Using ropes around horses is a natural thing to do. We horsemen and women use them to lead and tie our horses as well as for reins to ride our animals. Ropes are a fundamental part of the Western ranch as cowboys use them to rope cattle for branding and veterinary treatment. Look in any horse catalog and you will see that ropes of various sizes, lengths, and purposes take up a significant portion of the “sales floor”–from leads and lassos to reins and lunge lines.

This type of injury is common when a horse gets tangled in rope or wire. Have a good working knowledge of rope safety when working around horses.

For the purposes of this article, the “rope” might be made of leather, hay string, cotton, hemp, nylon or poly braid–any item that is used to connect our horses to us or to a stationary object–but that has the possibility of wrapping around us or a body part (of us or the horse). Using this definition, rope might even include the electric braided poly or wire that is commonly used for electric fencing. And it certainly includes the ropes that emergency responders would use to attempt a rescue of a person or a horse in a backcountry situation, loose on the highway, or being extricated from entrapment (such as deep mud, a horse trailer, or a flood)