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Re: Tailing





On Thu, 4 Feb 1999 guest@endurance.net wrote:

> saddle when I'm mounted). What does
> everyone out there use? Where do you
> get it? I've seen romels in the Sport
> Tack catalog, but no "specific" tailing
> lines in any endurance catalog I've
> looked at... Happy Trails, Kristi

What everybody uses is their reins.  Almost everybody has loop reins that
have rein snaps on them and therefore can easily be unclipped from the
bit.  Some people just unsnap one of the reins and tail that way, others
will snap one end of the rein onto the halter and tail that way. 

This, of course, does not allow you to direct the horse from both sides
(which is why horses need to be taught to "tail"--what they need to be
taught is not so much to go along with somebody holding onto their tail,
but to follow the trail without being "steered").

If you want to be able to "ground drive" your horse while you tail, you
can go to any tack shop that sells western gear and buy a pair of really
long split reins. It is easy to find them in anywhere from 6' to 10'
lengths.

Personally, I would teach my horse to tail without being steered, because
the long split reins are a bit of a pain to deal with when you are
actually on the horse...but last year I rode all 5 days of the Outlaw
Trail with a pair of 10' split reins because the horse I was riding needed
them ("just follow the trail" was not in his vocabulary :)).  There were
some things about them that were really handy (including not having to
worry about the horse jerking the reins out of your hand or having to lean
forward to keep a hold of the reins when he puts his head down to drink
and graze).

kat
Orange County, Calif.



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