28/03/2025
Something to take note of!
Thought i would reshare this from last year as updating pictures
We must remember that horses didn't begin doing something because they could "get away with it", most issues start with the horse fearing something and often the fear part never gets addressed and then we only see a habit, we have to try and get away from thinking every fear in the horse is down to one traumatic incident as often it can be something simple as their personality may not deal with someone's training method or even the interactions with the human and we very rarely change our ways to accommodate these type of horses because we are so stuck on something that works for the majority and why would we want to change our way just for one horse😒
Yet often it's those horses that eduucate us a little more ###
So I thought I would share this post again after seeing some horrendous headcollar being sold as "safe", to tie a horse up that basically tightens up as the horse pulls and the horse has to figure it's way out of pressure it does not take long or much force for tissue to be damaged
Pull back is more than just a poll issue
In my younger years I remember seeing a horse tied to a tree looking pretty miserable and later learned it was being swung and had been there for 3 days for me that was barbaric, basically tied short and left until it learned to stop pulling and although the horse will have learned no matter how hard it pulled it would never get free, what about the damage to those young horses bodies were being done in the process of learning to tie up correctly and while a horse may stop once it realises it is stuck its all the movements that happen before the stillness which may affect your horse later in life, especially as we often begin the process on young immature horses with the delicate structures not formed or fused yet.
I thought I would write about pull back and the consequences as was asked what I thought about it, and it most definitely is not just the poll what is affected when a horse pulls back, as the horse doesn’t just pull back with their head their whole body will be involved
Now we have the horse that has learned to do this, but I always want to know why It did it in the first place and usually fear is the main factor in the beginning, and often bad training in the early days will lead to bad association with being tied up, horses in fear do not think first they act on instinct and will keep pulling until it can no more and the tighter the pull the more pain the horse is feeling so it cannot escape the pain unless it stops but is has no rationale at this point, are we leaving it to the horse to figure it out, would you learn while in pain and how would you feel about doing it again
Remember bridles and headcollars sit on the very sensitive parts of the horses head they are designed so we can have control, however ergonomically designed it still has to have an affect or else what is the point of using them
Bits; if you horse pulls back with a bridle then that bit is going to clatter the teeth as it comes away
Nasal bone; this is a very thin fragile bone where the noseband sits a sharp pull could have affect on this
Poll; we have lots of little gaps filled with soft tissue, bruising cannot be seen but the more thinner the tack the more it is going to dig in and cause more damage and remember a horse may not just pull back but also wrench side to side which could result in muscle tears or damage to the nuchal ligament and or in more severe cases fractures to the bone and most tying up training is done early in the horse training while growth plates are still fusing and the body is still forming
The pull will be felt all the way down the spine and strains can occur much lower down into the neck and further back through the withers, back and lumbar especially if the horse pulls side to side jack knifing torgue throughout the whole body
If the horse falls back then potential injury to the si, pelvis and hamstrings are more than likely and scrabbling with its hind limbs underneath will often damage those soft tissue structures in the lower limb
Horses will only stop struggling when they realise its futile and before then they will fight to get free so we must make sure we train our horses with supervision and calm confindent handling when introducing tying up
Things happen and sometimes accidents happen, but it is always important to call your vet to give your horse a check over as it may not be apparent that your horse has a deeper injury, and if your horse has a habitual ritual of doing this then basically it needs retraining with a good behaviour consultant as its both dangerous for the horse and the handler In this situation, and remember pull backs do not only happen when tying up we must be careful as handlers not to yank the head with to much force, if you yank a horses head you are basically giving it whiplash
So lets not just think of the head as always whole horse, let's not make horses fight what they fear until there is no fight left for the body and mind will carry the damage long after the horse is quietly stood still
