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I’m fortunate in that the draft mare I usually ride fits comfortably into a saddle with full quarter horse bars. She’s smaller-built; only about 1700 pounds and not real wide. The “draft” tree saddles are too big for her.

One thing to watch out for with the Aussie saddles is that often the ones built “for drafts” are constructed with the assumption that your horse doesn’t have much withers to speak of. If your horse does have withers, you’ll find that such a saddle sits right on top of em and will quickly rub them raw. A good-fitting Aussie saddle can be real comfy, though, so it’s worth looking into. Have you ever ridden in an Aussie? I’ve ridden in a few and I felt that they didn’t ride the same as a Western saddle. I don’t know if that’s an accepted fact or what, but I sure used different muscles riding in the Aussies versus the Westerns that I’m accustomed to. If you can, try to make an opportunity to ride one before you decide whether or not to go that route.

Sydney Saddleworks doesn’t use very good materials for their saddles, I’m afraid. They tend to use a lot of chopped-and-formed crummy India leather; the leather equivalent of bologna or particle board. Have you tried looking into having a local saddler construct you a custom saddle? Doesn’t have to be fancy. Custom saddles can actually be quite an economical option, especially if you have a horse that isn’t an off-the-rack size or shape.

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I do pretty much the same as you, Andy. I prefer taking my flatbed hay wagon out on the road because I stand at the dash and can see and be seen. I interact with nearly all traffic. Oncoming traffic gets a nod (exaggerated by a broad-brimmed hat) and a wave and eye contact. Overtaking traffic gets eye contact and a wave. If it’s safe to pass, I grin and becon them to come around, sometimes adding a thumbs-up if they seem really hesitant.

If it isn’t safe to pass, I make a show of craning my neck to see the road ahead and then show them the flat of my hand or maybe just one finger. No, not THAT finger. The finger that says, “just one second”. If I’ve got a parade built up behind me, I pull over if I can. Sometimes I simply stop in my lane to make it faster for folks to get past me. If I am on a curve where passing is unsafe, I trot my team if it’s appropriate, to get past the bottleneck a bit faster.

People are infinitely better-behaved when I am able to do these sorts of things, versus leaving them to their own devices. A sign helps, but not as much as live teamster interaction. When I have a load of hay on the wagon that prevents me from interacting with overtaking traffic, things can sometimes get a bit hairy, though not as bad as when I’m driving the covered wagon with the canvas up.

People see a load of hay going down the road and it seems to them like a fairly reasonable thing to encounter (although not a common sight around here). They pass when it’s safe… until they get alongside and see that the wagon is drawn by horses and not a tractor. Some people linger in the oncoming lane, either gawking or suddenly uncertain whether or not they should pass the horses. When I took the covered wagon out on the road, people would lurk behind, gawking and wondering what they should do. I imagine the bakery wagon had a similar effect.

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I hope I wasn’t too much of a downer with my bucket of cold water, but I feel very strongly that leaving worry and anxiety at home is an important component in the whole of road-driving safety. Fully acknowledge the danger, cause it sure as heck is thre, but leave it in the barn.

I have found that a sign that reassures drivers that they will not scare your horse is helpful. The poor behavior that we’d like to discourage generally stems from one of these five causes:

1.) a reluctance to get near or pass the wagon, for fear of scaring your horse; uncertainty and doubt regarding what is expected of them, the driver, in this situation

2.) a reluctance to pass the wagon, due to concerns about their own safety with regards to oncoming traffic

3.) a disinterest in passing the wagon because they are busy gawking

4.) an ignorance or disregard for the dangers of passing you at that particular place and time

5.) not having seen you and your wagon until it is too late

I experienced a huge increase in satisfactory interaction with vehicular traffic when I added teamster interaction to my road-driving routine. That leads me to believe that #1 in the list above is far and away the main culprit in my situation. Horses on the roads here are very uncommon and the drivers don’t know how to handle it.

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Nice prosthetic forelocks!

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For me, in my area, on my roads, I think it breaks down about like this:

With no sign and without any interaction between the teamster and traffic, you get about 60-75% satisfactory interaction with vehicular traffic.

If you add a sign with instructions, you are up to about 85% satisfactory interaction.

If you are able to add teamster interaction with traffic you are up to about 95% satisfactory interaction.

But there’s that approx 5% that you will never get rid of, no matter if you sit them down to a 15 minute lecture, complete with slideshow and diagrams and regardless of how many times they encounter you on the roadway.

The best you can do with the remaining 5% is make sure that lurkers, zoom-by-ers, helpful-honkers and noisy loads don’t faze your horse and that you are as totally zen on the inside as possible.

You have to know, before you harness up, that you are taking your life and the lives of your animals into your hands by hitting the road. No, that’s not correct. What I should be saying is that you are putting your life and the lives of your animals into STRANGERS’ hands. For whatever reason you have made the decision to risk your lives in order to drive down the road. Hey, I’m not judging you – I drive the roads too. But you have to acknowledge the risks you are taking, and accept it. Say it out loud, because it’s true: I’m choosing to drive my horses on the road and we might get injured or killed. Say it to yourself in the mirror.

Then, when you go out to catch up your horses and harness, you have to forget that there is any risk whatsoever. You mustn’t even think about it while you are on the road. If you have a near miss, you change your pants when you get home, but otherwise just smile and wave. Danger does not exist when you are on the road because anxiety will not help you or the horses.

The vast majority of the time, if you even see the danger coming, you will not have time to do anything other than perhaps say a four-letter word or maybe two before it’s all over and done with.

There are things you can do to make the situation safer for you and your horses but you will never, ever get rid of that 5%, no matter what you do. That 5% is part and parcel of driving on the roads.

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Try doing some more vehicular desensitization if you can. In my case, I’ve done a bunch of work around a broad assortment of vehicles.

My horses have been led behind the sidecar rig, led from a motorcycle, led from the window of a car, led from the window of a truck, led while tied on behind the truck, led while tied on to the horse trailer, driven from the hood of the truck (they were towing it)…. but some of those tasks required two people, which I understand is not really an option for a lot of us.

They have eaten snacks offered from inside vehicles, from bicyclist, from skateboarders, from dirt bikes with no muffler. One of my mares likes to chase me around the pasture when I’m on the motorcycle.

I have gone waaaay out of my way to make vehicles an everyday part of my horses’ lives because I want to be able to take them off the farm and know that I’ve done everything I can to show them that the world is a strange and varied place but that they will always be safe. I know that this isn’t the case but as long as they believe that, we’ll all be a lot safer.

It really takes away a lot of the anxiety when you start hitting the roads. Any anxiety on your part will be picked up by the animals. How they deal with your anxiety will depend on how self-confident they are in that situation.

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Those would have all been fall-over-faint-with-joy prices over here on my side of the country. Heck, those are even go-buy-it-all-and-ship-it-home prices. And in such excellent condition, too. 😮

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That’s a nice one. Do you have a source to purchase them new?

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Something along these lines:

Not sure what gauge the rings are at the ends of your jockey yokes. This particular hook is about 1/16 away from admitting the rings at the ends of my regular one-piece neck yoke.

This being sized for traces, it will admit a nearly 2.5″ wide strap. There is 5/8″ of gap between the bolt sleeve and the back of the hook.

The halter ring I found is not the strongest. The ring is welded, but the triangular ring is not. But since those straps aren’t typically load-bearing… Might be okay?

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Is there some way that a heel chain hook could be used in this capacity? Maybe feed a ring on there behind the bolt so you can buckle on that narrow strap that connects to the lower hame ring. Do you call that a jack strap? Or a neck strap?

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Charly – that would be the hook that comes “stock” on the sidebacker harness that “Meader Supply” sells.

http://www.meadersupply.com/

The particular hook in question is the one that carries the jockey neck yoke. Circled in red in the photo below.

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Myself, I like to have a horse going pretty good single (with a big tire or ground sled at least, preferrably also on a cart if there is one available) before I team him up with another horse. Part of that is out of consideration for the other horse. I don’t want to subject the educated horse to a complete newbie that might pitch a fit, at least not if I can help it.

The main reason, however, is that I want the green horse to focus one me for his cues and his training, rather than be distracted by the second horse.

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Next step is to let the ends of the traces drop. Disconnect them from where you’ve hooked them on the britchen rings and let the heel chains drag and rattle on the ground. Let them brush his legs when ground drive him through turns.

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Horses that have been spooked in harness often fixate on the sound of the heel chains. Make sure that at a later stage in your harness desensitization, you let the heel chains down and drag, first on soft ground and then later on noisy ground, such as gravel. This desensitizes them to the sound of the heel chains as well as the feel of the tugs brushing the legs.

You will probably want to work on having her drag noisy things as well, while ground driving, prior to hooking her to a vehicle. A bag of tin cans is a good one. Start by dragging it with a rope tied with a quick-release knot to your belt so you can jettison it if it bothers her too much.

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In my part of the U.S., generally $200-$500. It’s a big country, though. Others will tell you what it’s like in their part of the country.

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