Certainly not mad at the barn folks! It happens. I really have no idea what happened this time. The leg straps are Schneider’s (and new, used for the first time in November) and were not sticky when I tested them afterwards. The one strap was also still completely snapped on both rings outside the leg. Knowing the potential issues with the leg strap snaps themselves, maybe another point to consider in leg strap vs. tail cord blankets.
I would rather deal with slightly poopy tail cords than have to chisel dried mud out of a leg strap snap before I can take it off. And don’t tell me ‘but there are two ends, just open the other snap’, because many times both are covered. I’ve actually had times where I couldn’t get it open and had to have the horse step out of it.
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Add me to the tail cord group. I have had one horse partially tear a tendon after getting caught up in her leg straps (several years ago) and one just a few weeks ago get her leg THROUGH the leg strap entirely (with a properly fitting, correctly attached leg strap and having eyes and hands on the horse every 4 or so hours as they are at home). Not to mention how nasty the clips would get from mud or poop which would make them impossible to open (sometimes both clips would be stuck, some blankets have one end sewn on) or when they would get stuck in the open position and I would spend minutes fighting to get it closed so I could turn the horse back out.
The tail cord gets equally gross BUT I don’t have to touch it so I don’t care. It is easier and faster because I don’t have to fish around their legs for straps, fight with dried mud or frozen open clips, or upset horses who don’t love people messing with their hind end/ hind legs. I don’t have issues with blankets shifting (or ever had leg straps rub so maybe I’m just lucky) or blowing up/ over at all and the horses live out almost 24/7 in the Midwest with some covering (blankets or fly sheets) about 300+ days a year.
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I get the messy splatter issue for tail cords. So, I buy these to replace the fabric cords —these are covered with plastic and don’t get gross (or if they do, you just wipe them off). https://www.smartpakequine.com/pt/rambo-elasticated-bungee-cord-9535 That being said, for the amount that the Rambo’s cost, you’d think they would just include them with the blanket instead of you having to buy them. I buy them for all my tail strap style blankets. Opps—never mind . . . I see that someone already mentioned this accessory in this thread! Sorry, late to the tail cord poop party!
That one looks a lot like the one that my Shires blanket came with.
The plastic covered cords come with the Rambo turnouts. The rest of the Horseware line comes with the standard fabric type cord.
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Besides all the Rambos, I had an Amigo turnout that also came with the PVC tail cord too.
Pretty similar to the Shires one in terms of the plastic cover. I think the difference is that Shires’ version isn’t elasticated and has a different kind of clip, although it’s been a few years since I had a Shires blanket.
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My Amigo also has the plastic coated tail cord.
I actually like the nylon one on my Rhino better as the length is adjustable.
Tail cords are great when your pulling blankets off horses in the paddock and they decide to leave when you walk to their hind end
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I too HATE tail cords. I find them both gross and useless. Leg straps are not for stability so much as to keep the blanket a bit closer to the horse’s body. So it doesn’t flap in the wind. I live on the prairie: we have wind. Leg straps help keep the blanket snugger. Adjusted correctly they shouldn’t be a problem. It takes less than 30 seconds to fasten them. You couldn’t give me a Rambo as a gift. Hate those stupid leg arches too…all they do is expose the horse to the cold…creates a gap at the elbows and flanks.
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It is a good thing there are so many brands and styles of rugs as there is a huge range of opinion in this thread.
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My thought too! Like all things horse, good thing we have choices!
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A bad experience with a tail cord, and several decades of using leg straps with no problems has me firmly in the leg strap camp.
The owner of the small barn where my horse is boarded (going on 2 years) lost a filly years ago when she got a hind leg tangled up in the leg straps. I don’t know the particulars – whether the straps were properly adjusted, how she got the leg hung up, etc. She had to be put to sleep, and the BO is adamantly against leg straps. Shortly after my horse arrived, I found that one of his leg straps had been taken off and the other converted into a tail cord. When BO told me her story, I decided to go along with her decision, even though I had never had problems w leg straps.
Last winter, the Eskadron high neck blanket he was wearing shifted and blew up over his back so that he stepped on the blanket and ended up shredding it, tearing around the pasture with it streaming out behind him like a cape, as it was still fastened around his neck. I wasn’t there when it happened; he was very unsettled by it by the experience, and it took a long time for him to be caught. I shudder to think how easily it would’ve been for him to have been badly hurt. As it was, he was very shaken by the experience.
So I use leg straps – clip the leg strap to the rings on the same side of the blanket, looping one of the straps through the strap on the other side.
I just got a new set of Turtleneck blankets, and asked the owner, Glen, what his thoughts were on leg straps. He told me that it’s important to use elastic leg straps and surcingles (not nylon), so that there is give in the strap and it’s less likely for a horse to get a leg hung up, if there is a problem w the adjustment. He said it’s important that they’re properly adjusted, and that they use tail cords, if anything, on their liners under their heavyweight blankets.
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I’m confused, how did this happen if there was a tail cord? Did it somehow get out from under the tail? Was it never put on under the tail?
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I wasn’t there and didn’t see it happen, but the BO said that it blew up over his back (they do put the tail cords under the tail) and shifted enough that he somehow stepped on it. Maybe a perfect storm of circumstance - wind blowing, tail swishing, jumping around, who knows… a freak accident, like so many that involve horses.
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Ugg why are these animals always followed by perfect disaster storms lol.
I get it. Despite our best efforts they still seem to hurt themselves in the most creative ways. 
Glad he came out relatively unscathed.
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Right?!? The thread “An injury risk I’d never even contemplated” really brings that home. 
And thanks - me, too. The BO and help describing him racing around terrified with the blanket hanging on by the webbing around his neck and all the dangling straps and material sounded like a major accident/injury in the making.
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Hearing a lot of this makes me think that the best thing, if you can do it, is to leave them with a natural coat and no blanket, unless absolutely necessary.
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Unfortunately there are too many horses that can’t be left naked if they are to be ridden in the winter. I did manage for several years when I was just trail riding. Once I had an indoor arena I found my horse struggling to perform, and he would be outright lame if he didn’t get a long enough warm up. A blanket completely changed that. He wasn’t cold without the blanket, but the work his body did to stay warm affected his muscles enough to affect performance.
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Everything we experience affects our choices and preferences for everything we do. Different experience = different preferences/choices. New experiences may change those preferences/choices in the future.
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Yes, I took the leg straps off my Weatherbeeta blankets and put tail cords on with no issues. Used the back D rings from the leg straps to attach the cord.
Update ~ I posted above (post #71) about the accident my horse had w a blanket last winter using a tail cord. Have used leg straps ever since w no more shifting blankets and no problems (clipping the leg strap to the rings on the same side of the blanket, looping one of the straps through the strap on the other side, strap is a little more than half-way up his leg from his hock, space for one fist between strap and leg).
Last Sunday, he was turned out after someone took the leg straps off and used one of the elastic straps as a tail cord. I got a call that afternoon that he was found naked in the pasture (60 degrees the day before, 20 degrees that day… thanks, Michigan 
) with his new blanket torn up in a pile.
Thankfully he wasn’t hurt, but that blanket didn’t come off gently, and I hate to think of him racing around with it hanging off of him until he finally got it all the way off.
He is very athletic - maybe it’s a combination of his gymnastics/heels way up over his butt, wind blowing, who knows…?
Some horses no doubt are fine with just a tail cord, but not my guy.
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