NO Tying With The Reins And Drag Lines

http://medford.craigslist.org/grd/1239008178.html

I think this mare is tied with the reins, looks like it. Anyway, this is a big, big no-no. Never tie your horse with the reins. If you MUST tie, like in an emergency, your horse should be trained enough to stay put with looping the reins over whatever is serving as a hitching post.

The reason you don't tie with reins is because is if he should set back (which he should never do but he is a horse after all), if you do have quality reins (which you should have) he can really injure his bars (where the bit sits in his mouth, no teeth for a short stretch of jaw), not to mention scare the living snot outta him.

If your reins are the type to snap quickly, well, you shouldn't have been using them in the first place, they were tooooo cheap.

A lot of times, at especially rodeos, you'll see horses lined up on the fence tied up with their reins. That's fine as those horses aren't tied hard and tight. If they were to pull back, the little baling wire they were probably tied with, will bend, reins come loose and the horse walks free.

THEN he should be broke to dealing with loose reins. He steps on them and he should NOT panic and throw up his head and snap your good reins (those suckers are expensive!!). If he does this, he's a knothead and you better get on with teaching him to not do this. Your fault for not teaching him.

Put a short drag line on him on his halter while he's in his corral. About 6 ft. will do. I know some people like longer and some like shorter. I'm a '6-footer'. Let him loose to walk around. He steps on the line and throws his head up and pops himself in the nose. Nothing happens. He might panic a moment but if you don't react and stand there. Let him figger out in his little mind that he won't get hurt. You won't be popular with your horse for a little bit but this is something every horse must know.

Let the line get around his legs and stepped on. If he has any sense at all, he'll figger out pretty damn quick that it's nothing. If he doesn't figger it out quickly, maybe you need to find another horse to hang your halter on!!

So, back to the original point, don't tie hard and tight with reins and have your horse trained to deal with accidently loose reins so he doesn't hurt his mouth.

Now, go ride. :-)