One of the horse magazines recently published an article showing the muscle groups of the horse’s neck and shoulders and showed how when the horse is tied up far higher than their head, they have very little mechanical leverage, versus if the tie is at chest height. The muscles are strongest UNDER the neck, and the horse’s ability to pull UP is far more significant than his ability to pull DOWN. Also his natural tendency is always to go up and back, not down and back. It said most tying accidents happen because ties are too low and the horse feels trapped when he tries to lift his head. Common knowledge is that you tie high to keep the legs from getting trapped, but there’s a lot more to it than that. The article was showing just how safe high-tying or picketing is and most horses tied this high just don’t feel the need to panic and pull back because they don’t feel trapped like they do when tied to a hitching post, or tied low on a tree.
I know there’s a local trainer here that works with our mounted patrol group and he once said that if you have to tie a horse up for some reason and the horse is “iffy” about tying, stand on a bucket and tie the rope as high as you possibly can on the tree. Do not just tie it at nose or eyeball height. He said in all his years of doing this, he has never seen even an untrained horse, fight and pull back when tied very high.
In looking back at the training of my weanling too, the farrier reached up as high as he could reach and tied her rope up at the very top of the beam, versus down by her head or ears. I guess I didn’t think much of it until the trainer had told me about the advantage of tying HIGH.
I’ll see if I can locate that article. Maybe it was in AERC? I can’t remember.
