horse tied to tree

I drive by this place on my bus route everyday and see this young horse tied very short to a tree.What is the purpose of this.I think its left there for long periods and no one is ever out there 'doing' anything.Is this some sort of training?and if so for what?

My geuss is that it's for training purposes. Tying a horse for long amounts of time teaches them to stand. It's done alot by trainers, Sometimes they'll tie horses for half hour to an hour at a time... It seems cruel and I'm sure the horse thinks it is cruel, but it really works....

I have one of those.. those things. Omg I don't remember what it's called.. TIE RING. Lmao It's a tie ring attached to a post and I'll stick my horse on there sometimes to let him chillax for awhile to teach him some patience or just let him digest things. What I like about it is if the horse pulls back hard enough (say it spooked or something) the rope can slide through. If a horse did that tied to a tree, the rope wouldn't loosen and I know a lot of horses tend to sort of panic when they realize they're trapped and they'll struggle more and could get hurt. The tie ring lets the rope slide some and the horses realize they aren't trapped and calm down quicker. Then you just go tighten it again. :)

It isnt a bad traing method provided the horses isnt out in direct hot sun with no shade or water or open to harsh weather and such things.

As horses naturaly will stand around in a paddock for a couple hours resting, tieing them up for a short period of time wont do them harm. Provided some one can see it, incase he freaks out at somthing...but yea.

Well theres water right next to him and the weather has been less than sunny and kinda cool.good to know this is a 'normal' thing.

I wouldn't be alarmed unless he looks sick, exhausted or dehydrated. As long as he's got water and he's in the shade he's probably just taking a nap.

Very common thing...we call it "the thinking tree..." . I will sometimes tie all of mine up to different trees when they become too dependent on each other. Sorry, but it works.... a horse needs to know it can be alone and survive, which is totally against their instinct. It's a learned behavior...

Also sometimes used by the "oldschool" cowboys as a means of breaking a horse of a bad habit... Lets say you have a horse that rears, or is disobedient in some way, the idea is to tie them to a tree for a day (sometimes longer) until they realize life wasn't so bad before and cut the bad behavior. I've heard it is incredibly efficient in correcting problems, however I am not necessarily a supporter of the tactic.

For those that tie to teach their horse patience... do you worry the horse will get tangled/step on the rope? I know somoene mentioned the tie ring, and I own one (my horse has an issue tieing directly to something, such as the trailer) but don't you still worry that the horse can become tangled? Or are they being tied high enough that it's not a worry??

We do this with young horses who can't stand or have no manners. As long as you keep an eye on them and be sure they have water and such, they should be fine. I've done this with my horse to teach him to stand still while tied. Around here, it's a pretty common training method considering it isn't hurting the horse.

Its a pretty common method actually...another favorite of mine with a horse that wont stand still and is a "pawer", stand them by/between two trees, so they have to battle the branches instead and it gets their minds off of their first mission.