Rope Halters

• Keeping a horse is expensive. One way to shave a few dollars off the cost of horse ownership is to make your own halters from pieces of rope. A simple rope halter, using no buckles and needing no stitching, requires 20 to 25 feet of rope for an average-size horse, 18 for a pony, and as many as 30 for a draft horse. Natural Horse Supply recommends 1/4-inch double braided nylon, which is soft (see link in References). A thin rope can be a benefit in training, because it is less comfortable than a big, soft rope.
  
  Rope halters are simple enough to make and there are several ways to go about it. One way is to start from the tie loop knot and work around the nose knots and back, or start at the poll and finish with a Fiador knot at the chin.
  
  The reata halter is a favorite training tool among cowboys using lariats. In this technique, the loop is put around the horse's neck, then the rope looped under the chin and over the nose, and a second coil looped over the nose. Then the first nose coil is brought up over the ears and snugged up the poll. With this technique, though, there is a risk of getting the rope in the horse's eyes. The advantage of using the lariat loop is that if the rope slips off, there will still be the rope around the neck and the horse will not be turned loose.
  
  

Knots

• Three knots in particular are used in a rope halter--the overhand, double overhand and the Fiador. An overhand is the simplest of knots, the line threaded through a single loop. In the double overhand, the rope is threaded back through the knot for another overhand. This creates a completely round knot with no flat spot and allows a second strand to supplement the first. A quick and easy version is to tie a single overhand with two strands of rope. This is not a true overhand, but it will work. The Fiador knot can be used as the knot at the chin and provides two balanced loops to secure a lead rope. A diagram of how to tie this knot can be found at Front Range Frenzy (see link in Resources).
  
  

Warning

• Never leave a horse wearing a halter unattended. It may catch on a fence, a tree, or a hoof and cause injury or even death.