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That is a good practice. In addition to making a cleaner hole, it saves wear and tear on the cutting edge of the punch, making it last longer.

However, the two flimsy hole punches that failed me in the past did so by skewing. The handles bent at the axle of the rotating punch head.

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The hole punch that I use is a rotary one that is labeled “Made In Germany”, “Heritage Tools”, “Mt. Hope, OH”. I have been very happy with it and it was only about $20. I was going to bite the bullet and just get an Osbourne (about eighty bucks) but the guy at the shop talked me into trying this one. He let me take it for a test drive on a few stout pieces of leather and I was convinced. With any hole punch, remember to give a little half-rotation while you are squeezing the tool. Gives a much cleaner cut.

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Partly depends on what style of harness they are. D-ring, no. Fore-tugs would be too long and it’s an undertaking to have them shortened. I don’t have experience with Yankee/hip britchen harness but I’m guessing it might be similar to Western/box britchen in size range and fit concern. It also depends on what size range the harness was designed for. There are a few different general size-ranges out there but it really varies by harnessmaker. If the horses that wore the harness were at the upper end of the intended size range, then it might fit your mules with little necessary alteration.

If the “show harness” is a for-real SHOW harness it will have a back pad/back band of a type that may not work with smaller equine. If the “show harness” is just a nicer parade type harness with the standard kidney-shaped back pad, then carry on.

Also, in my years of shopping second-hand harnesses, I have learned that just because it was used on 1800lb horses doesn’t mean it fit them! 😀 Short answer is that you’re just going to have to measure it.

Collars and hames obviously won’t fit.

Bridles probably won’t fit (depends on the style of bridle and what kind of head your mules have).

Traces could possibly be too long for your existing tongue(s); height/weight does not quite correlate to length of body so it is also possible that the traces could be identical to yours.

If it is a modern harness, britchen will likely be in the 56″-long range and your mules probably take the next size range down: 48″-ish. If it is a belly-backer type harness, having a too-long britchen makes the quarter straps more likely to chafe the belly near the britchen ring.

If there’s a keeper on the traces to corral the market strap and belly band billet, you’d have to drill those rivets out but that is a minor issue.

I guess the belly band could also be problematic, though I would think it could be made to work.

Measure your current traces, britchen and your mule’s bridle (from the bit on one side, up over the top of the head/poll/behind the ears, down to the bit on the other side). Measure your mule at the girth area, from the bottom edge of one trace, under the mule, up to the bottom edge of the other trace. Take those measurements with you to the sale. Flexible plastic seamstress’ tape measure is what I use to measure such things. Make sure you note where exactly you are measuring from so that you can measure the sale harnesses the same way. “End of ring”, “last link of chain”, “center of hame bolt”, “underside of strap” – that sort of thing.

If the traces will work and the britchen will work, if the belly band can be made to work, if you have your own hames and collars, if you get the bridle situation sorted out (keeping in mind that the hames, collar and bridle represents nearly half of the value of a work harness), then you just need a good quality hole punch to shrink everything else down. Cheap one won’t be able to stand up against harness leather.

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I’ve made and used one. I didn’t have any kind of a shed to store it in and it rotted away after a couple years so I didn’t make another one. The planker did a good job breaking up clods but now I’ve come up in the world – 😀 – got a disk harrow and a mat harrow that, in combination and used successively a couple of times, does a good job in preparing a seed bed. I made the planker before I had the disk harrow and before I had amended my soil. Now there’s a great deal more organic material in my soil and not so much clay, so the clods aren’t as big a problem as they were before.

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Probably little difference until you get into the long straw collars. They keep their shape better over time than the cheaper collars. Do you open your collars to put them on or do you slip them over the heads? If you open a collar, make sure you support both sides as you put it on. Once you break the straws at the throat, the collar loses some of its integrity. Having the draft of the collar at the shoulder become crushed is possible with hard pulls, especially hitting the collar hard. I have seen pairs of collars come through the auction in otherwise good shape but the draft is crushed where the traces sit. Flattening the face of the collar is just a function of use and wear, I think, and I don’t know if you’re going to see much difference between makers in that respect.

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In what way did they lose their shape? Did the face (the part that goes against the horse) get flattened at the shoulder? If so, I wouldn’t think the Brodheads would outlast what you had before.

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I’ve had quite a few Brodhead field collars. They’re a decent everyday using collar for the price. The kind of leather they use tends to scuff, abrade and show their age a little easier than some of the more expensive collars, but they hold up just fine. I believe the reason they are a bit less expensive is that the dye on the leather isn’t struck-through (so you get lighter color leather showing through on the scuffs) and they aren’t stuffed with long straw.

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Maybe call or email Chimacum and ask who makes those pulling collars. Buying direct from the collar shop is often cheaper, but not always. It can be a little bit less convenient buying from an Amish collar shop (many are) because you can’t just click click click on your computer… have to pick up the phone or put something in the mail.

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I don’t have any experience with that particular collar from Chimacum. Long ago I bought a field collar from Chimacum and it was a Brodhead. Chimacum is a retailer; they sell someone else’s collars. I don’t know whose pulling collars those are. Brodhead is Amish and doesn’t have a web site so any web site you find with Brodhead collars is a retailer.

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Basket breeching looks like the best of both worlds. At the intersection of the hip strap and the over-the-croup strap, what’s going on there? Is there a safe or a keeper? Are they simply stitched together? What keeps the over-the-croup strap from sagging down further onto the dock?

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Is a basket britchen a hybrid of hip and box? I’m still looking for a photo…

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Now I have to go sifting through the photos and see if I can find a Yankee britchen D-ring. I can’t visualize how that could work!

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I have always heard “Western” as a term describing the type of breeching/britchen. Western AKA “box” vs Yankee AKA “hip”.

I would say that a D-ring harness *is* a type of side-backer harness. There’s side-backer harness and there’s belly-backer harness. If there’s a third kind, then I don’t know about it. A Western britchen harness can be a side-backer OR a belly-backer. I’m pretty sure that a Yankee britchen needs to be a belly-backer. I think a D-ring harness needs to have a Western britchen.

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Knowing how to keep a horse still by using your body language and being able to tell when a horse is thinking about moving are two aspects of horsemanship that are very important to a beginning teamster’s safety. Hard to safely hitch or hook when you don’t have that skill.

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Being able to communicate with lines only and no voice is great. Being able to communicate with voice only and no lines is great also. I have been in plenty of situations where one or the other method of communication was not available or not optimal for whatever reason.

Anyone who has ever been an unwilling passenger on a “fast trip” knows that a bit doesn’t “make” a horse do anything.

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