SAFE BLANKETING
Getting your horse properly dressed for winter weather requires some small but important details that are often overlooked.
There’s a correct “order of operations” to putting a blanket on and o safely. According to Cat Hill and Emma Ford, authors of World-Class-Grooming, you should always secure a blanket from front to back: first chest straps, then belly straps, and finally leg straps. If there is a neck cover, secure this last.
When removing the blanket, reverse the process: neck cover; leg straps, if any, should be undone and hooked back up while not around the leg; then belly straps; and finally, chest fasteners.
“If the horse spooks or runs forward, you don’t want the belly or leg straps still on while the chest is undone, because the blanket can slide back and cause a panic situation,” says Hill. “A horse can get seriously injured from getting tangled in a blanket that way.”
Remember, too, that you must train a horse to wear a blanket, just like any other piece of equipment. Go slow, says Hill. If you don’t know that a horse has been blanketed before, having a helper halter him and hold the lead rope is beneficial.
One of Ford’s biggest safety concerns is leaving a blanket’s leg straps undone during the blanketing process. She emphasizes that you should always hook them back up so that they’re not dangling down when you’re putting the blanket on or o a horse.
“They basically turn into flying weapons,” she says. “Many of them are on elastic; when you go to put the blanket over the top of the horse they get caught on stu, the horse can step on them, they can whack into the horse’s legs, and all sorts of things. They should always be connected to both rings, and the only time they come o is when you’re unclipping them and putting them around the leg and hooking them back on.”
Since horses like to itch and rub themselves against things, Hill and Ford warn that any snap on a blanket that is facing away from the horse has the potential to be caught on something. When the blanket is on, it’s important that the “trigger,” or opening part of the snap, should face inward toward the horse.