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I like that russet lacing better than the white. Who ever thought white leather was a good idea on a work collar? Even just as a decoration.

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Thanks J-L

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Say, where did you get those collars? I have had a heck of a time finding a work collar in 17″.

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I’m glad you posted that, fogish – I couldn’t find the links either. The color of the linked text blended in with the rest of the text. I had to look for my mouse pointer to change to find the link.

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Mending link or monkey link is what I call em. Or “blasted thing” when they rust shut. I mostly only buy them in stainless now. Unless they have to be very large. Then I just try not to leave them out. Good idea for lowering the shaft carriers!

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Looks like you haven’t any heel chains to let the horse out a bit farther. The end of the shaft, as Carl in NY said, should come to about the point of the shoulder to be “correct”. When the end of the shaft poke out like you have it now, it becomes easier to snag the line on the end of the shaft… usually at the most inopportune moment, too.

Heel chains against the steel shafts/evener of the Pioneer forecart sure make a racket, though. Maybe you could add only the number of links necessary to get the horse out a little farther.

Are your traces not designed for heel chains?

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Carl, could also be that the collar is new. Sometimes with a new collar it stands up off the shoulder like that until some of the convexity of the back of the collar is broken-in. Then it seems to rest more naturally against the shoulder.

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I am pleased with the placement of the britchen body itself. Neither too high nor too low. If you do tighten the straps that go from the britchen spider to the hames, you will need to let out the straps on the britchen spider so as not to bring the britchen body up.

In the first photo where the horse is stationary, the slack in the traces makes me wonder if maybe you could go one hole tighter on the holdbacks. But looking at the second photo, I’m not sure. Might be just fine.

No crouper/crupper?

The loops that carry the shafts look like they allow for quite a bit of vertical travel. With this kind of cart the shafts are going to have a tendency to raise up a bit, particularly when stopping. If you stay with your current shaft carriers, you might want to construct what is called a “wrap strap”. This is a strap that snugs around one shaft (usually by take a couple wraps, then buckling to itself), goes under the horse, then snugs around the other shaft. Basically anchors the shafts down. But then you would have THREE straps passing under the horse in the girth area.

Wondering at the shaft carriers you have there. Is there a buckle on the other side and you are two feet shy of being able to fasten the buckle? Or is there a piece missing – a 2′ long belly band with a buckle on either end?

Perhaps instead of getting a belly band for these shaft carriers, you should trade them out for a new set that are adjustable-height and have a belly band.

http://www.mydrafthorse.com/cfwebstore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=333

Make sure you clip them to the back pad with the tongue of the clip facing toward the horse and not facing out. Easy to get a line trapped in there.

Looks pretty good, all-in-all!

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Never having used shafts on a ground sled, I’m afraid I have nothing to contribute regarding your design. I have only ever designed my ground sleds to be drawn via a bridle chain, which may allow for more articulation over obstacles. The runners on my sled aren’t nicely shaped like yours – just straight with a bevel at each end so it may be drawn from either direction without biting into the ground. I took a length of chain and attached either end to the runners, then I just put the grab hook on my evener on that chain. Not very elegant, but I mostly use the sled as a stoneboat for getting rocks out of the pasture, or sometimes for moving stacks of hay bales or other materials through a narrow gate that the wagons can’t fit through.

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The pivoting tree allows the horse’s shoulder to move more freely. Using a static setup without a tree *can* gall a horse’s shoulder or just make him sore and balky. HOWEVER there are plenty of cultures and communities that do not use a pivoting tree, so it can be done and, in fact, IS done in that manner. It just isn’t optimal. You could leave it as-is with the trace chains attached to the shafts and see if you get along okay like that.

Nice little sled! I start out de-sensitizing a horse with ropes on his legs and all around his body. Later, I use a cobbled-together home-made travois to introduce solid shafts. Don’t want to bust up my good equipment if the horse objects. However, with adequate de-sensitization at the rope phase, I seldom get any objections to the shafts.

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My best horse’s favorite bit is a handmade loose-ring snaffle with a big fat, rusty straight iron mouthpiece. Wish I had about six more.

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When you are learning how to read a horse, I feel that it is important to understand the distinction between the REASON for a horse’s behavior and an EXCUSE or a TRIGGER for a horse’s behavior.

A horse may kick at something that brushes against his leg one day, but not another day. The REASON might be that he is on-edge one day and comfortable another day. Something brushing against his leg was simply an EXCUSE to kick or a TRIGGER for kicking. Meaning that he was already kicky-feeling because he was on-edge, but when something brushed his leg, it TRIGGERED the kick.

Kind of like waking up with a headache in the morning putting you in a foul mood, then griping at someone for a small infraction that you would otherwise have let slide. The REASON was the headache. The small infraction was the TRIGGER. Remove the reason and the trigger becomes less meaningful or even meaningless.

A sloppy britchen or an uncomfortable bit might be a trigger. You will have to find the reason.

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When someone is green to the whole arrangement, the definitions of “safe”, “adjusted properly” and “appropriate” may not be readily apparent. Questioning your choice and adjustment of equipment is, I think, permissible. However, I do agree that people can easily become sidetracked looking for the one gimmick or piece of equipment that will solve their problem when, in reality, third world persons get the job done every day with just a stick, a sack and some rope. When does “fine-tuning” become “molly-coddling”?

When the horse is projecting more energy than we are comfortable with, it is natural to try to find the source of that energy input to try to quell it. Sometimes the source of that excess energy is the horse’s own unease, or even our own. Those can be the hardest to pinpoint, and sometimes that source only becomes apparent in retrospect, after it is shut off. The distraction of our own discomfort can be sufficient to blind us to it.

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When Scarlet is hitched in the cart, make sure there isn’t a lot of “slop” or “play” in how tightly she is hitched. What I mean is, when she takes a step and stops, the breeching shouldn’t abruptly goose her in the rump. It should be snug enough already that there is already a little bit of contact against her rump while she is actively pulling the cart. Having the britchen come up against her rump suddenly when she stops can goose her forward in a rush. Then they get trapped into this cycle of rush, stop, rush, stop. Only time and experience will really solve this because there isn’t any way to accurately simulate the sensation of the britchen coming up snug against the rump like that.

It can be dangerous to drive a green, hitched horse from the ground. If she hops forward, she can have the lines out of your hand in a heartbeat and then it’s off to the races. We had a cautionary tale here on the board about that very thing not too long ago.

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People who are going to be handling horses in any capacity really should have horsemanship training. The difference between a successful teamster and an unsuccessful one is horsemanship.

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