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RE: [RC] To Tie or Not to Tie - Marv WalkerI would recommend, if you are using baling twine to connect the bungee cord, to place the twine between the halter and the bungee rather than the end attached to the trailer. The reason is, if the twine does break and the horse is flinging its head around, you won?t have a guided missile smashing into the trailer and you as you attempt to grab him. The metal end of the bungee cord can exhibit tremendous kinetic energy. I feel the need to comment on bungee cords having learned the hard way... There should be NO bungees in use in any manner around a horse. One of our older warmblood mares took it on herself to pull back on our very stout bungee system. I watched in amusement as she stretched those 5/8ths bungees to roughly three times their length and waited for her to catapult back into place. As they stretch, they thin. As they thin, they shrink in the clips. When they shrink below the clips, they slip out. One slipped out and threw all the weight to the other and pulled its hardware and all out of the post and she was free. I was impressed she managed to take them out. I saw the cords slap her and thought, "Well, you brought it on yourself." When she was lead back into place I heard, "We have dripping blood." Upon examination we discovered a large hole through the fleshy part of her lower lip and in looking in her mouth noticed chipped incisors. The vet cut short an outing with her family and brought them with her as we settled in for a Sunday afternoon of barnyard surgery. Evidently from what the vet said, bungee injuries are extremely common. The bungee clip had gone through the mare's lip and blew the back out of one of her lower incisors and chipping the edges of the two at the impact point. Had it hit an eye, the eye would have been gone, had it hit her forehead she probably would have been lost. Marv "No bungie fo me!" Walker http://AwarenessHorsemanship.com No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.10 - Release Date: 1/10/2005
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