Sunday, January 30, 2011

Tie Up That Horse Cowboy

The cowhand raced to save the distressed maiden, he leapt from his trusty steed, and ground tied him, as whistling lead and the smell of gun powder filled the air.
I made that up, but did recently finish reading books by two different authors, where the hero ground tied his horse under all conditions- they ground tied so much I got tired of waiting for the horse to run off. Things that I have read, and or tried with ground tying indicate the cowboy may need hiking boots instead of cowboy boots if he ground ties too much.
Much like the cowboys that loop the reins around the hitching post in the old movies, horses will shy and get the heck out of Dodge if too much action and noise starts. Heck my pick-up doesn’t like to stick around if things get to wild-------but I do.
I like well researched western reads, not sure these writers had spent much time around horses. Too bad, one of them was fast paced and fun.

2 comments:

Oscar Case said...

Ground tying doesn't appear to be a good practice with all the lead flying and excitement. I'd tie him up to a tree away from the action, if I had half a chance.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

Keeping that horse in place sure is a problem for the western writer. I just have my characters telling the horse to, stay.