Tying Up Young Horses

Sometimes people will contact me and ask about the Functional Tie Rings, sometimes just to make sure they are still available or they are skeptical about ordering on line. Having been scammed before, I get it, and I always enjoy those conversations anyway. I always follow up a phone call with a email to lessen the chance of our conversation being taken out context, especially when it comes to using a Tie Ring or addressing other issues with horses. So in that vein I am including most of an e-mail response I sent to a lady named Colleen who was asking "when is it appropriate agewise to use a Tie Ring on a horse?" Apparently she was told that it is generally okay to start tying up young horses so they can get used to stand being tied. And although she has a Clinton Anderson tie ring, she has not used it yet nor does she know anybody in her circle who uses tie rings. The horse in the photo at right is tied using a Functional Tie Ring, but for the first 6 months or so of saddling him, I did not tie him at all, instead I would lay the lead rope over my arm or simply lay it on the ground as in ground tying. I highy valye a horsee that is comfortable at ground tying so I work at this. So bottom line is that I would highly suggest never saddling a green horse when he is tied.

Unfortunately it's pretty routine to see tying mistakes. Some of the common one's are: hard tying to non-anchored points like temporary panel fencing; hard typing without a quick release; and, hard tying horse's who have never been tied much nor stand tied well - and this can be a tragic mistake when a young horse's seeming calmness belies his lack of experience. I have seen or know about several young horse's that were hard tied and pulled back flipping over or falling and injuring themselves badly.

And I can't talk about tying horses without this story. I was doing a demonstration and clinic a few years ago at an indoor arena. I entered the arena and hard tied my horse (with a quick release) to the permanent rail fencing. He was the only horse in the arena. Shortly, a rider attending the clinic entered and tied her mare up just feet away next to my gelding despite having plenty of room to tie elsewhere. Her mare started turning her butt towards and trying to kick my horse. The rider returned to move her horse but ended up tying the mare to a long hinged gate on wheels. Her horse started pulling back and pulling the gate towards herself. The rider got in between the gate and her horse and every time she reached for her horse, the horse would pull back and slam her with the gate knocking her down. This happened a couple times until she was able to get to the side of her horse's head. Anyway, could have ended up with more than just embarrassment.

It's not the age of a horse that dictates when they are ready to be tied, either hard tied or using a tie ring, but their ability to understand coming off of pressure. When a horse pulls back, or even when we pull on a horse from the front, the biggest part of that pressure they feel is from the halter (rope or web halter) on their poll - on the neck behind the ears. Again your horse needs to come off of pressure from the halter before you tie him up, so at a minimum this would be if you pull the lead rope taunt and the horse changes his body weight forward or takes a step forward towards you, to relieve the pressure. I'd like them even much better than this, so when they feel that pressure it's always a step forward to obtain their own release. And even then I like to use a Functional Tie Ring for weeks or months before I start hard tying.

If you are beginning to lead your horse and you have to bump on the lead rope until he starts moving forward, he is not giving to pressure very well and you need to do more work on getting him to follow the feel of the lead rope willingly and in a timely manner. Sure, in the beginning of ground work on a green horse you will likely have to bump him some to follow the feel, but you don't start right off bumping him. Instead, you would draw a loose lead rope taunt slowly and allow a chance for the horse to understand before you start bumping him.

The Clinton Anderson Tie Ring, previously known as the Blocker Tie Ring will work just fine. Just remember the hinged center bar falls away from you. If you insert the lead rope with the hinged bar rotating towards you then push the bar up to the magnetic lock, a small amount of pressure on the lead rope by the horse will pull the hinged bar down and the horse is loose. Should not be a problem to remember to use it correctly and with any tie ring you have to be concerned of where your fingers are if the horse pulls back when you are securing the lead rope! I know two people who have lost the tip of a finger tying a horse and having the horse pull back. One of them owned up to not paying attention, the other guy blamed a pretty girl diverting his attention. The results were the same, loss of a tip of a finger and it could have been the good finger that you use to clean your ears out with.

The sequence of photos above (click on the photo to enlarge) show: Figure 1 - Normal hookup of the lead rope using the Functional Tie Ring. This allows for the rope to feed through the tie ting if or when the horse pulls back. The lead rope I am using in the photo is a Double Diamond standard lead rope and it will start moving through the tie ring around 15-18 pounds of pressure. Figure 2 - the arrows depict pulling the bite of the lead rope that is through the tie ring around the bottom of the tie ring which creates a girth hitch and a hard tie. This is wrong if your intention is to tie a young horse or any horse who has pull back issues. Figure 3 - using a girth hitch on the lead rope with a tie ring, again, creates a hard tie. Make sure if you use it this way that your horse is good about being hard tied.