Tied For the Day

There's something to be said for a horse who can stand patiently at his post for hours. Teaching it? Ya don't. Not really anyway. You tie your horse up in the morning and leave him there all day. You can work with him but he always goes back on his post. All day. You bring him to food and water.
I got this from Larry Trocha. You can click on the link to his site on the left under helpful sites.
Now we're (my sister and I) doing this with our four fillies and I am loving the results. They're young. They have not had a lot of tying experiences. We've never had a reason to.
This is what it will help.

• Your horse's patience
• Learning to be tied
• Nervous horses to become calmer
• Make them feel like they've been working for their supper.

With the fillies, the first day we tried this all of them but one either got tangled in the rope or had a hissy fit. None of them got hurt. Mostly because they know how to yield to pressure so they figured it out. The second day they all stood still. No pawing, no kicking, no setting back.
With the nervous horse like I said it will help them gain patience and calm down. If you have a horse that hates to be away from his buddies or can't ignore the things around him, tie him up all alone and leave him there. I have an ex-racehorse Thoroughbred that we took to the fair this last year and she was a pain to be around. She was so freaked out about everything around her she didn't even notice you were there. It was extremely frustrating. I should have just tied her up to a tree and left her to her own worries. I think I am going to tie her up and make her stay there all day too.

Now for most people it isn't practical to tie their horse(s) up in the morning and leave them there all day. They have school or work or something like that. So do it when you can. If that means you get home at 5:00 and your horse only stands tied for an hour, fine. It will still help.