If You Care About Your Horse, Riding In A Barn Is Right Out

If you love horses, you will be called horse mad in England and horse crazy in America. Perhaps you do have to be a little crackers to devote so much time and energy to the worship of the horse, but don t be tempted to do downright stupid things. At first, these things will seem like timesavers. They aren t. They are dangerous for you and your horse. Riding in a barn, walking under your horses belly and saddling your horse up untied are the top three temptations.

No Riding Zone

Horse riding in a barn at first seems like a good idea. The weather may be crappy. Or you may be waiting for the horse tied in front of you to get going and you want to be sure the saddle is adjusted right (and you can only discover that in the saddle). So you or your friends say, Hey, why not now get on the horse? Riding in a barn is still the same as riding anywhere else, isn t it?

Get rid of this notion at once. Horse riding is done outside or in an enclosed ring for many reasons. Horses are notoriously spooky. If you are horse riding in a barn and the horse spooks, you will go crashing into the walls, the ceiling or metal tools. If your horse is still tied and slips when you are on his back, the horse will fall on you because you will not have any room to get off.

Go Around

Right up there with horse riding in a barn is walking underneath your horse s belly. This also at first seems like a timesaver. Why walk all the way around the horse to groom him or tack him up when you can take a shortcut right under the belly? The reasons NOT to do this are the same as for not horse riding in a barn. If your horse spooks, you have no room to get out of the way. Don t risk it.

Tie First, Saddle Second

This happened to me. As a kid, I did all of these, even horse riding in a barn and I m surprised I wasn t killed. I was trying to get my schooling horse ready for class. I was all ready to lead him out to the aisle to get tacked up when suddenly the aisle filled up with a previous class coming in to get their tack taken off and be put away. There was no room in the aisle. So brilliant me tacked Chugalug up in his stall. Chuggy s stall did not include a tie ring, so he was free to dance the cha cha or have a roll while I was trying to tack him up. And he did.