neck yoke length

The neck yoke matches the evener and that is important. The D ring doesn’t change that. 44″ is a little wider than most things. Make sure you set up your lines so you are holding their heads as far apart as the neck yoke and evener. If you have other equipment with different eveners (say 36″) it can be a hassle to switch things. You might be able to use a spreader that lets the horses out for the wide evener, and working through the hames ring with out the spreaders gives you two widths with out changing the lines.

I fully agree with Donn on the neck yoke – evener length- it has no bearing on what style harness one is using. Evener length – 32 to 34 is more common for plowing, 36- 40 for more general use and upwards of that for applications where the width is helpful as in HOT weather and the extra space allows more air for cooling. Spreaders are a useful easy way to change the distance between horses when changing equipment- just a hame ring sized ring often on a leather strap hanging from the top of each inside hame, allowing the crosscheck to run a little further away from the one horse before crossing to the teammate, hence increasing the distance between them. Jay

As mentioned above there are advantages to many different lengths. There is also an advantage to keeping the number of different lengths down to a minimum. I typically use three. My mowers, forecarts, etc. are 36″. This is a little close for big horses in mid summer, but works well, and is quiet common. I a rake and a couple tedders that are 42″. I also have a couple eveners for two or three that are 32″ and used with out a tongue. Three horses on a two horse plow starts with a short evener like that. Jay’s description of an adjustable spreader is perfect. I have salvaged bit rings from old bits I didn’t want to use. These are light and big. In some cases the lines want even get stuck in them.