Conference noted::equitation

Does she stand still when someone is holding her? Does she ground tie? How is
she on just one cross tie? How wide is the aisle and how low is the ceiling?
How high are the ties off the wall (could she be seeing them out of the corners
of her eye and scaring herself?)

If she'll stand for when held or knows how to ground tie, you may want to try 
teaching her to stand with just one very long one so that she can move a little
before being restricted by it. Also, is the cross tie solidly attached?
Most barns attach cross ties to the wall with something that will break away 
if the horse starts acting up so they don't scare themselves more... Horses
can really scare themselves if they spook and leap away only to find their heads
restricted and their feet sliding on the barn floor.

Good luck!

    Just an aside, its possible that she wasn't abused, but may have hurt
    herself on crossties.  Previous suggestions sound reasonable...try
    non-chain ties, or a single tie or teach her to ground tie.
    
    Mary

    
    My 6 year old TB mare does exactly the same thing.  I bought her as a 3
    year old and she had been abused by the origonal owners.  The first time 
    I tied her up she hit the end of the lead rope and checked out to the 
    point that she lost her footing. She ended up hanging from the *very 
    solid* wall that she was tied to.  I had to cut the rope to release her 
    head so that she could get back up.  I have to this day (3 years) been 
    unable to get her to stand tied to anything.  Either cross ties or a 
    single rope.  She has shredded many three-ply nylon halters and heavy 
    duty nylon lead ropes.  The last time she was tied and checked out was in 
    the horse trailer and she ended up slicing open her right eyelid and 
    cutting up most of the top of her head. It took an emergency trip to the 
    vet and four stitches to get her to stop bleeding. She is hard to halter 
    and will not tolerate anyone messing with her head.  It has taken me three 
    years and a lot of fights to get her to tolerate me doing her bridle path 
    with a pair of scissors. 
    
    
    Most of the time that I am working on her I just ground tie her and we
    get along fine.  She doesn't move and I can do just about anything I
    need to do.  One of the things that I have noticed is that she is 
    claustrophobic.  In the trailer she gets very tense when you shut the
    head door to her stall.  On the trail she gets tense and will check out
    if she is close brush or trees. 
    
    I don't think that I will ever be able to tie my horse.  She is one of
    those that is a fighter and the stronger I get with her the more
    violent she gets.  The way that I was told to break a horse that will
    not tie is to get a rope and run it up through the hater and loop it
    around the horses neck and tie it there so that it will *not* tighten
    up if the horse hits the end of it.  ***Do not use a slip knot*  Then
    tie the horse to an immovable object--a very large tree is good-- and
    leave them there to figure out that they cannot get loose.  If I tried
    this with my mare she would fight until she kills herself or hurts
    herself badly enough  to be put down.  Another way is to run the 
    rope through the halter and then between her front legs and tie it
    around the horses barrel with a knot that will not tighten when
    pressure is applied.  Then tie the horse to the immovable object.
    
    What I do when I have to tie my mare up and she then checks out is to
    get behind/beside her and beat on her rump and yell whoa until she
    stops fighting.  Ususally this will bring her around to the point that
    we can continue with whatever I had to tie her up for.  Do not get
    behind the horse if there is a wall.  You could get pinned and hurt.
    
    Pat 

    Gee, Algiers flipped out the first time I tied him up (he was 4 1/2), 
    but I just figured that he had never been tied before and approached it 
    from that angle.  I had put him on cross-ties and, fortunately, his
    halter was a little loose so he was able to squeeze out of it without
    hurting himself.  So I went back to step one.  I did a single tie in
    his stall.  When he realized he was tied he started fighting, but the
    setup was such that he could not get loose and there was nothing to
    hurt himself on.  The tie was too short for him to rear or get tangled
    up.  As soon as he stopped struggling (i.e. froze with tie pulled as
    tight as possible) I went straight to his head, took hold of his halter
    and talked to him and stroked his neck and fed him bits of apple.  I 
    also started him out with hay in a corner rack for him to munch on.  
    Although he found being tied hurt his pride, the hay took his mind off 
    it.  Later we moved back to cross-ties, but this time his struggle was 
    much briefer.  Also, the first times I held a lead shank tied to his 
    halter so that I could tug him when he started to fight.  Not hard...just 
    enough to catch his attention.  For some reason, when he realized I was 
    holding him he calmed down again.
    
    However, Algiers is very proud and dislikes fighting more than he
    dislikes being tied.  His current way of dealing with it is to make it
    a game.  He plays with his crossties, twirling them around and biting
    them.  Sometime I leave a tie hanging from his halter, which he twirls
    around until it is totally wrapped around the cross-tie.  Then he
    untwirls it!   And recently, when I unhooked the chinstrap on his halter 
    so I could clean under it, he started shaking his head up and down
    bopping himself on the nose with the buckle!
    
    Mary

    I used to have a TB mare who acted a lot like a couple of the horses
    described here who could not be tied.  She was the type of horse that
    once she set her mind on not doing something, you could beat her or tie
    her until she killed herself and she would never give in.  It is like
    something clicks in their heads.  I believe that this temperament
    exists in some Thoroughbreds and I would bet that the Appy in the first
    note has a good deal of TB blood in her.
    
    If the horse really panicks this badly, it sounds like a horse that
    should not be crosstied.  You should just adapt your habits to this. 
    If you need to tie the horse, the rubber ties are great as they give. 
    Some people maintain that they do not like them because when they break
    they might snap in the horses face.  I have had lots of them break and
    have never had a problem with this.
    
    I am sure that some people who have never owned a horse like this will
    say that it is just poor training.  But there are some horses who seem
    to have something click in their heads such that they do not care what
    happens to themselves or anything around them.
    
    Good luck,
    Diana
    

    I have had 4 horses over the years that had a real problem with being
    tied. My solution was to start with a single rope with just enough
    slack to reach the bottom of their feed bucket. I then tye them up
    every time they are fed. It only takes about 3 weeks before they accept
    that tying means dinner not work, or abuse. After that lengthen the
    time they are tied, but stay close, I usally spent time brushing with
    a soft brush so being tied is a good experience. Two of them never
    could be cross-tied but they would single-tye just fine.
    Sandy
    

PROBLEM: 

Your horse is exhibiting characteristic behavior from FEAR. When a horse has 
FEAR it looks for REASSURANCE. When the horse feels the "pressure" of the 
crossties it is a NATURAL REACTION for the horse to respond against the 
direction of the "pressure" created on her poll by the halter. This increases
the pressure and the horse has reason to FEAR. (confinement intensifies fear)
When the horses' ACTIONS esculate and...the intensified PRESSURE felt by the
horse from the halter at it's poll, this creates panic! Pulling on thelead
adds additonal pressure across the nose (and poll) which the horse will
respond to by pushing it's head up in the direction from which the pressure
over the nose is felt. The horse PUSHES against PRESSURE and we tend to 
determine that what he is really doing is PULLING AGAINST THE PULL OF THE
CROSSTIES OR LEAD...and we get this idea, if we can pull hard enough.........
..................??? 

SOLUTION:
The problem is your horse needs to be BROKE TO LEAD. Just because she will 
lead in hand beside you when everything is calm...doesn't assure you that she
will be safe when excited or in FEAR situations. Your horse needs a different
response to FEAR, you must TEACH her how to respond. You need her to "give" to
the pressure of the lead rope (crossties) and the halter when excited. 


			Nancy

                                                                      

RE:3

LET ME EXPLAIN SOME THOUGHTS I HAVE:
The problem with getting behind/beside the horse and beating on her rump and 
yelling whoa until she stops fighting is that YOU and the HORSE could get hurt.
But let's think about what we're really doing in the above situation..first, 
you need to know that a horse will RARELY go in the direction towards what it 
fears. Getting behind, can motivate the horse to go forward but does it solve
the problem? He responds away from the FEAR from behind (if it is strong enough
to get his attention..over time it usually takes more motivation) by taking a 
step forward...the resistance of the crossties suddenly dissappears. In 
turn, he stops pulling on the crossties and you quit yelling. If he steps 
another step back and meets the same resistance he starts trying to escape 
again and you RESPOND the same way....the HORSE has YOU TRAINED pretty good?
And of course, the horse is Nervous/Uncomfortable when you put him on the 
crossties. So you are teaching the horse that it's okay to move away from his 
FEAR (from behind) and in the process "reinforce" the wrong RESPONSE..however,
you may feel satisfied with the results because you've found a way to get the
"ACTION" you desire from the horse. The horse is motivated to move away 
from it's fear because the fear (stimulus) goes away and that's reassuring
to the horse. When a horse has FEAR it looks for REASSURANCE. Do you want the
horse to be dependent on your actions to respond correctly? 

SITUATION EXAMPLE:
Try to push someone off balance. Don't they respond back by pushing against 
your pressure? What if you're bending their fingers back, and they can't get
away readily because you're holding their fingers too..would they feel confined?
You keep pushing against them...isn't there a point where their FEAR turns to 
PANIC? As the fingers keep bending, doesn't the person struggle to FIGHT HARDER
AGAINST THE PRESSURE? ...Now, suppose at this moment someone asks for their 
attention. Don't you think it would be difficult for the person to reasonably
give it? Maybe they're not even able? What if you Yell and finally get their 
attention for a split second, long enough for them to feel the whip across 
their butt, they go forward in response and suddenly noone is bending their 
fingers anymore (no pressure)? Relax.........right? 

Did you know that a horse can flatten it's ears back to the point where it
filters out sound and can't hear you?

		I hope this adds some understanding to the situation,
				
				Nancy
                      

    
    
    	Just a note to say "THANK YOU" to all that responded.  There
    	are lots of ideas and I'll be sure to forward them all to my
    	sister!  

    
    	Thanks again!
    
    	Zina