I found this You Tube video and am very grateful. I’ve always used leather halters because at least I know they will break in emergencies. That has been my fear with rope halters… if the horse pulls, falls, or heaven forbid, snags their head on something, the rope halter will tighten to the point of a binding knot, never to release again.
This man, Troy Griffith, is showing us a new way. Tying a rope halter like this will guarantee that it will never bind or tighten around a horse’s neck.
In case you aren’t able to play this video:
- Put the rope halter around the horse’s head as you normally would.
- Instead of putting the rope end through the loop from the back, put the end through the loop from the front.

Place halter on horse normally – but instead of putting the end through the loop from behind, put the end through the loop from in front.
3. Then put the end back through the split in the poll piece.
4. Adjust by lifting up on the end.
5. Then tie as usual.
6. And no matter how much force is put on either end, the halter will not tighten. The knot stays as it was.
7. The knot slides right out – easily undone.
And there you have it!
I love the horse’s expression after the tutorial. “Are we DONE yet?!”
WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.
Click image to watch the video!

Thank you for this!
I like using a rope halter, but always worried about this, and could never figure out a way to tie that would prevent the “tightening until I couldn’t remove it” scenario.
One less thing to worry about.