It is important to desensitize the horse to ropes all over their backs and around their faces and even their feet. This will translate later to things you will be doing in the saddle, and to the reins crossing her eyes over the face. Note that I'm standing to the side, not in front of Belle, with my first rope toss over her back, to "test her rope waters," while my left hand still has control of the lead rope by her head. If she panics, I can easily disengage her hindquarters by pulling her head towards me. Where the head goes, the body follows, and she'll then only turn in a circle, her head into me, and her more dangerous hind feet will be away from me. Her head is high here, showing me she has rope issues. We work on it. Placing a hand on her neck petting her, while still maintaining control of her head with the lead rope with that left hand, while tossing with the right hand, helps nurture her through her fears. A hand on the horse for reassurance helps desensitization lessons along immensely.

  

 Belle is now tolerating the rope dangling over her back.  It helps to toss the rope so that it touches their back legs to flush out any fear issues, and help to nurture them through it compassionately.

 

Here I'm taking a break, letting the rope on her back just be a part of life for Belle.  Her lowered head now shows it's becoming less a big deal to her.

 Leading the horse around with the rope dangling over her back also helps her to tolerate it better. I'm not facing her, not asking anything of her body-language wise, just follow calmly and life is good.

Here, because I've already done the preliminary join-up work earlier, I'm letting go of the lead rope and Belle still follows.  Her head down low like this says, "You're the leader, I'm the follower," and she relaxes about the rope on her back. Just walking with the horse like this, your back to them, speeds along desensitization lessons.

 The rope no longer an issue with Belle, I move on to helping her with further and deeper bonding. Here I'm rubbing underneath her tail, a very sensitive and "intimate" spot on a horse that they enjoy being rubbed. If it's the first time they've had it done to them, it's best to test the issue first as I'm doing here to see if I get any negative reaction at all. What I'm looking for is: the tail coming up on its own, which is exactly what it produces in Belle here. A relaxed horse has a loose tail. A tense horse has a tail clamped tightly. Never get on a horse whose tail is clamped tightly!  That can be very dangerous. Here, Belle is fine, relaxed about it, therefore ready to move on to my next step.

Here's a close-up of what I'm doing "back there" in the picture above. My hand is stroking the soft underside of the tail itself, that soft, smooth spot that has "peach fuzz." It's amazingly sensitive and pleasureful to a horse and allowing you to do it builds deeper bonding and intimacy.

The final culmination of the above step is: taking Belle's now-yielding-more-easily head in one hand, while the other hand rubs the underside of her tail. When a horse allows this intimate maneuver, great things happen inside them, bonding-wise, and this is also a safe and loving place to bring a horse back to whenever she is afraid or upset. They love it!

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