Traveling With Your Horse: Home Away From Home

You’ve decided to hit the road with your horse for a competition, overnight trail ride, or a pack trip. You’ll spend the night snug in your trailer’s berth, but where will your horse stay?
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You've decided to hit the road with your horse for a competition, overnight trail ride, or a pack trip. You'll spend the night snug in your trailer's berth, but where will your horse stay? Regardless of the event or destination, successfully and safely creating your equine buddy's "home away from home" is not as straightforward as simply shopping online or browsing a catalog. It's a process requiring considerable knowledge and preparation, not merely a simple product choice. There are a number of issues involved in ultimately determining the most appropriate system for your horse, and it's best to consider each one before you make a purchase.

Before we take a look at what those issues are, let's look at what's out there. Essentially, there are only a few options for containing and securing horses away from home–penning, tying, and hobbling. Some methods are more commonly used in specific sports or activities, such as competitive trail riding, which demands hard tying. High lines, ground picketing, and hobbling are often used on pack trips and ranch work. Some are more appropriate depending on the terrain where they will be used. The use of other methods might reflect regional preferences, such as in the western mountain areas where endurance riders typically choose overhead picket systems, or portable metal or electric corrals.

Remember the Horse

Some sport organizations, including the North American Trail Riding Conference (NATRC), specify a type of containment/ securing method as part of their rules of competition. But if you are not bound by such requirements, your horse is the first thing to think of when considering the type of method to use

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Written by:

Meg Cicciarella is a freelance journalist who lives and writes in Homer, on Alaska’s banana belt, the Kenai Peninsula. Her articles have appeared in local, regional, and national newspapers and magazines.

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