Page 7 - The Pocket Guide to Equine Knots

INTRODUCTION: WHY KNOTS?

In an age of devices and gadgets intended to make life easier for us (but sometimes having
the opposite effect), a horse lover may ask, “Why knots?” Why, in this day and age, is there
a need for the ancient art of manipulating a piece of rope into various twists and turns to

create this or that knot, hitch, or splice? Can’t it all be done with buckles, snaps, and
Velcro? Why take time to practice tying a bowline, a square knot, or a half hitch?
That question was answered for me many decades ago by a mare named Rosie and a

mentor named Elmer (who became my father-in-law). Rosie was a powerful quarter horse
mare sold to us by a young woman headed for college on a budget that didn’t include
continued board for the horse in a nearby city. The mare had been informally raced, had run
barrels, and was well trained, she neck reined beautifully, and she lifted effortlessly from
her trot to a canter she could seemingly hold all day. Lacking experience with cows, she

took to them readily, and although a little quirky and spooky, she soon earned her keep on
the ranch. That bay mare became the first horse I could call my own.
But Rosie had a fault. She pulled back. She was one of those inveterate pullers

occasionally encountered in the equine world, and she’d break anything you used to restrain
her. Tie her up with halter and lead rope and she’d lunge back so hard and so suddenly that
something—the lead rope, the snap, the halter itself—would break. And, if her halter and
lead rope were stronger than the object to which she was tied, she’d break the post or
hitching rail. Then Rosie would calmly start grazing, making it clear what she’d had in mind.

This was a serious fault for a ranch horse, and the velocity with which she threw her
twelve hundred pounds backward also made it a danger, both to herself and to anyone or
anything behind her. How would I keep her in one place while I set irrigation water or fixed

fence? In the open West, failing to hold onto your horse can mean a long, hot walk home.
Elmer had seen a few horses “spoiled” in this fashion and said we’d try to cure her,
though he was dubious about the result. He explained that someone had tied her poorly
while she was a colt. She’d probably spooked, pulled, broken free, found reward in tasty
nearby grass, then tried it again, eventually finding that if she pulled hard enough, something

would break and release her. (I have to wonder what Elmer would have thought of the
“breakaway” tying systems marketed today that actually train a horse to be rewarded by
pulling back—but that’s another story.)

“I’m thinking that if she once came up against something she absolutely could not break,
maybe she’d figure it out and quit. I’m not too hopeful, but we’ll give it a try.” With that,
Elmer got into the Jeep and headed for town, while I continued my barn chores. He soon