My thoroughbred gelding is a stakes winning racehorse, toted my amateur re-rider butt through 1st level dressage, and went on to be a champion AA hunter.
He doesn’t tie for sh*t. Bless the hunter/jumper people, they really tried to fix his groundwork but he’s just not a particularly smart horse, but smart enough to know he can break pretty much anything you can tie him with.
It would be a shame to consider his tri-colors on the wall are nothing but lipstick on a pig :rolleyes:
I’ll just make boarders clean it up with their tears… smirk Lol
Salt water can cause pitting in concrete, better make sure the tears are run through a reverse osmosis purifier first!
Sweet! Maybe it will save me some money on a brush finish to my concrete? Improved traction! Sign me up. Lol 
I don’t like aisle cross ties, so I tack in the stall or hard tie them to the fence outside if the weather is nice. What is imporant to me: The tack room is convenient to where the horse is being tacked, and I don’t have to tip toe around manure while working on my horse. The tack locker in the stall means I’d be dodging manure every single time I need something from it. I’d hate that.
My preference is a tack room with 2-4 grooming/tacking stalls in the immediate area. I don’t mind cross tying in that situation.
I think you’ve gotten some great advice so far. I’ve tacked up in stalls at shows, though it’s not my ideal it was fine, but having the tack locker behind the horse wouldn’t fly with me.
Horses have a way of being able to inflict wear and tear on their stalls in ways we hadn’t considered; my mare has scraped the wood in her stall (the flat walls) with her teeth and an older horse pooped all over the back wall of his stall (leaving gross poop stains on the wood)… I can only imagine that being the tack locker door and having to open and handle the poop stained wood every time you want to get to your stuff. I think besides the risk of injury to the horse, you might find yourself having more maintenance, cleaning, and having to repair the lockers than if you installed them in a tack room or outside of the stalls.
This is it exactly. I once had my mare on crossties when a 5-year-old came around the corner and bounced a ball into my mare’s face. I was cleaning a hind hoof at the time. Mare pulled back and managed to get around me, only because the aisle was wide. I caught her as she broke the ties, and everyone was fine. If I was trapped in a stall with a tack locker in there? Whole different outcome.
One other thing to consider: pressure washing the barn at regular intervals goes a long way to keeping it clean. Stall walls get gross over time. You’re not going to be able to pressure wash a stall with a locker without driving a ton of water into the locker. At the very least, you’ll have to coordinate your boarders to remove all their stuff and keep it out for a couple drying days. Horses will also have to be out, as lockers would need to be open to dry.
Alternative is never cleaning that wall–gross–or hand scrubbing. Hand scrubbing is HARD and you’d still not get it as clean as pressure washing.
I’m not too worried about the “safety” aspect, since my large tack boxes are right next to where I’m cross-tying/grooming/tacking and I do have the doors of the tack lockers open while I’m grooming, but I would absolutely hate having a locker inside a stall. I also do not want to have to tack up inside a stall. I need to have a nice, flat, clean area to groom and tack up and pick out feet.
But yeah I think it’s an awful idea.
I also wouldn’t board there if the tack locker were in the stall.
As a boarder, I don’t know that I’d like that set-up. I’d be concerned about my horse finding a way to get caught up on, chew, or otherwise destroy the locker or hurt himself on it. Also, I’ve never been a fan of tacking up or grooming in stalls unless absolutely necessary. In my opinion, the stall should be a horse’s place of rest/refuge, and they tend to get sour when they start to associate the stall with getting ready for work. Just my two cents… I hope you find an arrangement that works for you!
I’ve boarded at barns with tack lockers in the stalls and I loved it. One barn had them built into the corner so they were a triangle shape. The other barn had a locker about 5’ tall by 3’ deep by 3’ wide in the stall. These barns didn’t have many “community” tie areas so it was much easier to have everything right at your stall. Now I am at a facility with a shared tack room and I miss having my locker in my stall. It was always nice during bad weather that I could groom, change wraps, ect right there in my stall.
In the type of building that the OP is talking about there is absolutely no need to go outside in bad weather for anything at all. All amenities (stalls/washroom/lockers/feed room/loung/etc.), including indoor arena are under one roof.
I have only read about 50% of the responses, but having boarded at fancy and ultra simple places thought I would give my two cents.
I would not want to board at a barn with tack lockers inside the stall, or where I had to tack up in the stall and certainly not where other horses used my horse’s stall.
Safety. It is easier to trip or get stuck in a bedded stall and sometimes a horse spooks and you need to get away ASAP. I’ve had a horse collapse in cross-ties, I seen horses randomly pull back and freak out, etc. Some horse’s are snarky in their stalls. I had a cousin who was crushed by a well-trained, mild mannered horse in a stall that spooked. you just don’t have a lot of room to get away.
Cleanliness. I hate tacking up in my stall at shows, and I do a pretty good job of picking the stall constantly. Your riding boots are always filthy, it’s really hard to wrap legs without getting shavings into the bandages, I hate stepping in poop, sometimes I drop something and now it’s full of shavings and dust, I don’t want to spray fly spray anywhere near my horse’s water, etc.
Preserving my tack. Horses pee a ton. I don’t want my bridle and saddle by all that moisture. I want it in a climate controlled tack room or climate controlled hallway with individual lockers. If no barns offer that, then I would maybe consider the tack locker in stall BUT I would still want to tack up in the aisle/tack stall.
Lighting. There is usually a dark side in a stall. Harder to see what you are doing.
I only read as far as the 2nd page, but I love it. I’d board at a place that had in-stall lockers any day. I usually haul my grooming kit and saddle to the stall. I put an eye hook in the main vertical beam and my horse is tied to that, I’m not a fan of cross ties. If my horse has hay he wants to eat I let him do that while I’m grooming, he is tied when I start tacking up. Most places don’t bed very deep anymore, I’ve been at a couple that only put in enough to absorb the pee/poo. I don’t use leg wraps so that isn’t a problem.
AWESOME 
I’m reading the posts while scratching my head and muttering - really, it’s safer to tack up in a busy barn aisle, hmm. And my hands can bend around a muck fork, if my horses stall is so nasty I pick it fast and continue on. And I’m impressed that people wear 1500 dollar boots to groom in, I generally just have on Roper’s Romeo’s until I’m ready to mount up, and even then it’s most likely I’ll be riding in paddock boots and half chaps.
Maybe most of the riders that don’t like the tack room idea are on the east coast.
Out here in poor mans land I’m delighted to have a dry spot to groom in that’s out of the wind, no lights in the stall but I have a headlamp that I use in the winter if I have to tend to my guy after dark.
The poster didn’t say that a horses accomplishments should be poo-poo’d, but she questioned a rider worrying about their expensive boots getting horseshite on them when their horse can’t even stand quietly.
And coming from the hunter world I know the trainers aren’t equipped, time wise, to teach ground manners. You should do that or else contact someone like Warwick Schiller. This video is almost an hour long and but it’s worth the watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAM_t56q2wA
No, it’s safest to tack up in a tack stall. Usually they are right next to the tack room, so you aren’t leaving your horse unattended. The last two barns I boarded at were set up that way. I’m in the midwest, btw, not on the east coast.
When you aren’t close to the tack room, you get your stuff, put it on the rack in the tack stall and then get your horse. Horse doesn’t have to be unattended in a busy aisle.
When I’m paying someone to board my horse, I don’t want to have to clean my stall before tacking up. If I have to clean my stall, I might as well have my horse at home and save the drive. Yes, I have a horse farm, but have boarded a couple times for a trainer and/or indoor. When I’m taking a riding lesson I want clean boots–or paddock boots and half chaps. I was taught this was a sign of respect to your instructor when I first started riding. YMMV.
OP, I think you build your facility for the most dangerous horse you will ever have. Or the worst case scenario of what can go wrong. Ultimately just do whatever you want to do. It might by more cost effective to do a standard stall size with tack lockers/room, IDK, or this might be a much better cost with less upkeep. I also think you also have to look at what is expected in your area (if you are catering to boarders). Maybe they would be overjoyed at individual lockers. If nothing else, I would still do a tack-up stall for your field boarders.
it’s not that impressive when you have a clean shavings free aisle to work in. My CanWest Romeos won’t be caught dead in the barn for a couple of years yet. They’re my going out boots! Cheapie paddock boots or worn out going out boots are for picking stalls, bathing horses, and for non serious rides.
I don’t know where anyone else is from but I’m in the heart of agriculture land, my horse lives well but not in an ultra fancy barn, and those expensive boots are nearly 13 years old and still going strong because they live in a locker in a proper tack room away from moisture and fumes.
Fwiw, my fancy horse ground ties even while I am wearing my expensive boots. Manners have zero to do with the equipment a rider uses and everything to do with good horsemanship. Oh and she also responds to several different hand signals and backs on voice command. Have I mentioned self loading? All of that and happily too 
Despite the expensive boots
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