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Raise the “D” a bit, I’d say. Hard to tell exactly, since the photos are of the horses at rest. If, when the horses are working in draft, the hames and the short foretug are not at right angles to one another, adjust. As it is, in the photos you provided, looks more like 100 degrees rather than 90.

I watched Les Barden’s video the other day. What a great treatise on the D-ring harness. The definitive wag on the subject at this point.

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Even a seven-footer with ape arms has a comedy of a tough time throwing leather harness if they don’t set themselves up properly. Successful harnessing has a lot to do with:

1.) how you hang your harness when the horse isn’t wearing it

2.) how you “load” the harness on your arms/body in order to move it from the wall to the horse

3.) the precise sequence of motions that you use to leverage the harness onto the horse

“Harness judo” is an art! To assist your learning curve, get soeone to give you in-person pointers on how to skillfully get harness on a horse. Otherwise it can be like pushing a chain…. and good luck with THAT!

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Does it change any with the seasons?

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I agree with Morgan. Hard and fast, all the way around. Chains over and under. In fact, the best set of stocks I’ve ever seen/used also had a “cage” out front in order to fasten the head. Being able to toss the head can afford the horse an incredible amount of leverage and momentum. Tying hard and fast is not a substitute for training, nor are the stocks themselves. Instead, tying hard and fast is a safety measure to prevent the horse from getting injured in the stocks. If the horse cannot move within the confines of the stocks, he cannot throw his weight around and thus can’t get himself hurt.

For a while there, my back was so bad that I could hardly bend over to tie my shoes. By the time I was mostly healed up, my best mare was so well-trained that I can now sit on a low kiddie’s kindergarten chair and my horse will gently rest her foot in my lap so I can trim at my leisure and comfort. Even still, any time I put her in the stocks I tie her hard and fast. It’s not that she isn’t trustworthy. It’s that the consequences of a rodeo in the stocks is so dire that I don’t even want to go there.

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I think a good mule will beat a good draft horse in many situations, but I just don’t think I have what it takes to be a mule-user, much less a mule trainer. I’ve used mules a bit and they aren’t as intuitive for me as horses are. I would need some education before I would own mules.

I really respect folks who can git ‘er dun with mules.

But I like the looks of horses better… can’t get past the square blocky mule body. Love them ears though!

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Glad I have my goat chained to an old motorcycle frame instead!

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I hear ya, Big John.

This mare of mine has a serious soft spot for the little ones. She complains bitterly when I groom her head/ears/forelock. But have a handful of kids show up and she drops her head to be smooched and have her ears pulled, nostrils poked, forelock combed… she just eats up those pure, unadulterated adoring vibes. Gives me a cavity just thinking about it.

This lady’s daughter was having a birthday party, thus all the little girls in pink. I was giving hay rides at a local business – the birthday group just happened in by coincidence. The little birthday girl probably would have spent her entire birthday just petting my horse’s head.

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Do both spoke wheels articulate (dolly) or is the larger one fixed? Could the articulation need greasing? I think those bearing surfaces get all packed with dirt and the wheels develop a mind of their own. I have helped some friends get their riding plows ready for spring use and it always involved yanking that smaller wheel off and greasing the heck out of the axle and the pieces that hold it on.

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I’ve had little experience with sulky plows, but don’t you move the tongue to one side or the other to adjust the width of the slice you take out?

My plows are all buried in the barn under heaps of jun… er, I mean, terribly valuable posessions.

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Y’know, I don’t know what I was thinking. With that kind of plow bridle, you can’t put a piece on for horizontal adjustment. You’d have to have the kind of bridle that is two plates – one plate on either side of the end of the wood beam. With this kind of hitch plate, you get what you get. I’d still like to see what the beam looks like, where it attaches to the standard and the handles.

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Your plow has a separate point and share. More commonly, the point and the share are all once piece.

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It’s the point off another plow. A middle-buster or lister plow, as they are called. Good for trenching and planting potatoes.

I was mistaken about the carriage bolt. The bridles on my plows have square holes, intended for carriage bolts. I think maybe yours just wants a pin, like is in the one hole. My little wood-beam plow has a pin that has a wrench on the head. I can yank it out and use it to make adjustments on the plow.

Have you found any maker’s marks on your plow? Flip it over and start scrutinizing the metal parts. Take a wire brush and have at it.

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Considering that in ancient times folks used to plow with a forked log, a fellow could hitch their horse to just about anything and make do. I’m sure you can turn over your garden soil just fine with what you’ve bought. A bit more struggle than with a less-worn share, but as long as the wood beam and handles are structurally sound, it should be safe, if not easy.

The main difficulty is that, with a plow that isn’t in good shape and adjusted correctly, you have to rassle and man-handle it more. If you are steering the horse(s) with lines around your body, the ‘rasslin makes your torso send unintentional signals down the lines to the horse(s). Easily eliminated by having one person drive the horse(s) while the other handles the plow… which is what they did in ancient times and in areas where farming technology is not quite what it could be.

Alternately, if you have a well-trained plow horse and an initial furrow for him to follow, you shouldn’t have to use the lines much.

Put a carriage bolt in that hole closest to the end of the beam.

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So, how do you y’all know your collar is “used up” and ready to be retired as someone else’s decor?

I’ve “used up” collars by flattened the straw in the draft of the collar. I’ve also “used up” collars by accidentally breaking the straw in the throat. I’ve seen “used up” ticking-backed collars where the ticking was torn. And “used up” leather faced collars where the leather was worn through. Anything else to add to this?

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And I think maybe what Carl is looking at with regards to the strength of that wood beam is the light colored scrapes and dents. They have a sort of powdery look to them that – to me at any rate – have the look of dry rot. The scrapes and dents have a depth and roundness to them that makes me wonder if the wood is soft from age/rot. Could just be on the surface, but some of the stuff I have dragged home from the auction over the years looked pretty much just like that and ended up being dry and fragile all the way through. I do have a wood beam plow that I love. I used the original (old, dry, fragile) beam a couple of times and then removed it and used it as a template to make another one out of oak. I didn’t want to break the original beam and then have to mend it in order to have a good template.

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