Lead (tack)
rope used to lead an animal
A lead, lead line or lead rope (US & UK) is used to lead an animal such as a horse. Usually, it is attached to a halter. The lead may be integral to the halter or, more often, separate. When separate, it is attached to the halter with a heavy clip or snap so that it can be added or removed as needed. A related term, lead shank or lead chain refers to a lead line with a chain attached that is used in a variety of ways to safely control possibly difficult or dangerous horses if they will not respond to a regular lead.
Variations
A lead can be made from a variety of materials, including cotton, horsehair (woven or braided hair, usually from a horse's tail), leather, nylon or other synthetic materials. Lead ropes, as the name implies, are round and made of various types of rope, usually between 5/8 and 3/4 inch (about 2 cm) in diameter. Lead lines are usually flat webbing or leather, and are generally .75 to 1 inch (1.9 to 2.5 cm) wide, though may be narrower for show use. Flat lines are less bulky and more comfortable in the hand for leading and animal, but may lack adequate strength for tying.
A lead most often attaches to the halter with a sturdy snap.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Lead (tack)” is rope used to lead an animal. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Lead, tack and rope, not as a finished interpretation.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 28, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3840706. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lead (tack)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.