New Horses and Good Rope Halters

Before I write about rope halters, I wanted to just note briefly that along with my 4 year old who had a delayed start, I am also re-starting an older horse that I picked up from a ranch in Southern New Mexico. The ranch manager and head wrangler is a young woman who asked to shadow me starting and re-starting horses at my ranch, so of course I said yes, by all means. Anything I can do to help, directly or indirectly, someone who is serious about a life with horses is a no brainer. For the past three weeks, working one day a week with her, I have not had the time to write about that, nor takes very many pictures and virtually no video yet. That will be coming in the near future. So,....about those rope halters.

A good rope halter is a necessity for me. While I have had many different halters from various makers, the 'go to' halter has always been from Double Diamond Halter Company. They still make and offer great halters and lead ropes for that matter, but you have to buy them from a distributor such as saddle shops and tack stores that offer quality gear. Other sources of good halters,...Craig Cameron comes to mind, offer very good rope halters as well. However, if you purchase a rope halter and lead rope for $15, you are very likely not getting a real good quality item there.

Lead ropes usually last longer than rope halters, so sometimes you can buy the halter without a lead rope and just use your old lead rope, especially if it's good quality. I use tied on lead ropes, so I never have the potential problems of a metal snap, such as dirt impinging the spring loaded mechanism, or the snap breaking. I like a 14 foot lead rope, however about half of my halters have 12 foot leads. Some people don't like that much rope to handle but I'd rather want more length than I need in the moment, than not enough. And just the other day, I used a 18 foot lead on a very reactive horse that I was asked to work with.

About a year ago I discovered 310 Ranch Life Halters and Leads. They offer 12 foot lead ropes, which are great quality, albeit without a leather poppers on the running end. But the halters have a long tail (that goes over the bridle path also called a poll latch) to tie through the loop on the end of the throat latch. These tails are longer than all of the other rope halters I have which make them easier to feed through the tie loop, fits horses with bigger heads, and allows a overhand knot at the very end of the poll latch so you can slip it over a horse's head one handed if you are putting a halter on another horse while you are horseback.

310 Ranch Life also offers other products as well as instructional videos on roping and such. And as usually, I do not get paid not otherwise compensated for advertising anything, just passing along gear, equipment and information that I think is good quality and useful.

Third Ride Outside the Pen on Curly Zeke

I really, really like a horse that I can smoothly open and close gates on. In fact, it's manditory, although when I ride a green horse out of the round end for the first few times, I'll usually ride the horse out through and back into an already open gate. I'll open the gate and push it open then ride through. If you are some people who have had their knees or legs banged up against the gate posts going through or coming out, you know what I am talking about. Going through an open gate a few times gives me a pretty good idea if I can keep him in the middle.

I have had some video camera malfunctions on the first couple rides. Okay, not really malfunctions, but I either didn't orient the camera properly or have a charged battery in place. So the video below is Zeke's third ride outside the round pen. He still is bracing on left and right lateral flexion, more so on the left, so we're working through that. At the walk, I concentrate on giving him a fairly loose reins when he is straight, even for a moment, all rein and leg pressure are non-existent and eventually he will understand that and seek that feeling. When I ask Zeke for a transition into the trot, I don't force him to keep the trot. If he needs to go back to the walk that's fine. Soon he'll keep the trot. You can get into trouble asking the horse for something he's not mentally prepared for and if you let him take his time to be comfortable, it'll be no time at all until he is.

The same is true, I believe, about a horse speeding up. We have a tendency to rate them down, but it's confusing to a green horse, and unless he's a run away horse, the horse will soon rate himself back down. We can direct them, but pulling on both reins is confinement and invites a troubled horse. I only have a little over five acres to ride on without getting on the county road to get to the open desert but I have all sorts of new things for a green horse to explore, so that's what we are concentrating on in the short term.

The first video below is an initial ride out of the round pen and spending a short amount of time doing some 180 degrees turns at a walk. This builds confidence in each other outside the round pen where he horse not may be as comfortable. I'll try to go back forth the round pen gate a couple times. I didn't expect to have issues with Zeke, and nothing came up. So the next time, or even the time after, I can work on opening and closing the gate on horseback. To have a good chance of doing so without any troubles, I'll rely on the work we have did on bringing his front end over, controlling the front end independently of his hind end, and his hind end over, indepndant of his front feet, so I can position the horse up on the gate without having to lean too much to access the gate latch. Side passing over to the gate will come later.

In the second video (below), I'm asking him for a trot so the asks for lateral felxion and a change in direction come a bit quicker. I have to be cognizant of his compromised hing end (missing lateral patella ligaments) and am trying to ask for wider turns so it's easier to keep his momentum up. That'll soon lead to asking him to step undernath himself with the inside back foot, building him up to turing like a cow horse.

Continuing the Starting of Zeke

I am continuing starting Curly Zeke which I began as a long 3 year old, after the diagnosis of this gelding missing his lateral patella ligaments on both back legs. So the plan is to work him on the ground to build up his endurance and muscularity and minimize or at least carefully watch how much time I spend on his back as to reduce the burden on him. I give him one to two days off between sessions to let him rest and any residual inflammation from his patella joint injections and Adequan IM injections, I am reminded every time I work him that it's a shame that such a good minded horse, with otherwise great conformation, had the bad luck to born without these ligaments.

In exposing a horse to new things it is easy to overload the horse and when the fear and flight instinct dominate it is practically impossible to change his thought or reaction process until he can come down from the height of his fear. Generally, when beginning to expose the horse to a scary object, his body language lets us know that the horse is beginning to exhibit concern or even fear, and, it lets us know when to stop, retreat if necessary, then proceed (sometimes by inches). Such body language is stopping forward momentum; tension in the horse's body and even weight leaning backwards about like he's going to do a turn on the rear end; head comes up to elevate line of sight and see directly of the center of the eye; ears turned and pointed forward; and, the horse quickly and nervously looking left and right and to his rear. These are major things the rider or handler on the ground can observe.

So the reason we expose horse's to things that are bothersome or fearful to them is to try and exercise the thinking side of their brain as opposed to the reactive side. Horses are doing to be different and the level on what scares them. Working in our favor is the horse's natural sense of curiosity. One of Zeke's really good points is his curiosity and acceptance of new things. In between short session of lunging or riding him I have been experimenting on what he accepts and just how fast he does it. The ever present West Texas wind was blowing a meal bucket against a tie rail making a lot of racket when I had him tied to the trailer using a Functional Tie Ring. Zeke would glance between himself from time to time, so I untied him and led him to the offending bucket. And even though the noise and movement of the bucket was pretty loud, he walked right over and punched it with his nose. We just stayed there for maybe 30 seconds until he was distracted at something else, then we went back to what we were doing.

During breaks in the working sessions, I have sacked him out with a crinkly bag, pulled a cans of tin cans and with minimal ground work with ropes all over his body and legs, I have thrown loops off of him. The videos below of exposing him to the crinkly bag and pulling the sack of cans were the first time each that he had been exposed to that stimulus. In the video throwing a loop off him, that was the second time I had done so.

Curly Zeke_Part I

In May 2024 I picked up a well bred 2 year old Sorrel Quarter Horse Gelding. This is his story, so far. At the annual sale, which was a University Horse Program sale, I watched several two year olds being jipped round a round pen while the announcer detailed the colts' lineage and such. After doing a hands on inspection of these 2 year old's after they were brought out of the round pen and tied up for a bit, I decided that I wasn't going to bid on any that I had seen. Nice well bred horses but they were from lineages that cultivated petite heads, small bone structure (even for 2 year olds) and small feet. On my way out, I saw this sorrel gelding in a pen and wondered why I did not see him earlier but realized that I had got to the sale just a bit late so thought he must have been introduced earlier. I asked the attending horse program student what he could tell me about the horse and all he could say was that the horse was a biter. I replied that most colts are mouthy and that didn't concern me. Anyway, I checked the colt out, smallish but big boned and good sized feet, and despite not seeing him move around, when I got home, I made a bid online and won him. Picked him up a few days later and brought him home.

My intention was to do ground work on him and get him gentled to a saddle for a couple short rides, then at three years old put some more understanding on him and at four years old add onto to his work load and riding time. However, that saying "the best laid plans,......." struck again. Last year I noticed that the horse, who I named Curly Zeke for his flowing wild mane and forelock, would often drag a back leg until it was nearly straight then jerk it back up. It looked like what is commonly called 'fixating patella'. I turned him out often so he could move in a bigger area and intended to get images on him to see what was going on.

In January I took him to a Vet, experienced with injuries associated with racehorses and overworked futurity prospects, and Zeke was diagnosed with missing Lateral Patella Ligaments, bi-laterally with inflammation of the patella joint. Those ligament were not blown or torn. He was missing that ligament (on both sides) that was apparently a birth defect. The only good news is that the Vet said that of the patella ligaments, this one was the least consequential for the 'stay' mechanism which allows the horse to lock his legs and sleep standing up. So after injections into the joint, the plan became to put Zeke on weekly Adequan injections, for 7 weeks, to help maintain joint health and build cartilage, and to gradually build him up. However he would never be a horse that could be used on 12 hour gathers riding big circles in a big pasture - the patella joints would just become too fatigued. And after six months, take him back for more imaging. He is, like all my horses, on Platinum Performance CJ supplement.

So Zeke's condition does not make him any else valuable to me. I'm going treat him now as I start him as I would any four year old but with considerations of his hind end which will limit his endurance, and I'll always be looking for signs of discomfort so I can ensure he has as pain free life as I can provide. Starting him as already taught me or re-taught me lessons, and that's the whole point in the horsemanship journey, to never stop learning. Unfortunately, I don't have enough years left to learn to become adequate but I'm still going to try.

What I did with him before sending him around wearing a saddle, and before the first ride, was pretty much standard: I began getting the horse soft in the face and head. Willingly breaking at poll, lowering head, nose vertical to ground, poll on or about in line with the withers. This gets the horse ready for haltering and later bridling, Giving to pressure on the head helping relax the horse, gentles the horse about having ears handled, when you ask the horse to drop his head from your hand pressure on his poll.

Getting a halter on the horse, have the horse get soft and drop his head, use voice commands and pressure on poll to do so.

Broke to Lead; following a soft feel. Becoming increasingly soft and responding to the change in feel of the lead rope (pressure and angle) to move his feet, or to not move his feet. Horse should stand and stay in front of you on a loose lead, until you pickup the lead (pulling the slack out of it) which changes the feel and the horses moves towards you. Being able to back on a wiggle of the lead rope. This understanding also allows you to stop him coming forward. Start him understanding the feel of the lead rope when asking him to step obliquely with a front foot.

Standing near the shoulder or just in back of it, being able to tip his head slightly and ask his hind end to untrack away from you. Before get on him for the first time, I also get him decent as giving me lateral flexion with his head and neck.

Being able to send the horse past you with the lead rope. This should rapidly progress to asking and the horse responding to moving on a loose lead. In the beginning it will likely be necessary to use the poppers of the lead or a flag to get forward movement. I just do so with the least amount of pressure as necessary. This progresses quickly to asking the horse to untrack his hind end away from you, so he ends up facing you. Pretty soon, you ask him to untrack then bring the front over the other way to go the opposite direction.

I'll get the horse ready for a snaffle bit, but putting a thumb or a finger in the corners of his mouth to get him used to opening his mouth. Start with like a half second then build up gradually to keeping your thumb/finger there for maybe 5 seconds. I do the same with the end portion of a lead rope so he can feel something across his tounge.

I'll get the horse sacked out with a flag.

Desensitize the horse's barrel, flank, legs with a rope. I start with the lead rope, then move to a lariat. I make sure he is good at having a rope under his tail which will freak out some horses. I'll work on getting the horse use to the lead rope and later a lariat spinning around him and going up over his head.

I'll get the horse good at sending like I described above then into a trot. Allowing the horse to find the end of the lead rope bumping his nose and he'll learn or find a comfortable spot keeping his head straight or at least not positioned to the outside.

I work at getting the horse comfortable about positioning up to the fence as later I'll mount him from the fence or another platform.

I get a saddle on a horse as soon as possible to get him used to the weight and the sounds associated with the saddle. I begin to saddle with the lead rope in the crook of my arm and as the horse lets me know he's good at that, I'll use a tie ring.

So I do all this before I throw a leg over. I plan on doing a couple more articles and videos on Zeke as he progresses.