[QUOTE=red mares;8765879]
I have those, or very similar, and think they kind of suck. The square end of the snap doesn’t always fit through surcingle rings. 30’ lines always seemed short to me, even though that is the standard length.[/QUOTE]
True. I forgot about the snaps not fitting places.
I think there are pros and cons to that standard 30’ length. I, too, think it’s too short. So I had some 50’ lengths of mountain rope cut for me. What a sad disaster: They were in my barn colors and I was all psyched. But I found that most of the time, for most horses, I had a dangerous amount of rope swirling around on the ground behind me. And all that length made 'em heavy for the horse to carry.
To be clear: I especially didn’t like the weight of long lines when I was double lunging and I had a line going directly from the horse’s mouth to my hand on the inside. If you are long lining and the lines are being supported by a stirrup, I suppose it might be different. But even in that scenario, I found that a heavy line meant I couldn’t let go of the horse’s mouth fast enough or completely enough and I had a horse trying to tuck is head further to get away from the bit. I learned to take the weight of the lines seriously because I never want to create a horse who hides behind the bit because he just can’t make it let go, no matter what he does.
And I’ll say, too, the way I long lined, I usually had a green horse to deal with. So while I planned to be able to put a horse on a bigger shape with those 50’-ers, I never did… and instead just had those long ropes creating an organizational problem for me.
I’m sure other people are better at this than I am, but you might as well learn from my experience along the way.
