Some breeds of horse traditionally have their tails docked. This means that some portion of the actual tail (the bone and muscle part, not the hair) is cut off, leaving a short stub. The hair that grows from the docked tail hangs down a bit, but is no where near as long and thick as it would be if the tail were not docked. Docking is not terribly common, but when it does occur is most typically found in draft horses and a few other harness breeds, such as the Hackney, and usually only in horses used in the show ring, not working farm horses.
The original point of docking the tail of a harness horse was to prevent the rather dangerous risk of the horse swishing his tail up over the reins, which results in a sort of horse "wedgie", which leads to the horse frantically bucking to get the rein out from under his tail, causing mayhem and injuries all around. However, the same protection can be gained by braiding and wrapping up the horse's tail (as is often done by competitors in combined driving events these days). Braiding and wrapping the tail also allows the horse to have his full tail back again after the event, so that he can enjoy using it to swish flies.
Docking is thus mostly a tradition or fashion, not a necessity. Oddly enough I have seen Hackneys in the show ring who have docked tails, but are then shown with a tail wig, so it looks like they have a really long, lovely tail.
The photo shows a row of Belgian show horses with docked tails. The one nearest the camera has the hair hanging loose. The others are braided up for the show ring, and you can see how short the tail stub is.
Photo: Sherman.Bausch on flickr
Oh, super. Glad to hear that (reference for those reading: http://www.absenceofdistraction.com/2007/09/this-is-the-kin.html). I started this blog in part to give people a kind of guide to photos, videos, books and websites that I find interesting. There is 90% tedious stuff, and 10% fascinating stuff out there about horses, and it puts all my surfing to good use if I chronicle it here. Cheers!
Posted by: girasol | September 30, 2007 at 09:19 PM
Ok. I need to apologize here because my humor got lost in translation and I don't want you to misunderstand: I was ECSTATIC to see a picture I took being used like this. Floored, honored and flattered. I love the photo and glad to see that someone found value in it. Sometimes I see the thousands of pictures I take and wonder what their value is except to take up space and be pretty to me.
Thank you for using this. You are most welcome to it. My blog post was a favorite quote from a Steve Martin movie. Believe me, I was so happy my friends were annoyed and I almost took a vacation day. Write on and feel free to use the photos here any time.
Posted by: Sherman | September 30, 2007 at 08:42 PM