone who drives seriously should have a plan and be prepared to deal with an entanglement without relying on harness to break. A lot of people prefer buckle-in traces just for this reason.
Rebecca
