How to Adjust a Loping Hackamore

Although there is a number of styles of hackamores on the market, a loping-style hackamore is most commonly in Western riding. It differs from the mechanical-style hackamores used in English disciplines, the side-pull hackamores where the reins attach on the sides of the nose and hard-nosed training hackamores . The basic loping hackamore consists of the headpiece, brow band, a noseband, mecate reins and usually a fiador that attaches the throat latch portion of the headpiece to the nosepiece. The hackamore must be fitted to each individual horse.

Instructions

    • 1

      Undo the throat latch and fiador and place the hackamore on the horse's head, slipping the ears between the top of the head piece and the brow band.

    • 2

      Lengthen or shorten the headpiece so that the noseband is resting on the horse's nose, below its cheek bones. Double-check that the noseband is not so low that it is sitting on the soft cartilage above the horse's nostrils. If the noseband is not on the hard bone, injury may occur. How you adjust the length will depend on how the hackamore is made. If the headpiece has buckles and holes, use these to adjust the length, otherwise you may have to undo and redo one or more knots with more or less material.

    • 3

      Slip two fingers between the horse's jaw and the bottom of the noseband and note how much it needs to be tightened or loosened. The noseband is adjusted properly when the two fingers, one on top of the other, slip easily between the horse's jaw and the noseband without being snug or with excess room to jiggle. Adjust the knot holding the mecate reins to the noseband by loosening the knot slightly and moving it up or down on the noseband. Retighten the mecate reins.

    • 4

      Tie the fiador between the throat latch and the noseband so that there is a small amount of slack in the cord. It should not exert any tension on either the noseband or the throat latch.