Endurance Horse Training Basics: More on Tying

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For the start of this lesson, I have tied Chief to a hitching post with a cotton lead rope in a quick release knot. The snap cannot touch the ground.

I want to start to get into more advanced ‘basic training’, but before I do I want to go over the basics of tying and emphasis again how important it is to have a horse that is trained to tie well.  This is something that can’t be practiced enough.  Endurance horses need to be able to stand tied to numerous different objects and be able to do it without panicking, pulling back or digging holes, pawing, chewing or screaming their heads off.  The only way to achieve this is by practice, practice, practice!

My horses are so used to the things I do with and to them that very little ever surprises or frightens them.  Different animals respond to different techniques.  For example, one horse may react to something new by a quick startle and then lets out a sigh of relief when they realize what it was that got their attention (such as a flag waving).  Another horse my try and bolt, while another one spins around, snorts and then needs ten minutes to come down from the adrenalin high.

Now the slack in the rope has been taken up. Horse's do this on their own all of the time. For training purposes, it should only be done after a horse ties well and gives to pressure. Start by tying shorter and shorter.

Something to keep in mind when working with any horse is that they all have it in them to react in ways that can lead to a wreck.  I have often been teased over having Arabs (some call them Airheads, etc.).  I like working with Arabs – they are intelligent and usually very quick to learn.  The problem arises when they learn what you don’t want them to.  This is why it is so important to start with the basics and spend as much time as you need before progressing to the next step.  Trying to rush through things and go too fast may result in a horse having issues that could last for years or for the rest of the horse’s life.  If working with another breed, remember that any breed is capable of having a ‘flight response’.  Sometimes it’s non Arabians that I have seen do some of the goofiest and unpredictable things ever.  It’s not fair to blame the horse when sometimes it’s a matter of training.

Chief knows he is 'stuck' and has no more slack in the rope, so lowers his head and waits for me to release him.

Each time I take a horse out, it’s a training experience for them.  I think this is a good approach and am always looking for ways to do something ‘new’ that hasn’t been done with them before.  Once you do enough of those ‘new things’ with them, they usually are not terribly amused and don’t put out a lot of effort reacting.  These things include shaking out trash bags in their vicinity, turning on a power tool, throwing a ball over or under them – the basic things you would normally do to desensitize or sack a horse out.

Many horses will wrap their ropes around buckets, feed bags, etc. It's good to know that they won't panic if that happens.

On the long XP this summer, many horses early on would jump and pull back whenever somebody got on top of their horse trailer.  Obviously, many of these horses had never experienced that before.  Nor had they experienced bales of hay being thrown down onto the ground around them.  Most of these horses learned that this was no big deal and stopped panicking over it.  There were times that horses broke loose and went running amock through camp due to some of these new experiences.  All things that could have been taught ahead of time.  This is where it pays to think outside the box and try to expose your horse to as many types of situations as you can think up.  Me?  Prior to the ride I got on top of my trailer with both horses tied to it and waved my flag over their heads.  The first time they had a “whoa, what is that?” reaction and had a quick startle, but then it was like “that’s just our mom trying to entertain us”.

Today I took a few photos of Chief tied to a hitching post.  Right now, we have a big storm or two coming in and it’s really windy so we had the added fun of the wind blowing things around while we were working.  This is another great training opportunity for a green or new horse;  even if you just tie the horse while it’s windy it gives them the experience of being tied in the wind.

The first thing I did was tie Chief up with a quick release knot on the hitching post.  Then I moved him over to one end of the post and asked him to lower his head so that I had enough slack to wrap his rope over the end of the hitching post.  This took up all of the slack in the lead.  He simply kept his head down in response to the pressure when he realized what had just happened.  This is the kind of thing that needs to be worked up to slowly and should only be done after the other basics such as hobbling and rope work on the legs has been done.  Start by tieing your horse shorter and shorter.  Horses are notorious for getting their lead ropes wrapped around objects and becoming ‘stuck’.  Once a horse learns to give to pressure they will wait to be rescued, or whenever possible will often learn how to untangle themselves.

After doing that exercise with Chief, I went and got a bucket and clipped it onto the snap that is on the hitching post.  I often feed the horses this way especially when I want to feed separately, or after returning from a ride.  Horse’s that are hot and itchy will often rub their faces and heads on their buckets which can lead to having their rope getting wrapped or caught up in the bucket.  In this case, I had to help Chief out so that I could get a photo showing the bucket being supported by the rope.  This is another great exercise once the horse is handling the other training well.  I’ve seen horse’s get wrapped up in their buckets at rides more times than I can count.  Having your horse do that and not panic, is great.

Sometimes a hay bag or bucket will get stuck on their nose. Looks like Chief was so worried he went to sleep(ha)!

Next I got out a hay bag and hung it up on the noseband of Chief’s halter.  He stood quietly so I could take photos.  Over the years I have looked outside to see a horse with a hay bag over the top of their heads.  Next I pulled the bag all the way up over his head.  I think Chief just thought I was putting a really poorly designed fly mask on him.  He stood for that while I took a couple of photos.  The hardest part was keeping it from blowing away in the wind!

I've had this happen before - this time I did it on purpose. Chief just thought it was a fly mask!

Being able to do some of these things with your horse will take some time. Don’t expect to be able to go out and do it all in one session.  It may take weeks, or even months to work up to being able to have your horse stand quietly and calmly while you do some of these exercises.  This is the kind of training that enable you to take your horse to an endurance ride and be confident that he is not going to panic or get into a huge wreck or cause a bad accident because he got tangled in a rope, or got caught in something on the trail or in camp.

For safety purposes, always use a cotton rope, wear gloves and have a sharp knife handy.  Don’t push your horse beyond what he is comfortable handling.  Take your time and make sure your horse stays calm during this type of work.   Different horses will progress at different rates.  This is the type of work you can do in addition to everything else – riding lessons, conditioning rides, etc.  Treat each time out as a learning experience and before you know it your horse will have enough of the basics down to be considered safe to take out in public.

Disclaimer: These lessons I am covering are meant to be for endurance horses or for horses that travel that already have some training and conditioning base on them.  They reflect my experience and opinions and are not guaranteed to be effective in the hands of others nor are they meant to be the only method or means of training a horse in order to accomplish the same things.  Working with horses can be incredibly risky and dangerous.  You should only try these methods with proper supervision or assistance from an experienced trainer or horse person that you trust, and at your own risk.  If you have any questions or comments feel free to email me or comment in my blog.   Happy trails, Karen

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Endurance Horse Training Basics Part 2: Tying

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A quick release knot on a cotton lead rope. Keep in mind that if a horse pulls back, it can put enough tension on the rope that it won't qiuck release.

Watch out for horses that like to play with their ropes! You may need to pull the end of the rope through the last loop in the quick release knot.

If you are going to be traveling with your horse, camping overnight and attending endurance rides or other events it is important that your horse knows how to stand quietly while tied.

To have a horse that ties well he must give to pressure.  That is one of the most important things that you can teach your horse.  It is why I started off with a hobbling lesson, since the lessons learned via hobbling are the basis for everything else.

If you are following my blog posts on these basic endurance horse training lessons your horse should learn and progress well if done in order.  Keep in mind that different horses will respond differently so you may need to spend more time working on one thing than another.  You didn’t learn how to read in a week or even in a few months so be patient with your horse and don’t worry if some of this training takes longer than you want it to.  These lessons are like teaching your horse the alphabet.  They are the base for everything else and just as necessary as the riding and conditioning part of your horse’s education.   Many horses will benefit from these lessons even if they are already trained and experienced.  It never hurts to do some basic reinforcement from time to time.

Most horses at some point will pull back while tied, for whatever reason.  It can become a real problem if the horse manages to get free as they will quickly learn that if they pull, they can get free and in only a couple of instances it has already become a bad habit.  Those horses will need a lot more work with tying and learning to give to pressure than one that progresses through the basics without any mishaps occurring.   Many times it is the human part of the equation that leads to a problem.  This is why it’s so important to pay attention to detail, use proper and safe equipment and always only tie to stationary secure objects that cannot be pulled apart if a horse does pull.

Quick releases should never be attached directly to a horse. Here is one of my favorite ropes, wrapped around the hitching post and clipped with the quick release.

There are many types of tie rings and other items that are marketed and sold to people who have horses that have problems tying.  If it works for a particular horse, then by all means consider using those items.  My feeling is that many of those things are only a substitute for not training a horse; a way to shortcut that ultimately is cheating the horse out of the education that he should have gotten (or is still getting) in the first place.  It can be a frightening thing to have a horse that panics, fights or freaks out when tied.  Taking horses that do that to endurance rides is a wreck waiting to happen as well as a huge liability.  This is why it is so important to spend time doing the basics and taking the time it takes to teach each horse these lessons at a rate that they area comfortable with.

Before you can teach your horse to tie safely, you need to have a horse that will lead and stand.  Take some time to make sure your horse understands giving to the pressure of a lead rope.  Apply pressure by pulling down on the lead rope.  When your horse responds to the pressure immediately release and praise him.  Repeat this exercise many times, pulling down or even sideways on your horse’s lead until he is consistent about giving to the pressure.  If you run into resistance here then go back and do some more rope work around the legs, hobbling, and spend more time working on leading.

Once tied, the clip on the end of the lead should not touch the ground. This is the longest you want to have a rope tied to your horse.

How NOT to tie a horse - this is way too long! A horse can easily get a leg caught if the rope is too long.

Once you have your horse leading and giving to pressure, you can then move on to teaching him to stand.  Lead your horse to a quiet area that is free from distractions and ask him to stand.  Once he is standing, move a couple of steps away.  If your horse tries to follow you, quickly correct him by asking him to back up a few steps, moving forward again to the original spot and asking him to stand.  Repeat this several times until your horse learns to stand quietly while you move away.  An example of when this work will be useful is if you go out into your horses turnout area with a hoof pick and can expect him to stand quietly while you clean out all four feet (without needing to put on a halter or lead rope).  It is also important that your horse knows how to stand, since they will be doing that quite a bit while tied .

You can see that teaching a horse to tie is not as simple as tying your horse up.  I have had a couple of horses that needed some work in this area.  It takes time to resolve those issues to the point of having a horse that is safe enough to take out in public.  Some horses may tie fine for years and then they have some sort of incident that then causes them to panic and pull when tied.  These horses need someone with patience and that will spend the time to develop trust and work through the fear or other issues.

Here is a quick rundown of a list of things that you should do in preparation for tying training your horse:

Hobble and rope train your horse (this sets up the initial lesson of “giving to pressure”)Work on leading, standing and getting your horse to give to the pressure of the lead ropeUse good quality, secure equipment:  Rope halter, cotton lead rope with bullsnapOnly tie to secure, solid objects that cannot be pulled down or apart by a horseDo tie the rope short enough so that a leg cannot get caught, and keep checking on your horse to make sure he hasn’t stretched the rope out or started to untie himself (some horses are Houdini’s when it comes to getting out of being confined!)Use a quick release knot when tying your rope, or use a rope that has a built in quick release snapWear gloves, good boots or shoes and consider wearing a helmetKeep a sharp knife close byBe aware of your surroundings – stay out of your horses way should he decide to pull or dance around while tiedMake every day you see your horse a learning experienceGet help if you are having problems

Here are some things that you should NOT do!

Never clip a quick release snap of any kind to your horse’s halterDo not tie a problem horse without practicing the other lessons firstDo not leave things lying around that your horse could get tangled in – such as water hoses, manure forks, etc.Do not simply tie your horse up to a solid object and leave him, especially if he has had tying issuesNever leave a horse new to tying unattendedNever tie a horse with reins attached to a bit in his mouthDon’t use bungees to tie withDon’t fall for gimmicks;  they are not a substitute for trainingDon’t wait to get help if you are having problems -  you don’t want to turn a minor issue into something serious! Here, i have placed feed in front of Chief after purposely wrapping his lead rope around the end of the hitching post so that he can't possibly reach it. He stood there patiently, perhaps giving me the "evil ear look" and waited for me to adjust the rope so that he could eat. Would your horse panic if his lead rope got wrapped around something like this?

Start with shorter tying sessions of around 15 minutes or less and gradually build up to leaving your horse tied for longer periods.  After your horse is showing that he is comfortable being tied practice tying him to different things.  Tie him to your trailer (if it is a bumper pull, make sure it is attached to your tow vehicle), a hitching post, a sturdy tree, etc.   Practice tying higher up, lower down – just remember to always keep the lead rope short enough so that the snap cannot touch the ground.  It is preferable to have the snap a few inches off of the ground especially if a horse is going to be tied overnight.

Eventually you’ll want to work your horse up to being able to stand quietly while being tied for several hours or even overnight.  All of my horses have spent multiple nights tied on my trailer in advance of going anywhere overnight.  This is important.  You don’t want your horse to go to an endurance ride having never spent any or hardly any time tied to your trailer.  Your horse will be calmer and better adjusted if he is used to experiencing something on a regular basis.  If you are tying for more than an hour or two during training, be sure to offer your horse water and feed -practice just as if you were at a ride or traveling away from home.

My horses view their horse trailer as a “home away from home”.  Even if you plan to use a portable corral system at rides your horse should know how to tie to your trailer, or a tie-arm if that is what you use.  You never know when you may not be able to set up your corral due to limited space, or perhaps your horse or somebody else’s horse has run through your corral and damaged it (this does happen!).  You could get hurt during the ride, leaving others to attend to your horse.   They may have no choice but to tie your horse to something for several hours.

What if you are riding and encounter an obstacle on the trail – you can move it, but first have to tie your horse out of the way.  Having a horse that is difficult to tie could cause all sorts of problems and this is why horses that can’t do this should not be taken out in public and especially not to an endurance ride.  Think of the liability and danger that you could be causing not just for you and your horse, but for others.

One of the things that I like to do with my own horses, is to expose them to as many things as possible at home.  That way, it’s not a big deal if it happens while we are traveling or at an endurance ride.   I purposely set things up so that they can experience a variety of things.  These things are only done after a horse has done all of the basic work and training that I’ve blogged about so far and only after they have proven to be able to tie safely without panicking or pulling back.  I will do another completely separate blog post on some of those things.  I call it accident avoidance training or as my horses might refer to it as “what is she going to do to us next?” 

Disclaimer: These lessons I am covering are meant to be for endurance horses or for horses that travel that already have some training and conditioning base on them.  They reflect my experience and opinions and are not guaranteed to be effective in the hands of others nor are they meant to be the only method or means of training a horse in order to accomplish the same things.  Working with horses can be incredibly risky and dangerous.  You should only try these methods with proper supervision or assistance from an experienced trainer or horse person that you trust, and at your own risk.  If you have any questions or comments feel free to email
me or comment in my blog.   Happy trails, Karen

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Endurance Horse Training Basics Part 2: Tying examples

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Another very important lesson for an endurance horse is tying.  They really need to be able to be tied to a variety of different things.  Why?  Well, let me tell you a story.

Many years ago on an endurance ride I heard a couple of horses galloping by my rig.  It was about…oh, 4 a.m.  I got up quickly and put shoes and a raincoat on.  Of course it was raining!

My horses were both tied safely on their trailer ties.  The loose horses came galloping past me again.  They didn’t have halters on them.  I was able to grab a couple of halters, ropes, and a bucket with some grain in it.  Woke up a friend next to me and we went in pursuit of these loose horses.  We were eventually able to catch them with the bucket of feed, and we got halters on them easily enough.  Then we went to tie them up to a trailer so that we could go in search of who they belonged to.

The horses didn’t tie.  They panicked, freaking out, slipping and falling all over the place.  Did I mention that it was raining?  The ground was wet and slippery.  So, we gave up trying to tie the horses up and instead took them with us as we searched through camp to find where they belonged.  We did eventually find an open and empty corral.  When I knocked on the door of the trailer, the horse’s owner sleepily announced that those couldn’t possibly be his horses, as his were “right there in the corral”.  Just what you want to hear after running around camp for twenty five minutes in the rain at 4 a.m. – NOT!

This was a ridecamp right next to a busy highway at the bottom of a hill where semi trucks run down it at high speeds.  Had these horses headed that direction or let’s just say they broke free from being tied (had we been able to tie them up to begin with) it could have easily resulted in fatalities of both the human and equine kind.  When I refer to having a horse that ties well, I mean that you can leave your horse tied up safely for hours and not worry about them trying to get loose (or injured in the process).

What is even worse, is that above experience has happened to me more than once, at rides in more then a couple of different regions.  This is in part why it is so important that your own horse be as well trained as possible.  It’s the best thing you can do to keep them safe as there will always be somebody that hasn’t taken the time to do the rope/hobble/tying lessons, etc.

A horse that has been trained to give to pressure, will not pull up and panic if they step on their lead rope, or reins.

The thing with having a horse that ties well is that you never know what might happen at an endurance ride that is totally out of your control.  This is why I am going over some of these training lessons and giving examples of my experiences to show why this type of training is so very important.

There are no shortcuts when it comes to having a horse tie well.  It takes time and repetition.  As my disclaimer at the bottom states, these methods and opinions are mine and may or may not work for your horse.

If you are having trouble training your horse then please seek out a knowledgeable and experienced trainer.  Sometimes getting help can make all the difference in the world.  The most important thing to keep in mind is that you want to keep both yourself and your horse safe and free of injuries when doing any type of training.

My reason for covering these training basics is so that when you take your horse out in public (like to an endurance ride) your horse will be relatively safe and not likely to cause a wreck or get injured.  Because trust me when I say – if a horse can find a way to get into something, they will.  Endurance rides create thousands of opportunities for mishaps to occur.  A horse that doesn’t tie (usually because he won’t give to pressure) is a proverbial accident waiting to happen.

Not a fan of bungees for tying horses in any way!

I have had horses that didn’t tie well when I got them.  When I write the second part of this training article on tying I want to cover a lot of things that you should do as well as things that you should not do.

Top of the list of what NOT to do is to use something like a bungee to tie a horse with.  Horses and bungees go together like gasoline and matches.  DANGER!  Think about it – when a bungee breaks, it will fly full speed like a weapon and can cause serious damage.  I’ve seen wrists shattered from bungee ties breaking and I’ve heard about much worse happening.  If a horse gets tangled up in a bungee, or pulls back hard enough it WILL break somewhere.  My personal philosophy on this is that if you want your horse to tie safely and tie well 100% of the time you want your horse to give to pressure.  Having a horse learn to pull on a bungee is not giving to pressure and reinforcing bad behavior.  I have seen many times horses that have been kept on bungee ties later get tied with something that doesn’t give – and then a freak out panic attack is sure to ensue.  The last thing you want is to have a horse that learns to pull (be he tied to a bungee, or a spring type tie on the trailer) and that is the kind of behavior that leads to bad things.  I’ve seen this happen more times than I can keep track of.  I know some people love bungees for tying their horses, and if you are comfortable with the risks involved then by all means use them.  I’ve seen too many wrecks involving them to consider using them myself.

Disclaimer: These lessons I am covering are meant to be for endurance horses or for horses that travel that already have some training and conditioning base on them.  They reflect my experience and opinions and are not guaranteed to be effective in the hands of others nor are they meant to be the only method or means of training a horse in order to accomplish the same things.  Working with horses can be incredibly risky and dangerous.  You should only try these methods with proper supervision or assistance from an experienced trainer or horse person that you trust, and at your own risk.  If you have any questions or comments feel free to email
me or comment in my blog.   Happy trails, Karen

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