Cooling out horses in extreme weather

[Gracie]

My friend and I lunged our horses today, and it was fairly cold.
Her horse was acting weird and was running around getting himself all worked up. Anyways when she was done riding he was STEAMING like mad. She brushed him for a bit then just through the blanket on him and put him in his stall... he was still steaming. I thought horses could tie-up in this kind of weather if you dont cool down properly. If your horse is still steaming wouldn't it mean its not cool enough to be put away? I'm just curious because I mentioned it to her nicely, like: "Are you done cooling him out?Because hes still steaming?"

I know its not my horse, but Id be worried that he'd get sick or sore from that kind of treatment... I would never put my horse away like that!

[galadriel]

If your horse is still wet, and you blanket him then the blanket will get wet. When he eventually does cool, the blanket will get cold and keep him cold, and possibly even freeze.

If you put him away wet without blanketing, same problem; the moisture doesn't dry quickly and does cool quickly, and possibly even freezes on the horse. Either of these cases can result in a pretty sick horse.

You need to cool your horse down slowly for all the usual reasons, if you cool him out too quickly it can make him sick, colic, tye-up, etc. In cold weather you additionally have to worry about him getting COLD. I wouldn't put a horse away steaming in warm weather, much less in cold.

I did have to put Duchess away wet a few days ago; she ran around like an idiot ;) and sweated a huge amount. I sweat-scraped her, covered her with a cooler, and walked her cool. Without a blow dryer, she was as dry as I could get her, but still damp. I closed up the barn and left the cooler on, and came back in a couple of hours to take off the cooler and put on her blanket. She fortunately did not get chilled and did eventually dry. It's frustrating to try to get woolly horses dry!