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.