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Re: [RC] Safe Containment - Rae CallawayI tried tying to the trailer once. My gelding dug a hole 2+ feet deep, 4 feet wide and about 5 feet long. He was nearly strangling himself standing on the other side of the hole, stretched to the limit on his rope. Some horses cannot be tied. In a wire pen, he's comfortable - AND within sight. Tying to the trailer also means the horses are on the opposite side from where the door is and where we sit, so it's not easy to keep an eye on the horses.
I do like wire - but, as stated in the previous email, I also take precautions with my friends to keep our camp safe.
Rae
Tall C Arabians - Central
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From: Bruce Weary DC <bweary@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: AERC <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 12:41:23 PM Subject: [RC] Safe Containment I'm afraid I agree that the electric corrals I have seen at rides over the last 20 years are generally inadequate for containing horses--"Under all/most circumstances of excitability." Let me explain what I mean by that. Calm, unperturbed horses can probably be trained to be contained in a perimeter of kite string. Once those horses become excited or frightened by any one of a myriad of stimuli--horses leaving camp, a strange dog darting by, high wind and the things that flap in that wind, etc.,.--there's probably no foolproof portable system that will contain all excited horses, though I think it behooves us to make their containment as foolproof as possible. I have tied to the trailer all these years, and have never had a horse get injured. I have tried portable pens along the way, but was never able to relax at night knowing the horses could get out if they wanted to. In fact, they did at Tevis last year. No feeling in the world like watching your Tevis horses tear off into the High Sierras in sheer darkness, with no desire whatsoever to get caught. We did catch them, largely due to the fact we could see them in the dark with their white fly sheets on. Otherwise, things might have turned out very differently. I have also seen several injuries from the "high ties," either from breakage and the horse running away dragging the leftover parts, or rope burns from getting caught up in them. I'm sure some folks take certain measures to make these devices even more safe than they inherently are, but I have yet to see a horse streaking through camp dragging a 3,000 lb trailer behind him. I always find my horses and trailer the next morning right where I left them. In the immortal words of that sage, Mike Tyson, "Every fighter is confident in his fight plan,...............until he gets hit." Let's all, please, keep our horses as safe as possible, and recognize that might not be happening with the method we are using at the moment. Bruce Weary =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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