You know you've won, in life, when people pay you to do what you would pay them to let you do


Wednesday, October 13, 2010

How To

This is a draft I had sitting around in Blogger for a while, thought maybe I should use it. I'm just lunch breaking right now while my cowboy gets us fresh horses.
I've been thinking about Hackamores lots lately and wanted to do this How To that shows how we lead a horse with one. (Wilbur's forelock looks bad from all the burs I picked out of it)
This is Wilbur in his hackamore. The bosal (the loop that goes around his nose) is called a pencil bosal because it has a very small diameter (like a pencil). The reins and macate are one continous piece of 22 foot long horsehair (a little prickly but I always wear gloves and my cowboys skin is like thick leather already). The part that goes over his ears is called the hanger. Note it has no throatlatch. That makes it very easy to pull off when you are leading or tying your horse. The ways we fix this is as follows:
I pull the loop of reins up closer to his ears and put most of the loop on the far side.
Then I take the lead or macate part and make a loop in it (the loop is in my hand).
I take the tip of the rein loop and put it through the loop that was in my hand in the last picture.
Then I go around the part that is hanging down and back up through the same loop that was in my hand originally. (This is all a fancy explanation for a bowline that is a knot that will not slide so tight you can't get it undone.)
That leaves quite a bit hanging down so I usually put a half hitches like the following.
And voila. The hackamore is adjusted so you can lead or tie your horse with out worry that it would pull off.

10 comments:

Mama Mess said...

Nice tutorial! Blessings for a great day!

Anonymous said...

Very nice - I always wondered how that was done!

cheyenne jones said...

Excellent!

Sherry Sikstrom said...

Great tutorial, but I beleive I will have to come there one day and see it done in person

Mare said...

Awesome, in depth tutorial! I just say, I'm new to your blog, but I ABSOLUTELY love that quote under your title picture. That would be me and almost every other horse person in a nutshell...

Crystal said...

cool, I cant tie a boeline on purpose, not sure why its so hard. I just loop the rein part over the saddle horn and it hasnt pulled off.

Shirley said...

I guess that's like building an impromptu throatlatch. Very clever.

LindaG said...

Beautiful horse and great tutorial. :)

Anonymous said...

Awesome! Boy that's sure a good looking horse. I saw one I had to take a photo of a few weeks ago just for you. I'll eventually get around to posting it :)

Janice Grinyer said...

Somehow I think I will be referring back to this post one day...

Hes nice looking!