Conference noted::equitation

    Well, I know one NOT to buy! 
    
    About 3 years ago, Jan bought a "roller" type toy which has several
    different wheels on a spindle. It attaches to the stall walls in a
    corner. She thought her mare(who plays a lot of lip games) would love
    the thing. Nope, it sits in the corner unused, gathering dust.
    
    I remember reading abot a woman whose horse was kind of a Houdini and
    would let himself out of his stall. They figured out that he was smart
    and bored. His favorite "toy" turned out to be a knotted rope hung in
    his stall. He would UNTIE the knots! And when he was done, he'd let
    himself out of the stall and carry the rope to the nearest human to be
    re-knotted while he returned to wait(impatiently) in his stall! 

    
    	Ebony has one of those plastic apples which his favorite 
    	auntie sent to him one Christmas...it has gathered quite a
    	bit of dust - maybe it's no fun if it doesn't make noise?
    
    	Sherry
    

    Oh, I forgot. I've seen horses play with traffic safety cones, soccer
    balls and even sticks in the way the horse in .0 was playing with his
    "horse ball" 

    My horse loves his Horse Ball.. but it's actually a Hoppity Hop
    ball that I bought at Toys R Us.  It was cheaper than State Line.

    We used to put hard dog food in plastic gallon milk jugs and throw
    them in the horse paddock.  My then 2 yr old loved playing with
    them until he squashed them flat.  We haven't done that in awhile
    since he now has another horse and 5 dogs to play with.  (The dogs
    are great fun to chase around the field! :-)  They play tag all day
    long, either the horse chasing the dogs or the dogs chasing the
    horse.  It's a riot to watch!)
    
    \Caroline

    My very mischevous Thoroughbred plays with those big plastic barrels...
    you know, the blue ones that are so popular these days as jumps
    (formerly grape juice barrels I believe). He pushes them around the
    paddock by the hour. I leave 2 of them out there with him all the time,
    keeps him out of trouble. The mare he shares the paddock with couldn't
    care less about them. :-)
    

    I use the empty gallon corn oil containers as toys.  Watching
    a horse stomp the heck out of one is pretty funny.  When it's
    flat, they ignore it.  I also have an old soccer ball, a tire
    and a few traffic cones out there....

    Oh, I forgot about my horse's latest "toy"...I left a full bag
    of shavings within reach of his stall door.  I came in the other
    morning to see that he had "bedded" his own stall for me!
    
    

    We have a Peruvian Stallion that loves a burlap bag full of tin cans. 
    He used to toss the bag out of his pen when ever a person was near
    enough to see him.  He just loves the noise.  I have seen him toss the
    bag over his head to his rump then play bucking bronk trying to get it
    off.
    
    V

My two guys have a stick game. One of them picks up a stick, walks over to the
other one and teases with it. Then they both hold on and play a kind of
tug-o-war until one let's go. Sometimes the one with the stick will run away
with it and the other one will chase him.

I have had Zeus walk up to me with the stick and give me a shove. I try to take
the stick away, gently, and he pulls back. If I stop he will give me another
shove and present me with the stick again for more tugging.

Its really fun to watch them, they play these games for hours. I actually
consider it high flattery when they want me to participate ;-). My dog is
a lab, and a stick fanatic. I play fetch with him alot, I wonder if the horses
picked it up from watching him. Oh, they love to chase him too, I wonder if
it is because he always has a stick....

I have not had much luck with store-bought toys. My Thoroughbred (Neo) loves to
to play lip-lip where he sort of grabs at my open palm with his lips only. He
can sit there for long periods of time with a kind of dreamy look in his eyes!
He also LOVES to take a lead in his mouth with a chain and wiggle the chain with
his top lip. This is how I keep him entertained while being shod ;-)

...the things that the average person doesn't know about horses...*8')

    My neighbor has a 2 year old stud colt whose favorite toy
    is a 10 ft section of old vaccum hose. He whips that thing
    into a frenzy! It is a riot to watch. 
    
    My horses are party poopers, they don't care for toys
    unless you can count my 2 ducks as toys because the horses
    sure have fun chasing them around.......
    
    Tina
        

   My horse doesn't have a toy, but he does have a hobby:

   He latches onto the back end of the blanket of his turnout
   buddy "Ricky". Then he yanks on the blanket a few times to 
   annoy Ricky, then when Ricky trots off, my horse SKIS! 

   I am not terribly thrilled about this considering the 
   likelihood of him hitting "moguls"... :*{ 

    Reading the note about the sticks reminded me of two elderly TB that
    used to get riding crops and chase each other around.  One was 27 and
    the other was 17.  One time we gave the older one a crop so they both
    had one.  They actually were sword fighting with them.  The funny
    things horses will do.
    
    V

    If I leave halters on my two, they will grab the other's halter
    and drag them around.  They do this for hours.  Doesn't do the
    halters much good, tho'. (;

    
    Arty likes to have a plastic milk carton hung in his stall with some
    pebbles in it - he bats it around and has a great time.  He must go
    really wild at night, though, because it's always stomped into the
    stall floor by morning.  Since he went through one a day, I quickly
    ran out of milk cartons!
    
    We used to have a horse that would take a sneaker by the laces (when you
    handed it to him) and swing it in circles and then let go and watch it
    fly down the aisle.  This was a fun game until one cold day when he 
    took the shoe we handed him and dunked it in his water bucket!  We
    should've expected that, though, since his other game was removing
    people's gloves and dunking them...
                                                     

  I once had a morgan who would regularly spin a lead rope at quite
  a high rate of speed.  When he'd release it, it would easily spin out
  of the paddock, sometime hitting other people or horses.  One time
  it landed on the barn roof.  

  We figured out he might like a toy rope when we discovered he was
  rearing to reach and break off tree branches in order to spin the 
  branches.  

  Melinda


  

    This isn't really about toys for horses, but rather toys OF horses.
    When I was young there used to be a play set with Jane West and some
    horses.  One of the horses was a palomino.  And one was a big, brown
    horse with black mane and tale named Cherokee (I think).  Anybody
    remember the palomino's name?  My mom just dug out the Palomino and
    gave it to me, figuring my son would love to play with it since he is
    taking riding lessons (he's almost 5), but when he asked me what the
    horse's name was, I drew a blank!  Cherokee used to have poseable legs,
    it that's of any use in jarring your memory.  The horses are about 9
    inches tall (head to floor).   I think there was also a colt in the
    set, and a corral, and some tack.  Anybody? It's driving me nuts!!!
    Sarah