[grey]

I’m pretty much speechless at that photo, Scott. My hat’s off to you.

[grey]

Yeah, the catch-22 with anything that is quick and easy to do up is that it is also quick and easy to undo or do wrong. I use clips/snaps in a few key areas (with certain safeguards and precautions taken with regards to the kind of clip/snap used and which way the hardware faces), buckles everywhere else. I feel that using clips/snaps at the bit is borrowing trouble. Buckles are far safer. Kidney links AKA carabiners are one thing I will never, ever use anywhere on a horse.

[grey]

Yep, rotate them and when they are dry, use a horse brush on the face of the collar bad. I have about three stiffnesses of brush for my horses. The softest one (a face brush I guess – about what you’d use to buff your boots after applying polish) is too soft to do the job but a couple of stiffer body brushes do pretty good at getting the dry scurf off the collar pad.

[grey]

That’s certainly true about the deer hair pads stinking. They do get to smelling like dogs. 😀

[grey]

I believe that deer hair pads keep a horse cooler than the foam ones, regardless of whether it’s poly fleece, ticking or vinyl-covered on the outside. A deer’s hairs are hollow. I think this is what allows the deer hair pads to dissipate the heat better. You do have to watch that the ticking doesn’t get too grubby. The vinyl pads do have that going for them.

Of course, having NO pad is better than using ANY pad. But if you have to modify the fit of the collar with a pad, I do prefer the deer hair filled ones when I can. Sometimes the deer hair pads are too thick and I only need the small shim of a felt pad. Wish I could find REAL 100% wool felt collar pads, instead of mixed-material.

[grey]

Canvas has a lot of tooth. Which is to say, it is rough. I wouldn’t want a canvas collar pad. Cotton ticking – like on the blue pinstriped deer-hair-filled pads – is smooth.

But to answer your question… I’ve never seen a canvas covered pad.

[grey]

I drill my evener pins (as well as all the other important bolts) and put a hairpin or a piece of wire or such through the pin to keep the pin/bolt from lifting out.

I once saw a wagon push a team down a mountain road about 200 feet or so because the tongue pin (not the evener pin) had rattled out. That cured me. A little time at the drill press is cheap insurance.

[grey]

Yes, evener pin must go through the wooden tongue. Hammer strap is necessary as well, to keep the evener flat to the tongue.

[grey]

If you have a crupper on your harness, you can run your check rein to the top ring of the britchen spider. Put a ring or a roller on the check rein (so you don’t crimp the leather of the check rein). Then, a single strap with a snap on either end (often called a coupling strap) attaches to the ring/roller and the top ring of the britchen spider.

If you don’t have a crupper, then you use a rein-up strap. Instead of attaching your check rein to the top ring of the britchen spider, you come up from either britchen dee (the ring at either end of the britchen) to a shared ring and a short coupling strap.

Anchoring the check rein to the crupper or to the britchen dees makes it impossible for the horse to pull his harness out of adjustment by fighting against the check.

Some people just toss the check over the hame/hames. I don’t recommend that. If a hame strap were to break during a hard pull he would hit is own mouth terribly hard instantly as soon as those hames pop backward off the collar. With the check going to the britchen (either via the top ring or the dees), you’ve got about two steps with which to react and stop the horse before he hits his mouth. Having him come up against his mouth because of equipment failure during a hard pull is bad, bad. Punishes him for trying hard.

Some harness makers put a ring or a hook on the back pad/harness saddle that you can attach your check rein to. Depends on the harness style and the maker. I have a nice set of team work harness that have a little ring on the top of each back pad that a coupling rein can be attached to. Don’t see that too often.

[grey]

I was going to say Kroil but the ATF/acetone sounds compelling.

[grey]

Jay, make sure your neck yoke isn’t up too high or too far out in front. If you are using the common bellybacker harness with box britchen, the neck yoke should be just high enough that they don’t bang their knees on it when they trot and far enough out in front that, when viewed from the side, you should be able to draw an imaginary line straight down through the hame and the breast strap, terminating at the neck yoke. If the neck yoke is up in their space, it is in the way when they lower their heads to really dig in and knuckle down.

I have one that bites at the neck yoke at rest, but she is prone to anxiety. Also, I know that the crown pieces on my bridles are too wide and dig into the back of their ears. They know better than to toss their heads or rub on each other – I have drilled that into them – but I think that the discomfort finds other outlets. Biting the neck yoke is probably one such outlet, at least in my situation. If I really get on her case and keep her from biting the neck yoke, tossing her head, rubbing on her team-mate, blowing snot on passers-by AND trying to sit on the britchen OR the tongue, then she plays with the shanks on her bit or pops her lower lip to make the curb chain rattle. SIGH. Time, I think, to commission those bridles I keep meaning to order.

[grey]

That’s a hard blow and I’m very sorry to hear of it.

[grey]

Carl, I chuckled at the turn of phrase: “recovered them from adventures”. That’s a better mindset than “arrested the miscreants”.

[grey]

I try to put the boss hoss closest to me where it is easy to micro-manage her. The subordinate animals will generally keep their position relative to her with little effort on my part. Anyone who doesn’t live up to my expectations gets more one-on-one work with ground manners. If I have team-mates, I try to pair them up. Sometimes I will feed an outside horse’s lead through the halter of a horse closer to me. This works particularly well with team-mates. I don’t tie them to each other, but it kind of keeps things up out of the way and seems to help a more remedial horse keep his place when he’s further from reach. I have actually had more problems with less-confident animals trying to lag behind, rather than horses forging ahead. The boss hoss is kind of a tyrant in the pasture, though. Horses that have not had as many hours in harness are less able to put aside their pasture rankings and work like a good soldier.

[grey]

Also, where do I go to see these photos that you mentioned? I don’t really have the hang of this forum yet.

[Author]

Posts