Securing The Halter Knot

Option 1

Push the tail to the right of the tie loop, keeping it below the top of the loop. Push the end of the long tail behind the tie loop from right to left, leaving a loop/ gap on the right side, then bring the tail in front of the tie loop, from left to right, and push it through the loop/gap you have created on the right side. See the series of images showing the process.

Fitting

The noseband of the fitted halter should sit approximately half to two thirds of the way down between the bottom of the cheek and the corner of the mouth. Too high it becomes very ineffective and too low it can pull or slip into the mouth or slip off the end of the nose altogether.

The throat latch can sit just above the cheek, where the neck meets the head or can safely sit up to one third of the way down the cheek. Too tight on the throat latch causes discomfort if not outright pain and too low usually means that the noseband will also be too low.

Of course, putting on and checking if the halter fits is so much easier if your horse has its head at a level between your head and your chest (roughly) when you are fitting the halter, rather than giraffe height. Teaching this was covered in the December/ January 22/23 issue.

A rope halter allows you to apply enough pressure on a horse’s head to get its attention and gain control. The knots on a rope halter can affect the sensitive head when too much pressure is used, however like any aid, when used correctly only very slight pressure is required to be effective.

rather than the eye it also ensure that pulling the knot undone means that your hand moves away from the eye, rather than towards it.

The biggest problem is not the rope halter itself, but the fact that some horse handlers cannot use the rope halter correctly. Some are heavy-handed and keep constant pressure on the lead rope, which negates any training benefits and can be painful for the horse.

Rope halters are therefore best to be used by handlers who don’t yank the horse’s head around, don’t have a constant death-grip on the lead rope, know how the rope halter works on the horse and most importantly, how to train the horse with minimal pressure.

In the hands of this horse handler the rope halter will become a very beneficial training aid and will result in a horse that ‘listens’ and responds to the very slight, subtle request from the halter.