Yes we digress, sorry OP. Around here its a rawhide braided romel rein, so a closed loop with a romel, a Californio\buckaroo\vaquero thing. We never lead by the rein. One, we don't want to turn our high port bridle bits over in the horses mouth possibly causing injury. Two, we spent years getting those horses mouths just so, so at best we could screw a lot of that up, at worst one of the leading wrecks like ya mentioned again probable injury to the horses mouth Three, some of these reins are stupid expensive. So we use a get down rope. Here my wife is holding my horse while Stan and I are fixing fence. A guy crashed his plane on the ranch and rescue crews made lots of holes trying to find him. They were too late.
Ya can see my reins are wrapped around my horn and she is holding Sonny by the get down rope. Nothing interferes with his mouth. Talk about stupid expensive. Stan could buy about five of those Glock 19s he's carrying for what her reins cost. Happy wife, happy life. Which brings us back to knives. We're all carrying my knives in a crossdraw sheath which is handy for another reason. We're also all carrying sidearms strongside. Stan his Glock, Nichole has her Colt Mustang and I'm carrying a Springfield EMP. I usually carry something heavier on the ranch but when you are getting up and down a lot fixing fence, that big Smith 610 becomes a brick on the belt as Joe mentioned.
