Hello.
I am tired of having to buy new lead ropes every few years. Recently they have frayed and untied themselves at the snap.
Does anyone have a recommendation of lead ropes that will last? I prefer cotton with a bull snap.
Thanks!
The marine rope , natural horsemanship style leads . LOVE those things.
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I loved cotton until I got GOOD marine rope lead ropes. Nothing beats them.
https://www.knottygirlz.com/
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Yeah, the cotton is your problem. Search for yacht rope lead rope. Some are sold with just a loop so you can put on whatever type of snap you prefer.
Any size/color with bull snap.
When it is made of yacht braid, you have to call it a lead line.
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I do not like the hard feel of the various rope linked here. Some just very firmly too hard. All will likely to burn hands if horse pulls on it. Yacht type rope is not as hard but will burn when pulled. I don’t like that hard feel rubbing our horses when it is made into halters. So we don’t have any of it around. Not sure of the working or breaking strength of it. Some substantial looking ropes have surprisingly low breaking strengths! A few hundred pounds!! Horse weighs more than the rating. Same with snaps. That brass snap with the big eye, button to open, is only rated for 90 pounds! Of course not all the snaps or ropes will break at that point, but that is their listed rating.
I make most of our cotton lead ropes so I can have the kind of snaps I want on them. I also use bull snaps, have some of the barrel twist, quick release snaps on some neck ropes. Doing splicing myself lets me reuse snaps when rope frays out and is not safe to use. The barrel twist snaps are over $10 each now. Snaps are getting darned expensive, worth saving!! They are seldom broken when the rope wears out, so I reuse them for years. Often I can reuse a long lead rope by cutting off the frayed end splice and resplice snap back on the shorter rope length. Saves me money I can spend on other horse things! Ha ha
Learning to splice rope is not difficult, just have to wrestle the strands apart to pass the tail ends thru. Tape is your friend to keep strand ends together, prevent rope from untwisting as you work the ends thru.
Know any Navy folks? I think splicing rope is a required course they have to pass. All the “sailors” I know are great at splicing and tricky knots! They seem to love teaching others this skill. If no sailors, try Utube for learning splices. Even a book of knots is easy to follow, learn from. Maybe some young or old Scouts have this skill to learn from. Kids are good at this, we taught our Pony Club kids braiding, splicing and knotting, to make ropes and equipment to save money, create things forgotten when they arrived at a rally or show. Always tons of binder twine in the trash to make things with!
Besides the tape, usually adhesive, I find a heavy pen or Phillips screwdriver real helpful in opening the tight rope strands to get the individual rope strands fed thru, over just using fingers. I unravel about 10-12 inches for my single strands, put a tape collar on main rope, with a second rope collar below the snap. Snap is between the two collars of tape. You may be surprised at how much rope is needed for an easy bend thru the eye of the snap! Then I can start working the unraveled strands into the still hard twisted rope below the snap. That length gets used up fast doing the over and under. This is why you want the 10-12 inches, for a decent length of splice, not so short it will pull back out. I usually end up with a bit of unusable rope with tape too short to tuck back in. Tape comes off eventually, so there can be a rope fringe. I leave it to prevent shorter cut ends possibly working loose. Rolling the splice under your shoe on the floor, helps round it, seats the bulges down firmly
The advantage of splicing is that any pull tightens the main rope strands on the strands you pulled thru. Pull is straight, keeping the strength of the several strands twisted together. Any knot in a cotton rope reduces the strength of the rope, according to the rope testing people. I was quite surprised to find cotton ropes tested stronger than nylon braided cover ropes!
I don’t back splice the free end of the lead rope because it makes end too thick to get thru trailer loops when tying up. Taping that end seems to last quite a long time before you need a new piece of tape to keep strands together.
My local western tack store sells cotton rope off of rolls, any length you want. Buy more length than you want the lead to end up with. You need the extra for the part going thru snap, plus the loose part you want to splice back into the main rope. Measure a loop going thru a snap, add on the 10-12 inches, to ask for your cut length. We use neck ropes for hauling and tying to the trailer, so I need longer than normal lengths. He says he sells a couple rolls of cotton rope a year. Lots of folks making their own lead ropes!
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I’m a cotton rope person. Jack’s and Perri’s being my favorite brand. I understand the appeal of something a bit more durable but IME you lose the emergency breakaway factor with the nylon ropes, especially when the rope clamp is absent and the rope wraps back around itself. I don’t usually have to replace my cotton leads unless something catastrophic happens, and a lot of these ropes are out 24/7 hanging on the side of the shed where the halters are - so they are not exactly pampered.
I would much rather my leadrope break, then my leather halters, my fence, or my horse. It’s a lot cheaper to replace a $10 leadrope than it is to replace the halter. Most quality leather halters these days are pushing $200, so for me the trade-off is I know in a bad situation the cotton rope is most likely to give before anyone or anything gets hurt.
Learning how to splice and repair them is easy, too. I occasionally have to rebraid mine and tighten the rope clamp, but it’s very easy to do. Any retired leadrope gets turned into a dog leash or used to tie/secure things to the fence line (IE muck tub of water). So it always finds a use no matter what.
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Not a bull snap, but I really like this pattern of braided cotton vs a typical cotton leadrope. It’s sewn in place around the snap so I doubt it will ever fray.
https://www.smartpakequine.com/pt/smartpak-cotton-lead-21574
I’d love to learn how to splice my own rope but I couldn’t find thick enough braided cotton like above. All the thicker ropes were the usual twisted style.
Curious what everyone’s thoughts on these lead ropes with a panic snap instead of traditional snaps? I’ve never used them but I find the idea intriguing. Unfortunately all the ones I’ve found have nylon leads and I greatly prefer cotton.
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I use climbing ropes that are 5,500-7,500 pound test and i buy mostly from WesSpur (https://www.wesspur.com/items/dl15.html). <you can find eye splicing tools here too
i’m really picky about halters and lead ropes and lead lines. So picky that i learned how to make my own, that way i can play around with the color/pattern combos and get them just right. I prefer spliced eye ends, and they’ve never been quite tied-in as long as i would like…again had to learn to make my own. Every once in a while i’ll put in a snap, but usually end up regretting it. I’ve even cut them (the bolts) off and cut back the rope and made a newalt splice eye without a snap on it.
Three pics. One i’ve already made rope halter and just need to splice the eyes. Second one i have the matching rope for halter selected but have yet to measure horse and make halter. And third pic is random rope i still need make halters for, though i might be using leather or maybe even biothane. Have some rope biothane in three colors, plus dozens of colors of flat biothane.
already made the halters for these ones:
still need to measure and make halters for these ones:
Thinking of flat (not rope) halters for these ropes:
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I would really like to see the “weave” of the wrapped up lead rope. Have not seen one to compare to other cotton lead ropes. If you wanted, you might unwind a short old cotton lead, then braid the strands back together with the snap braided in. See how it turns out! Could be fairly simple, braiding is a form of weaving, but stronger than sewn in snaps. I have braided an unraveling cotton rope with good results. Just try to keep the individual strands twisted up as yo go.
I do not care to use those type, sliding collar, of quick release snaps. I see them fall off horses shaking heads. Force of shake is like water in a swung bucket, moves to the outer part of swing. That is bucket bottom or lowest (release area) of the snap so it opens wide! That is a bad trick for horse to learn, which is why I use those barrel twist snaps for quick release needs.
I’ll try to remember to get a photo of mine today. It’s nice because it’s soft (because cotton) but doesn’t feel as flimsy as the twisted ones.
On a side note, I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s super particular about lead ropes! It’s such a small thing but a bad one is such a pain.
I have some of these…I actually need to order some more, as I ordered the shorter length (I didn’t measure right). But they have a really nice feel and are supposed to hold up with weather conditions.
Also, concerning the “yacht rope can burn” stereotype…. This is true.
But cotton absolutely can and will burn as well.
Years of experience have taught me all leadropes will burn with a motivated horse attached to them .
Just. Wear. Gloves .
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Frankly, I don’t think having to replace a cotton rope every couple of years is too often, especially if it sees heavy use and is outside a lot. It’s a natural fiber and the combination of heat + wet + dirt makes them decay. I make sure to wash/clean my ropes to cut back on that. I prefer cotton to nylon ropes in terms of feel (and the fact nylon burns much easier) as well. I’ve definitely seen leads last several years and I’ve seen some (cheap/flimsy hardware) last a few months.
I wound up getting one of those long yacht-rope lines with a bull snap (which I dislike) and just switch out my leads depending on what I’m doing. I use the cotton one for most of my handling but if I’m going to leave the halter/lead outside, I switch to the nylon one since it won’t start biodegrading. I use the yacht one for ponying, going on a hike, or groundwork training. I prefer the feel of yacht-rope to nylon and it is wearing much nicer than all my other ropes.
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Dover’s cotton leads are my favorite. But I don’t leave them out in the weather so I can’t really speak to durability.
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I would totally agree with you on all types of rope being able to cause burns. My experience is that the braid covered ropes, synthetics, burn your hands VERY FAST. They can heat you up with just a minimal pull against your bare flesh! Cotton ropes take a bit longer time, more friction, to cause a burn on your hands.
Gloves are great protection, but few people have them on at all times during their barn time.
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Good pictures, real nice loop work! But looking at the braided covering makes my hands hurt. I would be burnt in a heartbeat if I forgot my gloves! We all have our favorite rope choices.
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i never get burnt hands, but then my horses are all trained free before they get a rope, or even a halter for that matter. I don’t know if this is an approved way to train horses, but that’s how i do my dogs and i just translated into horses from that.
It’s actually super soft. I haven’t been in a situation where it might cause rope burn though. It may very well be worse than a twisted cotton lead but I have no doubt it would be better than nylon.
I like the braided because it’s easier to tie, and when you pull the rope to release it, it doesn’t get caught on the uneven surface of a traditional lead.
