 Butter my Biscuits
Posts: 2948
   
Location: MI | I've swam a lot of horses. Worked for different farms that have had pools, and looked at a lot of different types. Still my all time favorite was at Shiawassee Farms Standardbred farm in MI. They had a insulated pole barn. Inside was a cement circle with a loading ramp at entrance. In center of pool was the arms of a hot walker mounted on a pole inside the pool. You braided a tail rope with a pvc pipe into their tail and you had another pvc pipe that had about 10 foot of rope run thru and coming out of pipe. You led horse down ramp with your head rope, then swung rope over a prong on one of the arms of the hot walker. Tail person then swung their rope over the prong on the next arm and pulled tight til horse was securely in middle of arms and couldnt get near edge of pool. Tail person then just made a couple of wraps around the arm with the rope and let them go. Horse couldnt bang his legs on edge of pool, we could swim up to 6 at a time, and they couldnt drown as were secured between the arms. A lot of people dont realize that the more fit a horse gets and the less fat they have on them, the less buoyant they are and chance of drowning increases as the horse gets fitter and fitter. I've swam at a lot of places and this was the most efficient and safest I've seen yet. |
Building a pool to swim horses?