Slobber straps and weighted reins.

Committing to becoming a horse trainer means heightening your awareness to yourself, your environment, and a constant study of the methods and tools available throughout history. When it comes to training your own horse it is important to remain open minded. This will help you when issues arise and perhaps help you solve your problems. At Sells Lake Ranch one thing we have enjoyed over the years is trying out all the inovative concepts from some of the best in the business. And in this article we will be talking about the concept of slobber straps.

In the past we used a piece of leather from an old back cinch, punched out holes for the reins, and used leather strings to tie them together to make our slobber straps but in the photo you will see these ones have the stamp of the famous John Lions horse training.

The concept behind the slobber straps is to prevent the horse from chewing on your reins as young horses can be mouthy, to give the horse a subtle warning when you engage the reins to let them know you will be contacting the bit, and with their weight of them and the heavier reins it is a more direct cue with minimial pressure from your hands. At the ranch we tried these out while we worked our two year old “Little Red”.

We are glad with tried these as its always enjoyable to study what is available in the horse industry especially from a horse trainer like John Lyons. One thing these John Lyons slobber straps made us aware of is that from day one of foundation training at Sells Lake Ranch do not allow our horses to be mouthy, we want our horses to soften to the snaffle bit through flexing, and giving at the poll with a simple ask of the rein, and we enjoy the less is more concept when starting our colts under saddle. We keep it real simple most sessions it is just a long line but it sure has been fun trying out some of the products in the industry.