FENCING: There are numerous types of fencing that are designed for horses. Board fences are deadly dangerous if not constantly maintained. The horses can break a board and end up impaled on it. Wire, especially barbed wire can entangle your horse's leg or neck and seriously injure him or worse. There are several kinds of fences made for horse pasture. Barbed wire and narrow gauge (2.5 mm) high-tensile steel wire, because of their cutting, non-stretching and nonbreaking properties, can cause severe injury to horses. They should be avoided when constructing fences for horses, as should internal fence-stays or posts, which are a common cause of injury.

Fences should be readily visible to horses and properly maintained. The ideal fence for premises designed mainly for horses is the synthetic, strong, flexible, post-and-rail type, with rails treated or painted with nontoxic preparations. A popular alternative, which also provides a good visual barrier, is a single top rail attached to a conventional post-and-wire fence. I like the Australian Sheep Wire fence as it has a grid that is very small at the bottom and larger at the top. The small grid size at the bottom prevents the horse from stepping through the fence and getting tangled. I also like a charged electric wire just above the highly visible top rail to "convince" the horse to not lean over that top rail to get grass on the other side. Such leaning by such a strong and heavy animal is a major cause of fence breakage. There must be no sharp objects projecting inwards.

Your large animal Veterinarian or Horse feed and tack store can help you find the right fencing and an installer that knows what he's doing. Ideally your pasture will have fence corners rounded on a large radius to prevent your horse from injury if he is cornered by another horse or is just running with exuberance and misjudges the distance to the corner. I have occasionally seen a horse on a tether chain or rope, as some people do a dog. Tethering is a practice which has a high risk of injury to horses. It is not recommended and should be used only when other forms of grazing or containment are unavailable and when close supervision of the horse can be maintained. Only placid horses and those adequately trained to accept the practice should be tethered.