I would hate this for the horse’s sake. They don’t have very much room in a stall anyway and then to take some of it away? I knew someone who had a corner tack locker and she loved it. But then she knew very little about horses and thought the horses in the 12 x 12 stalls had too much room. She probably would have been happy with a tie stall.
Add me to the hate it group.
I can’t believe you think cross tying a horse in the aisle is safer than tying him in his stall, but whatevs.
Horses get tied in stalls at horse shows all. the. time. So someone, somewhere surely has figured this out.
Rock on, you guys.
I can’t believe you think it’s safer for a human to be trapped in the back of a stall with a panicking horse and an open door with hooks/racks etc. as opposed to an aisle where the human can clear out of the way?!
Sure they do. I do it myself. I carry a set of crossties in my trailer for just such purposes. I also tie my horse to her trailer at single day outings when the weather is nicer outside the trailer than inside it and for ease and safety while tacking up without someone to hold the horse for me. Is it the safest thing to do for horse or human? Nope, but choices are limited in those situations. They shouldn’t be similarly limited on a day to day basis. Having humpty billion people say omg no and 2 say yeah hey good idea should be a clue that maybe a little more thought needs to be put into the idea and perhaps other ways of dealing with space maximization sought.
Further, when a horse is tied or crosstied in a stall at a show or wherever, the human working on that horse is not fiddling with getting stuff out of a locker behind it. Just plain common sense that it is not a smart idea for Joe average boarder with varying degrees of good horsemanship installation and Joe average horse of varying manners installation. It’s an accident waiting to screw up OP’s liability insurance.
What is one of the first things children are taught when they first start taking riding lesson? Don’t go behind a horse if it’s avoidable and if you do go behind, don’t be fooling around back there. I think a lot of us forget that rule when we become comfortable with our own horses and forget that they can react suddenly and violently and that not all horses are trained and de-sensitised as our own.
What do you think we are missing?
Sincere question.
FWIW, my show horse (mare) HATES being tacked up in her home stall. She’s good at shows but at home she pins her ears, total mare glare, nippy etc. It isn’t like she isn’t disciplined, she’ll stand all.day.long tied in her stall or in the aisle. She hatesbeing tacked in her home stall. Probably because I have open walls with the bars between stalls so she can see her sister- may be territorial. It isn’t dangerous, it is just annoying for both of us.
In any case- I prefer to tack her up at home in the aisle, where she is back to the well behaved princess she is. Since this is her only vice I do her on cross ties (eh- full discloser- sometimes she is just standing there semi ground tied).
So I wouldn’t want to have no ability to cross tie in the aisle.
I also prefer an aisle so shavings stay out of the bottles of any hoof stuff I put on, I can get a good look at how they are standing, I see better in the aisle (this is a lighting issue in my barn- I know). Plus- my farrier does my horses in the aisle, not in the stall.
This is personal preference.
If it was so safe to be trapped in a stall with a horse, how come the vets and farriers want them out in the aisle to work with them?
I boarded in a place with the tack lockers in the stall. Would not do it again. How about nice lockable lockers in the tack room? That I would like.
Those are all good points. Sometimes you need an area that’s clear of shavings to treat a particular issue, and there are definitely times that you or the vet or the farrier needs to get a good look at how they’re standing. So there has to be a place for that, and really, there should be spaces for more than one horse, because if Dobbin comes in and urgently needs the vet in that space while the farrier is there trimming and shoeing other horses, it’s going to be a problem.
And my horses all stand tied extremely well now, and stand quietly for tacking up, but they sure didn’t all pop out of the womb that way.
Excellent point!
You and I should be friends
Farriers and vets have a lot of equipment that they access too and it reaches a point where they can’t fit it all in. Also, if doing multiple horses, doesn’t make sense to move all your crap from stall to stall.
A lot of farriers use hot shoes which is obviously a major inconvenience in a stall.
Some vets float teeth in a stall. But you can’t jog a lame horse in a stall… a stall is a lot less sterile environment for joint injections… and if it’s treating a colic, there’s an increased risk of getting cast… and if the horse dies, its MUCH harder to remove a 1200 lb body from a small space.
I can’t believe that was actually a question…
How big of tack lockers are you talking about? If your stalls are only 10’ won’t that create a small area of stall that will be somewhat unusable to the horse, especially a bigger one?
I would never make a farrier or vet work in a stall… and I would never not leave boarders with other options to do certain things like apply hoof oil (which I won’t allow in my aisle way because I’m anal about a clean aisleway…
) but totally ok in the wash rack. I only ever put any hoof dressing on after a ride anyway…
Also, have you considered all the other contaminants from the horses hoof that gets on the brush and multiplies in your oil bottle? I like rubbing corona on the coronary band with my finger, but I’ve also used a bottle with a small angular tip to apply oil or even the olive oil spray from the ethnic hair section works (and smells) great too. 
I’m finding this really tiresome. Do what you want, you got the feedback
Yep, the people the OP is arguing with are actually trying to be helpful and improve the chances of this being a successful business, but if the OP really wants to repel a bunch of potential boarders right from the start, it’s not like we’re going to take any real action to prevent that.
@RolltopTX I am glad you came back. Can you please answer this question I asked you above in response to your post that said we are not reading your posts.
BOOM!
Inconveniencing (potential) boarders is less of a problem than keeping a barn floor clean.
May no horse ever inconveniently bleed or shit on your aisle floors, OP lol
I’ve had a tack locker in the stall. Didn’t think I’d like it. Learned to live with it. Would not choose it on purpose, if I were building a barn. It probably wouldn’t be a deal-breaker for me as a boarder if executed well.
Some of the issues.
These lockers only opened into the stall, which meant loading, unloading, and cleaning tack was suddenly a much more iffy chore. Here’s the scenario. You have a sliding stall door and you want to get your saddle out of the stall, while your horse is in it. This requires opening and closing the stall door twice, once with a saddle, and you have open and close and get through the door with the saddle in your arms. You also have to be able to open and close the locker with a saddle in your arms. Do the experiment: it feels risky for the saddle and risky for the horse getting out if you have a horse that is anything but super mellow and a human that is less than strong and coordinated.
Cleaning tack right on the hooks is easy in a tack room, not so much in a stall with a curious horse and no water at hand. Thus the tack does not get cleaned. Since it’s hard to take in and out of the stall, it doesn’t go home or go out to the aisle to get cleaned either.
Cleaning feet and legs, and putting on any kind of wrap is doable in a bedded stall, but so much nicer in a clean, matted crosstie.
If the locker can be completely accessed from outside the stall, the issues are better, more in line with how an exterior locker arrangement works. Without moving parts inside, you maybe have fewer safety issues. You could also maybe have a small door inside for getting access to a brush box, and expect that the exterior door would be used for accessing saddles and bridles.
I’ve also worked in communal tack rooms and situations where each stall had a separate locker not attached to the stall. All the situations have downsides of security or not having enough space of the right shape. Probably if I was building a boarding barn I’d make individual exterior lockers and have them on some sort of electronic locking system that made it easy for grooms and trainers to access any horse’s equipment, and for owners to get their own equipment, but kept other people out.
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