An Arabian Mare's Tragic Death Due to the Halter Divisions' Dirty Little Secret

I've been writing about the importance of being an advocate for your horse. Many of the things that happen to horses happen in public but some of things unscrupulous trainers know better than to do when owners are watching. That is the case here.

A couple of years ago I got a call about an Arabian mare that had foundered. Her owner wasn't in the position to put the money into trying to save her but was willing to sign her over to someone who would be willing to give the horse a chance. I had followed this mare since her birth. She was by one of the top stallions and out of a wonderful mare that had belonged to a friend of mine. A lovely mare who found herself in this position because of one of the Arabian horse industry's dirty little secrets.

There's lots of discussion both in our industry and throughout the rest of the horse industry about the way that Arabian horses are shown at halter. Some love it and think it fun. Some hate it and think it's an unnatural position for the horse. Some hate it because they believe that the horse is abused to get it to show in this manner. There's lots of talk about whip abuse and halter. But how many people actually know about the procedure of tying a horse off the wall?

This method is used to "teach" the horse to stay up high with it's head and neck while giving (relaxing) through the throatlatch. The goal is to get the horse coming as straight up out of the whithers as possible before it breaks over and comes forward resulting in the posture you see on the neck of the top halter horses.

The actual process involves placing a ring on the wall of the horse's stall high over the horse's head. The lead is pulled through the ring and the horse is pulled off it's front feet. The horse is then tied in that position. Eventually the horse will become tired and collapse, relaxing at the throatlatch - which is what they are trying to teach the horse to do.

Some horses will freak out from being tied like this and will flail around. That is what happened with the Arabian mare here. She was frightened and thrashed around, caved in one side of her face, injured her neck and her shoulder. The trainer sent the horse home on a van not telling the owner about the injury. The vet bill arrived before the mare actually arrived back in our state. This was the owner's first hint that anything was wrong with her horse.

Because I know this mare from the time she was a yearling, I knew that she had not been born with any sign of a clubfoot. When the mare did arrive she had the visible damage to the side of her face and the beginnings of a club foot. Over the following year, that foot became more and more club, ending up with the foot being straight up like a stovepipe. The most clubbed foot I have ever seen. From that and probably the discomfort of the rest of her injury, which was still undetected, the mare foundered. The owner did what she could but the mare just got worse and worse until finally reaching the stage that the owner signed her over to a friend of mine.

I picked up the mare and delivered her to my friend, Bev, who did everything she could to make the mare comfortable. Bev had the horse examined by a vet and equine chiropractor. The mare was diagnosed with the equivalent of a soft tissue broken neck and given regular treatments to ease her pain and discomfort and hopefully save her life. It was clear to those who worked on the horse that the only way she could have sustained this type of injury was through something like tying her off the wall. It was also accepted that the founder was most likely a direct result of the dramatic clubfoot, which in turn resulted from the injury. The mare was putting more weight on her heel to compensate for the pain she was in, thus causing abnormal growth in the heel resulting in the clubfoot.

After over a year of pouring her heart and soul into trying to save this mare, the mare finally got tired. From the beginning the plan to save the mare had been to do everything possible as long as the mare was still trying to stay alive. Once the mare had had enough, then it would be time to stop. Bev honored that plan and the mare was euthanized.

The Arabian breed lost a great mare who never had a single foal. All due to the greed of a trainer who values winning more than he values the safety and well being of the horses within his care. To think that there is only one trainer that conducts himself in this manner, would be naive. The technique is widely used and you can bet this horse is not the only horse that has suffered from its use. There are many instances of horses in training ending up with unexplained injuries to their head or broken cannon bones that have left owners puzzled.

Halter, itself, is not the blame for what happened to this mare or for the practice of tying horses off a wall. It is the ethics of the trainer. As owners, we need to know that such practices are out there so that we can be sure that our horses are not being subjected to them.

Note* the picture at the top is of a typical halter pose, but is not the mare in this post.

To be continued
Part 2