I've used handle balls for my horses for years. They have all loved them, and one horse and pony I had would play toss together with a ball. The mare I have now has one in her paddock, though she has yet to let me see her play with it.

You keep your tools within the reach of your horses? Really? A hammer dropped onto the horse´s fetlock can result in a long and complicated treatment, lameness and even can cause chipping of the bones/joints when it hits the wrong spot there. Parts of the tools can also be swallowed although horses don´t tend to do that kind of stuff unlike cows who´ll literally eat anything, but still, a huge risk is involved in this. I´d strongly suggest to remove anything that isn´t meant to be around horses from your stables and pastures immediately. For example, one tiny piece of metal that may lie near one of the tools could accidentally be swallowed and chewed upon, resulting in a fractured tooth and that resulting in hesitant or even denied eating. If a molar is affected, your horse´s cheek has to be cut open in order to reach and remove the broken tooth properly.

If you feel the need to provide proper toys for your horses, there are lots of different ones available. Horse balls (no, not that, you horny blokes XD ), broomheads screwed onto the box walls for scrubbing against, a friend of mine and fellow riding instructor even invented some kind of toyboard for his horse that loves to play with the door mechanism. He took the safety bar mechanisms of old box doors and montaged them onto a wooden plate he nailed onto the box wall...his gelding absolutely loves to screw around with these.

Although I have some horse balls , too (no pun intended, but still funny...and accurate ^ ^ ), I focus on challenging my mares by interacting with them rather than just tossing a few toys into their boxes, but I have the advantage of being with them all day (and I really mean being with them, I´m only in my house to sleep and eat). Company of other horses is more important than toys, giving them the possibility to graze on non-muddy and well kept pastures all the time will keep them busy way better than a horse ball will. Of course, training them well by doing increasingly difficult lessons also provides enough intellectual challenge to keep a horse from getting intellectually bored. Variance in training also does a good job. Going out for a ride into the woods, walking them, showering them (I have warm water, guys. In summer, my own shower is abandoned and rarely used...who wouldn´t prefer showering with his mare? ;) ), all of that which keeps them entertained. Avoid uniformity in training, vary a lot and don´t "deport" your horses onto the pasture furthest away. If horses can "participate" in life at your farm , the need for toys isn´t existent.

I would absolutely contradict the last paragraph as in every riding club I worked , those horse toys were pretty common and in roughly every third box, I had to throw out a ball before cleaning up. maybe this is owed to the fact that many horseowners were fulltime workers and their horses usually had to wait until 5 PM for some "action". At least in the German equestrian community, horse toys are rather common.

I have a jolly ball for mine, too. I am not sure she finds it particularly play-able. I have never seen her play much with it.

But she explores everything I change in her stall, like a new placement of the salt lick, or a new sign with her name that I put on the door.

So I change things around just for entertainment some time. Like put the name sign on the other side of the stall. Then she explores it again.

Or I "hide" pieces of apple in her stall like put some in the window. When she notices someone put apple pieces in the place she goes to explore every place she found apple pieces in the past. But I guess one shouldn't overdo that or she'll rummage around all the time.

Beyond that - the interesting point in many of your tools for your horse is that you handled them. So it must be interesting. I have placed my hat in front of her to mush around with so I have my peace cutting her mane or something like that. You could also bring some decoy that can be played with and place it there like that. Or just let her bite into your brush all the time, at some point it might be uninteresting so in the future your brushes are left alone

In my opinion, dedicated horse toys are unnecessary at best. When I bought my mare in 2012, I was convinced that she'd benefit from having a variety of different toys to play with. Eventually, it occurred to me that none of these items really met my expectations. In fact, not even young horses spend more than a few minutes kicking big inflatable balls around the pasture of nibbling on a jolly ball until they get bored. To draw a conclusion, it seems to me that most of the toys on the market, take, for instance, the jolly ball, seem to be designed for the play behavior of predators such as dogs rather than being targeted at the specific needs of horses.

Well this thread wasn't what I was expecting when I read the title XD