Be a Better Horseman - Martin Black

Reata Maintenance

A certain amount of maintenance is involved in roping with a reata. When it is new, it’s kinky and hard to manage, so you must soften it by pulling it through some holes in some wood and keeping it greased with an animal product, such as liver, tallow or calf testicles, rather than petroleum-based products.  If a reata sits, it gets kinky, so you might have to grease and stretch it, and work with it more than you do a regular rope. As you learn more about a reata, you discover how to make it soft, medium or hard. You actually can make a reata as soft as buckskin or leave it stiff as a cable.

- Martin Black

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