Tying a horse in trailer, or not

[clanter]

@Scribbler

The horses are tied with leather halters, and those will break if they put full weight on them. When they are tied to the trailer, it’s trailer ties and leather halters as well.

well it is another of those not always, when I was working with saddlehorses while in college one of the brood mares disappeared… so saddle up one of the schooling horse to go look for her… she had hung her one inch triple stitched leather halter on a tree in the battle to get loose she broke her neck… afterwards no horse was turned loose in the pastures with a halter on

also about not tying in a trailer after having to pull a long yearling out the emergency door they all get tied. The trainer’s wife was bring in two yearlings one got both front legs over the chest bar and passed out… to this day I really do not know just how I got him out other then grabbed his halter and pulled him over the chest bar…then he kind of flowed out the door like liquid landing in puddle on the shoulder of the highway… after a few minute s he got up, was lead back to get in the trailer which he did,

[Scribbler]

Okay I am convinced. I will continue to tie.

I have a rope halter under the leather halter. I use the rope halter and cotton rope to load the horse. I attach the trailer tie to the leather halter in trailer and tethered outside. But the rope halter is underneath.

This is because my mare tapes at 1270 lbs and she can pop through any leather halter. Some fool once forgot to check halter was untied unloading with a buddy at 10 PM after an 8 hour drive and she just backed out of the trailer like there was nothing on her head, went through the leather like butter.

I had that halter repaired and then a few trips later she tossed her head while tied to the trailer and the hardware snapped, presumably stressed from first incident. Fortunately a safe location for a bit of tails up canter around the parking lot. Was glad the rope halter was still on.

Don’t want that happening very often, or her learning it’s a possibility. But it has left me with the idea that it’s not if, it’s when, a leather halter breaks.

I realize the rope halter is a risk as it doesn’t break but there is nowhere obvious to snag it in or on trailer.

[shayaalliard]

We can’t tie the bad loader, since he doesn’t tie without panic. I decided to leave the good mare loose as well, and we arrived safe to our destination to find her perfectly calm standing with her head stuck under the chest bar. She did it twice (i’m a slow learner apparently) chasing hay no doubt. Mare gets tied now.

[Scribbler]

@shayaalliard

We can’t tie the bad loader, since he doesn’t tie without panic. I decided to leave the good mare loose as well, and we arrived safe to our destination to find her perfectly calm standing with her head stuck under the chest bar. She did it twice (i’m a slow learner apparently) chasing hay no doubt. Mare gets tied now.

That is exactly what my good loading but very busy minded mare would do. Well, already did once.

[OdieJump]

I have a straight load with a hay manger. I haven’t tied any of my horses in there since it just seems pointless to me. one of my horses tends to turn his head around to look behind him when we stop (at stoplights or when loading and unloading etc) and hes small enough to do it and he doesn’t get stuck or anything , with the dimensions of my trailer there is no way he would be able to turn around any way. I like that he has movement of his head so he can look around, but I can also see their heads through my mirror in case I need to check on them

[SharonA]

@SonnysMom

I am perfect and have never forgotten to untie a horse before I back them off only to have them panic and break their halter- nope never happened to me or anyone I know.

Oh, Sonny’s Mom! I am every bit as perfect!!

[demidq]

Totally agree that no one would do this, Sonny’s Mom! Mare didn’t panic, tho, just kind of shrugged and backed out with the halter broken. The fall out was that she then decided to lean back and break halter when she got tired of being tied. Back to rope halter for a while (tho not in trailer!)

[tbchick84]

I would always tie in a trailer with breast bars. One attempt to scratch an itchy leg or chase a piece of hay is all it would take to get stuck under the bar. I use bailing twine for more breakaway in case of a panic.

[Scribbler]

@tbchick84

I would always tie in a trailer with breast bars. One attempt to scratch an itchy leg or chase a piece of hay is all it would take to get stuck under the bar. I use bailing twine for more breakaway in case of a panic.

That raises another question which I was also pondering.

How breakaway should the ties be?

I am using regular trailer ties with a safety quick release on one end. I had thought they had some amount of breakaway function because once at the washrack maresy tossed her head a bit and got loose. But in actual situations the leather halter has always broken and the tie stayed in place. So they aren’t really.

Would a potential breakaway function be enhanced if you had the fast release on the wall end not the horse end of the tie so it hit the wall ring?

[tbchick84]

Well as someone who has forgotten to untie the head before putting the butt bar down, I’d say just a small loop of bailing twine to attach the lead to the trailer hook is sufficient to offer resistance to your everyday pulls and tugs, while still being weak enough to snap if your human has a head space and leaves you tied when you’re supposed to be backing out.

[Scribbler]

@tbchick84

Well as someone who has forgotten to untie the head before putting the butt bar down, I’d say just a small loop of bailing twine to attach the lead to the trailer hook is sufficient to offer resistance to your everyday pulls and tugs, while still being weak enough to snap if your human has a head space and leaves you tied when you’re supposed to be backing out.

Will plastic bailing twine break in this situation?

[tbchick84]

It did in my horse’s case. At least I think that was plastic bailing twine. I just know I took a blue string off a bale and used that.

[Texarkana]

@Scribbler

That raises another question which I was also pondering.

How breakaway should the ties be?

I am using regular trailer ties with a safety quick release on one end. I had thought they had some amount of breakaway function because once at the washrack maresy tossed her head a bit and got loose. But in actual situations the leather halter has always broken and the tie stayed in place. So they aren’t really.

Would a potential breakaway function be enhanced if you had the fast release on the wall end not the horse end of the tie so it hit the wall ring?

Quick release snaps aren’t supposed to release under pressure. Every once in a blue moon, the horse moves around just right and they pop open, but it’s certainly not something I’d rely on to release in an emergency.

Whether to have the quick release end on the horse or on the wall is one of those great debates where you will get 101 opinions and no real answer. I personally like to put the quick release end on the wall because I feel like there’s a greater chance in an emergency that I will be able to access the wall as opposed to the horse’s head. Plus, then you have a catch rope on the horse if they get loose once released. Others feel differently.

Baling twine is a tried and true breakaway. Natural or synthetic, it stands up to every day movement and tension, yet breaks pretty reliably when panicked tension is applied.

I wouldn’t want anything “more” breakaway than baling twine. It would be pointless and you’d be reinforcing the idea that the horse can break things with pressure. You want something that will give if the horse starts body thrashing with all their weight because their head is stuck under a divider, but you don’t want it to give if the horse just leans back on the rope or tugs down to try to reach grass.

[Libby2563]

I tie to prevent the horse from trying to turn around and getting stuck, from getting wedged under the chest bar, and from playing bitey face if there’s more than one horse in the trailer.

I use those trailer ties with the velcro core so if the horse pulls straight back (if, say, a silly human forgot to unclip it…not that I’ve ever done that either…), the tie pulls apart but there’s still something attached to the halter to grab onto. (I have had flimsy replacement crownpieces break before the velcro separates though! I just ship in everday halters, seems I should maybe use something more sturdy.)

Like this: https://www.smartpakequine.com/pt/tiesafe-ties-1620

@Guilherme

You tie in a trailer because in the event of a “sudden stop mishap” the horse becomes a 1000 pound missile impacting a trailer wall (and we can’t be sure which one). Note that I don’t say this; Newton does.

Wait, what? Are you suggesting that if you have to stop hard enough that the horse flies into the wall, a small piece of rope or nylon or leather attached to their head will somehow prevent that?

[akdraft77]

I have a 2-horse straight load with steel-bars for butt-bars. I had a horse back out of the trailer with the butt-bar up. I was standing at the center of the trailer bringing the ramp down and was nearly crushed in the process. (Hubby saw close and had lightening fast reflexes.) Horse galled up his back really bad and was pretty sore for better than a month after the deal. The whole thing was pretty horrible to watch.

Mine get tied.

[Guilherme]

Re “breakaways,” I’m not a fan. I’ve had a mare who was trained to “sit back” whenever she wanted to go walk-about by a prior owner who tied her with haystrings “so she wouldn’t hurt herself if she struggled.” All she did was teach the mare that if she pulled hard enough she could get away. Smart mare. We sort of fixed that on the “bad mare wall” using a rubber donut. It was better but she was always a bit unreliable. The good news was that when she released herself she’d head for the nearest path of grass and was easy to catch. Go figure that one!

An alternative to the various “break away” devices is for the owner to carry a knife and be ready to cut a leather lead or lead rope in the event of a panic. This is not a perfect solution, but then neither is the “break away” system.

As noted we did some training and had reasonable control over the issue. Frankly, training is the best “automatic release” you use. It’s also the hardest and most expensive.

G.

[M_al]

Trailer story from this weekend: we trailered from CO to CA (about 24 hours total, based on route we needed to take to drop another horse at a different competition in UT).

Trailer is a bigger slant load which can have stall dividers removed to create bigger stalls. First horse (getting dropped in UT) is a full-sized 18 hand Percheron. Second horse (going on to CA) is a 17.3 warmblood who is long bodied but catty. He doesn’t fit in a single stall, so we pulled a stall divider to make a double for him as well. This configuration is almost as big as a box stall, so almost too big but we don’t have the option for 1.5 so off we go.

All good while both horses are onboard. We stop to rest a few hours in UT and then re-load the warmblood and continue. He is tied to a fixed trailer tie with panic-release side attached to trailer and bull snap attached to leather halter. We checked every gas/potty stop through the night. He was still in that configuration 2 hours prior to arrival. However, he was DONE with this trip. (Banging, whinnying, fussing. I was pretty sympathetic. All the humans were pretty cooked too.)

When we arrived at the show venue, he was standing backwards in the stall like, ‘hi guys!’ Which would have been OK except for the blood running down his face.

He put his head down and had gotten caught on a piece of the trailer he shouldn’t have been able to reach. He might have spooked or maybe the trailer rocked (or whatever) and his forehead was ripped open and a divot was taken out of the bone.

Fortunately, there was a vet clinic onsite at the venue. The vet stitching him up said we got lucky and it could have easily been much worse.

We still don’t know how he triggered the panic snap to open. Although on the way home he took his halter off and turned again without getting hurt. Once 2nd horse was picked back up all was good and quiet again. - Dingbat -

Yes, tie … cleverly if needed!

[quietann]

Pretty much the same as everyone else … I tie – but I use a Blocker ring, and the little pressure my horse gets from that is enough to keep her minding her manners. I didn’t tie her for a while, and thought it over, and decided I’d just feel better with her tied.

If I had a stock trailer I’d leave her untied. She really liked being able to turn around and face backwards in the stock trailer that belonged to a friend.

(Wasn’t there some discussion here a while ago about a straight load trailer that was designed for the horses to face backwards when tied? The company was based on Australia or New Zealand and is no longer in business.)

[hosspuller]

I tie every time in a 3 horse slant. Tying the horse prevents them from turning around, and bites to the neighboring horse. Although, there was the time the small horse slipped her halter and turned herself around in the larger last stall. It was strange to see her head out the back drop-down when we came out of the Cracker Barrel. :eek:

I’ve posted this story before… A friend was transporting for the first time a newly purchased horse. The trailer was a two horse straight load. The horse was NOT tied. He got his head behind the divider. The slanted top of the divider guided his head up and ended with his throatlatch between the top of the divider and the trailer roof. In his struggles, he lost his footing and hung himself. I extricated the dead horse from the trailer.

As for the quick release trailer ties. I always attach the quick release to the trailer. … two reasons. I don’t want to have to reach for a moving target on a wildly thrashing horse and put myself in danger. Second, after releasing the latch, I now have a short lead to guide and calm the horse. Something, one doesn’t have if the release is on the horse. :winkgrin:

[SonnysMom]

@Guilherme

Re “breakaways,” I’m not a fan. I’ve had a mare who was trained to “sit back” whenever she wanted to go walk-about by a prior owner who tied her with haystrings “so she wouldn’t hurt herself if she struggled.” All she did was teach the mare that if she pulled hard enough she could get away. Smart mare. We sort of fixed that on the “bad mare wall” using a rubber donut. It was better but she was always a bit unreliable. The good news was that when she released herself she’d head for the nearest path of grass and was easy to catch. Go figure that one!

An alternative to the various “break away” devices is for the owner to carry a knife and be ready to cut a leather lead or lead rope in the event of a panic. This is not a perfect solution, but then neither is the “break away” system.

As noted we did some training and had reasonable control over the issue. Frankly, training is the best “automatic release” you use. It’s also the hardest and most expensive.

G.

Generally I prefer to teach my horses to tie. That does not necessarily happen the moment I load them for the first time to get them home. Even horses that tie well will sometime panic in unfamiliar spots. I tend to be unloading by myself so having to pull out the knife, run to the escape door and cut the rope and not cut myself takes longer than having an Equ-ping ping or a piece of baling twine break.

I also tie to the outside of the trailer with a breakaway. I have been at one too many show grounds where a horse gets loose and runs around. They tend to head back to their buddies at the trailers.

At least twice I have seen where the loose horse tries to go between the tied horse and the trailer. No way am I getting in there with a knife. I want my horse to be able to break free in that situation. FYI most of the time the loose horse tossed a rider or got away while loading/unloading not because they broke their tie. And even if they broke away they are outside my control.

I sometimes trailer other peoples horses. Those horses may or may not tie well. I prefer to have a breakaway for those horses that don’t reliably tie. I find that in the English world very few horse really tie well. Mine tie well but probably not as reliably as most Western trained horses. Most English rider tend to cross tie rather than single tie. Most boarding barns are not set up with a spot to correctly and safely teach a horse to single tie. No training or reinforcement opportunities tends to mean they never learn to tie as well. The Western people tend to expect it so it is part of early training and part of the normal barn set up. I am in an area that is by far mostly English riders so it is likely horses that get on my trailer don’t really straight tie well. Most are not taught to give to pressure so they are more inclined to panic if they hit a tie abuptly and unexpectedly.

It is just easier to have the baling twine attached to the bulkhead and the tie attached to that. This way I don’t have to think about who ties and who might not tie.

I keep a knife and a pair of scissors on the door of the dressing room just in case though. Right next to the fire extingisher.