Hitching Post

[Norah]

I decided to turn my tack room into a training room this winter . My room is about 30 ft square or more. I would like to make a hitching post in here so all the horses can be tied in a row, and can learn to stand paciently . Here they will have to listen to music , and get use to the echoing noises of being indoors , maybe even watch movies on TV... anyway , I am not freezing my butt off outside to train the hooligans : ) can anyone give me some suggestions on how tall I need to make it , tallest horse is the Donkey , he is about 45 inches . I read that the horse is safer when tied high , so make a tall hitchingpost .Is that correct ?

thanks-

 

[Riverrose28]

Well, I'm not much help as I really don't have a hitching post, but in my indoor my husband planted two pieces of telephone poles that are burined two feet in the ground and four feet high, then he inserted two large rings at three and half feet high for cross ties. Now, in my big barn we didn't plant telephone poles but hubby nailed up a long 2 by 4 board on one side and then we inserted the same type of large rings about four feet high to stand tie the horses, we have four of them, so they stand side by side. One problem I have is that sometimes one will dig a hole, usually one of the younger ones, and if I put mats down they try to tear them up when left tied awhile.

 

[susanne]

Are you talking about a post (vertical) or a rail (horizontal)?

I was thinking about putting in a rail when we build our new house, so I read all I could find on them. A lot of people consider the rails style to be risky, with the danger of the horse stepping or jumping over if it's too low or going under if too high. This seems fixable to me if you get the right height, but the question would be if it would be a safe height for all of your horses. I do think the vertical posts with cross ties would be safer, but you couldn't tie multiple horses.

I often tie one of our horses to a fence post when I'm grooming, and the other horses always want to squeeze in between the tied horse and the fence -- forget the fact that they have the entire corral in which to run around. In your situation, I'd want the horses tied tight and tied far enough apart not to get into trouble with one another. Unless you had some sort of notches or stops, they could slide the rope along the horizontal rail to nibble or harass one another.

I imagine others will have ideas on how to prevent the things I've mentioned, but they are issues to consider.

 

[Norah]

Hi Suzanne , I have also tied a horse outside and the Alpha mare wants to walk between the tied horse and the wall ... crazy , this will be verticle. i guess about 1 meter puts the rail a little over the wither . I will put up some kind of barrier to keep them from going under. I have a couch in the tack room and wireless internet , so I will be staying down there with them while they are tied . I am making this out of wood, so I will put in rings for tieing .

 

[disneyhorse]

Somewhere I heard "eye high and arms length" for horses to be tied... The higher you can put the tie ring or rail the better though.

You can probably just put tie rings in the wall.

 

[Sandee]

As long as you're going to watch them a rail will work but if you intend to leave them alone then anything can and will happen. I seen horses tied to rings in a trailer riding sideways, switch position while the trailer was moving. So if there is a place for them to get into trouble, they will find it.

 

[Carolyn R]

For those of you that don' know, I have a full size horse that suffered an accident while being tied. I was 20 feet away, for less than 30 seconds, freak incident. Anyhow, I will not tell someone what is right or wrong when tying a horse, but since then, the trainer that broke my BH to ride uses blocker tie rings. Toklat sells them, but blockerranch.com is the original maker and the cheapest place to get them, from the blocker ranch you can order just the blocker ring and use your own eye bolt and quick snap. These will work while in cross ties and as a single tie. Just use any fat rope( a worn rope works better), it allows some rope to feed through, but offers some resistance, great for breaking to tie or cross ties. I know it is not quit what the topic is about, but these are very safe and I wanted to share. I love them and have them in my own barn now.

 

[rubyviewminis]

I have always used the Blocker Tie Ring myself, but it is kind of useless for my miniatures, but I now use the clip and tether ring.

http://www.youtube.c...0AxMzUwMTc0MDIz

Otherwise we have a hub we need to get mounted on a pole to make a patience pole. It is an arm out of a free moving hub with a chain that comes down to attach to. They can walk or fidget around and around and soon realize it is best to just relax. Cement with mats, or even better is buried railroad ties for pawing and cushion. They can also be made with two attachments for a horse on each end even two stallions and they are completely safe.

http://www.patiencepole.com/

 

[Shari]

I had DH put in a tie post here.

It is a 8" round post, 3' in the ground, made the hole a foot deeper....put concrete in the bottom of a 4' hole, put the post in and concrete around the post. Let it set.

Should be impossible for a mini to pull out of the ground. I put a Tie ring on it.

Have to admit, this is the first place I had a post to tie a horse on, and I like it!

 

[Helicopter]

My hitching rail turned out to be a fraction high because the little guys would walk under it. I just added another rail lower down...that stopped the little rotters.