"D" ring update

[mitchmaine]

hi donn, i have a set of belly backer and a set of dring and when hooking three, somebody has an odd harness. it’s ok if two with same harness hold the pole but sometimes it just don’t work that way so i just hung quarter straps on the d ring harness and snap in a breast strap on one if i need to make harnesses that don’t match match. mitch

[jason glick]

donn, where did you get those repair clips and how much were they. all of my front traces could be a bit shorter, some 4″, thanks jason

[Mark Cowdrey]

Don’t know where Donn got them but they are available at:
http://www.meadersupply.com/Publish/catalogs/tack_catalog/Tack-Catalog.pdf
p.67 $3.50 apiece. 1 1/2 or 2 “.
Donn,
I do most of my driving on a pole & leave the trace carriers (“Lazy straps”) off. Less “stuff”. Only put them on when working a single or loose hitch.
Will be good to see slack in those neck yoke straps when you get a team set up going. Get that tongue weight onto the backs.
Mark

[Donn Hewes]

Hi Mark, Yesterday I pulled the snow plow with two D ring harnesses but it was still not perfect. When the third horse backs up a step the rig comes loose. I also think the neck yoke set up is too bulky (makes the tung hang down to low).

Those neck yokes may work OK for a team, but I may end up replacing them with the plug type. First I want to make one for three horses. A three horse neck yoke won’t really balance the load of backing, but it could hold all the horses in position. For most of my three horse applications currently I don’t need a lot of backing power.

[Mark Cowdrey]

Hi Donn,
I’m having trouble picturing your set up. I’m thinking that with three, only 2 are hitched to the neck yoke, either side of the pole, w the third pulling only, no backing. Is that the setup you have?
Or are all 3 “neck yoked” some how?
With a team, the weight of the neck yoke would not make the tongue hang too low (with a D ring), it would only increase the weight on the horses backs.
Just curious.
Still waiting for snow here.
Mark

[Donn Hewes]

Hi Mark, Yes I am currently using a two horse neck yoke with a team of three. There are two problems with my current set up. One is inherent to the D ring. If the third horse is pulling only and not connected to the neck yoke, you will get a loose hitch if the horse decides to back out of it a little. This can be while standing or backing, but even pulling. Probably not a big problem, but it is compounded by my other problem which is the tongue being low to begin with. My neck yokes with snaps add a lot of length, which translates to hanging down when the hitch comes loose. I think these are all thing to adjust as part of the transition. I expected I would have to work on neck yokes some. That is why I am doing it in Dec!

[grey]

Can you get your tongue-carrying team in tighter suspension to get the neck yoke and tongue higher? Or does the 3rd horse throw that off? I think the jockey yoke should be higher.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13269039@N04/1360758601

I know that this photo shows regular sidebacker and not a d-ring but I think that by shortening your side straps (jockey yoke to D-ring) you should be able to get that tongue to float higher, closer to how it sits in the photo above (except held out away in front).

I don’t know about you, but the way I fit my bellybacker harness, the britchen doesn’t press in tight when the horses are in forward draft. The britchen just makes contact but doesn’t press until the horses are holding or backing a load. I believe that with the D-ring harness, if you want the weight off the horse’s neck and onto their backs you have to have the horse pretty firmly snug in suspension. When you are using both a D-ring and a belly-backer on tongue, you will need to either put your belly-backer horse in tighter suspension or use those little drop-straps on your sidebacker harness to get that horse’s side of the neck yoke up.

I think that’s how it works. Not 100% certain.

[mitchmaine]

hey guys, i think grey is right. the pole is up when held between the tugs and front side backers. tight as you can get with no strain on the britchin, or front tugs really until the horses step into or back with the load. and i think the third horse when she steps back, lets the evener “off” and drops the toungue. there is a special (?) yoke some use with d ring that is a solid 4′ bar that could easily be extended for three, but the pole would be offset in that yoke. don’t know if that would make a difference or not except it would appear then you could keep the full strain against the eveners using it. but i do think its the third horse keeping you from getting your pole up where you want it. i think.

[LStone]

I run the D-ring too. I am not sure how it works with three abreast. I haven’t ever run it clean across either. I have two D-rings with a third belly backer. I have only ground driven not carrying a pole in that configuration. I just always assumed that from my point in experience that I would have to throw all the weight transfer benefits out the window perhaps. I would think that because of the pivot point on the T/H evener the third guy not carrying the pole would gum up the works with the team no matter what you do to compensate for him not being up with the team. Maybe hooking the single as tight as possible first then the others? Same principle as with a team the second hitched kind of locks in the first one and third locking all three? Maybe he has to be hitched first behind the hitch point? This would lock him in drawing him to the front? I don’t know for sure but I am wondering if even a third D-ring is going to help. I am waiting for some more of the seasoned D-ring users to help out with this one.

I love this place!

Larry

[near horse]

Does anyone know if Les Barden addresses this in his D-ring video or has discussed it in any of his talks? He might (would) be worth giving a call.

[mitchmaine]

i met les barden at this years neapfd and he is just great. what a fine man. i’d listen to anything he had to say about that harness.
when i was scrounging around the country side looking for harness and so on. old guys would load me up with tons of trees, eveners, yokes, bridles and so on. i still have a bunch of that old stuff. one thing that seemed to come with dring harness was these heel chains that i never seem to see anymore. the trees had solid rings in them and the heel chains hooked to the tugs by the bitter end and passed through the rings on the single trees and came back and hooked back into the heel chain with this clevis ring so it was adjustable and had no extra chain slapping around. i had mountains of it and even used it for a while, but if you broke one (and you could in the woods) you had to have one like it to keep going, so i changed to straight chain. can’t seem to find any left around. oh well, snows falling and hope to get in the woods after new years. good luck out there.

mitch

[Jay]

In my experience the Dring harness only holds up the pole with a team of 2. If there are three, then unless there is a neck yoke attachment for all 3, the pole of necessity has to hang from the necks of the 2 who are on it. Out at the B-Bar ranch a few years ago I saw a set up with a long straight neckyoke and 2 poles on a forecart they use for pulling a baler so that all 3 horses could help holding back the load. I’d like to try it sometime, but haven’t gotten there yet. Jay

[Does’ Leap]

I use Les Barden’s plug yoke system and rigged an extension to have 3 abreast on the yoke. It worked well and with all three holding back the load on the pole. This winter I plan to make a dedicated three abreast yoke that I don’t have to bolt on the attachment every time. Les Barden also uses a 2 pole system for three horses (there was an SJF article years back).

George

[fogish]

Donn, do you still have those photos? If so would you be willing to add them to your posts again? Thanks

[Donn Hewes]

Hi Fogish, I am not sure which pictures you are looking for (d ring?) but you can see all my pictures at: picasaweb.google.com/mulemandonn

Incidentally, I have been fooling with different three horse hitches for the D ring for almost to years. I only wanted one tongue, but all three horses hooked up. I had fashioned sort of an evener affair that went in front of the horses and it worked OK. Then I realized there was some good torque involved when we tried to back up a plow stuck in a little mud. They had no problem breaking the tongue.

I really don’t know the name of the strap that holds your front side straps up when not in use (Lazy straps?), but mine have always been parachute cord. Now I have had some just made this week which will include a conway buckle and a snap. if I want to use three horses I will just unsnap and triple them up (on two horses) to make them short. I believe this will hold the yoke up nicely, but haven’t tried it yet.

Also, I have no problem using four abreast and Drings. I have an evener affair on my PTO cart the two regular neck yokes snap on to. Talk to you soon, Donn

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