That’s also common at some places in the US. I grew up (in Pony Club) in an area where it was not, and when I started riding again as an adult, I was shocked that the reputable lesson barn wanted me to tack up a loose horse in a stall. A loose, docile, lesson horse. Eating his hay. I’m now comfortable with the practice when I know the horse.
I tried one lesson barn that kept putting me on a (miserable, must have been in pain) horse who was “instructors only” in his stall because he would try to bite and strike people who entered his stall. I had to tack him in a grooming stall that faced a busy aisle with kids and clueless parents. Everything about that situation seemed like a ticking timebomb.
I’m much happier now at a safe, well-run barn, tacking my happy horse, loose in the stall. I still think about that poor guy, though.
. Well into the 1990s. Never saw them before. Have not seen them since. (The horse I leased occupied one of 4 standing stalls in the private boarders’ barn, for which his mom paid $275 per month as opposed to $550 for a box stall. ) The main shedrow consisted of 30 standing stalls. Each stall had a halter attached to a lead with a light weight that ran thru an eye-hook, and a butt bar made of recycled tires. Every morning, we’d walk out to the far end of the field to get behind the herd to run them in. Somehow, all of the schoolies knew their precise stall – not just the ends but number 17, 10, etc.
It worked because those horses all worked. At least 2 lessons per horse per day. But they didn’t allow students to go in and bridle their own horses, for as much the tight space as the concern they wouldn’t bridle correctly. Bridling and leading the horses out to their student was part of my job as a working student. Students then groomed & saddled at the long row of hitching rails. (No one was allowed to actually hitch to them, because, bridle.)
the ground is trashed.
Everything is SO squishy.
