Harness Fit Opinions Wanted

[CanoeTomah]

Wonderful thanks to all for the helpful hints on adjusting the harness.

Eli, the collar we use is 19”, we have been pleased with what things we can do with the little horse.

Jen- thanks for kicking this off and I will adjust as you suggest on the britchen.

Grey/Jen- you are right on the money, I am missing about two feet of belly band. You cannot see from the side of the pics I posted. A leather belt is connecting the two shaft holders underneath. From all comments I need to snug things down in this area. Not sure if it came with one. We mainly used the harness pulling firewood and the wooden stoneboat we made.

Carl NY- not sure if the shafts are for draft size, I will measure to rule out. I think the collar is ok but may try a better pic to show just in case.

Fogish thanks for the wrap strap and point of shoulder pic very helpful to visualize.

Billy Anderson without your question I would not have seen the pics from Fogish…you were not the only one. Wonder how many useful pics I have missed in viewing the site.

All responses are appreciated thank you for taking the time to post them!

The tugs came with chain ends and we used them on our maiden forecart voyage.
Hard to believe you can be so scared only going 20 miles an hour, I talked calm (or tried to) and we got things under control.
Do not believe Tess had that much noise behind her before and then we tried the brakes…

We changed out the heel chain for a couple of short leather straps on the end of the tugs (traces? Both mean the same?).
Might not be able to see in the pics.
I can whip something up to lengthen out the tugs.
Hope to incorporate the changes this weekend.

[CanoeTomah]

New pics showing the suggested changes below:
The bitchen was moved closer toward the collar.
Added extra length to the tugs.

Added a picture of the collar fit to see if it is too small.
Let us know if the fitis looking better and any other improvements.
Thanks

[carl ny]

Looks better,collar still looks short to me ,wide enough,but short.JMHO

carl ny

[wvhorsedoc]

A couple thoughts from someone that uses a lot of shafts; the forward end of the shafts should be located close to the point of the shoulder. Yours are several inches high so the shaft loops really need to be lowered. The point of draft ( where the tugs attach to the vehicle) is very high. The singletree should be lowered to a point where the tugs would make a straight line from the hames to the axle. Another method that might work well would be to change to rope and pulleys attached to the cart deck frame, and not use a singletree. There are numerous articles on the web showing pictures of this arrangement. Barb Lee has an excellent handbook about proper draft and cart balance and she is very willing to help people like us. It appears you have the balance of the harness well fitted. Hope this advice is of help with your driving!

[CanoeTomah]

Thanks your explaination was helpful. The pics do not have anything yet to lower the shaft holders.

I tried to search the web on the rope and pully method. I could not find anything.
Are there some key phrases I can use to narrow a search.

It sound like I need to lower how the tugs attach to the cart by 3ft or so.
I’ll see if I can find someone to see if the collar fit is ok.

[grey]

Collar looks okay to me. Looks like it *fits*, rather than slops around. I see many many collars that are too big for the horse and few that *fit*. The photo with the hand though the throat of the collar…. was that with the collar pressed back against the horse? With the collar pressed against the horse you still had room for that much of your hand? If so, then I’d say it fits.

When looking at the shafts as an entity unto themselves, they do still need to be let down a bit…. particularly the one on the horse’s right. Is that shaft bent upward a little? HOWEVER! The height of any cart’s shafts should be adjusted up or down until the seat of the cart is level. If the shafts need to be where they are in order to make the seat level, then the cart is a bit too tall for the horse and we’ll have to stop giving you a hard time about it because “it is what it is”.

In the photo taken from the horse’s right side, it is apparant that the holdbacks need to be tightened. The cart has “run up” on the horse. The additional length you provided for the traces has given you the ability to put the horse far enough out on the shaft to put the point of the shaft at the correct place on the shoulder. However, you need to tighten the holdbacks to *keep* the horse out there and not let the cart roll up when you slow down or stop.

Now, as for the angle of draft… If you look at the traces, you will see that the angle of the trace is “broken” at the belly band. The belly band is doing its job and maintaining the 90-degree angle relationship between the hame and the trace. On this type of cart (or this SIZE of cart, perhaps), yes, the point of draft (edited to say: I should have said “point of hitch” and not “point of draft”) is a bit high. This is not as efficient for the horse as if the point of hitch were a bit lower, allowing the trace to maintain its natural straight line from the hame. However, I don’t think that you will be doing any harm using the cart the way it is. If you use the cart in a manner that finds the horse reaching the limits of her ability, just know that it is plausible that you might be able to get a little more out of the horse if the angle of draft was ideal. The amount of trouble you would have to go to in order to lower the hitch point on the cart is probably not worth the additional efficiency you would gain, unless you plan to utilize the cart for work, such as hauling a harrow or logs.

Even then, I don’t know if it would be worth it.

[grey]

Otherwise, looking really good! Are you having fun yet????

[Dickel]

I like these videos for harness details. The first one covers the collar.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Neil+Dimmock++harness&oq=neil+Dim&gs_l=youtube.1.1.35i39l2j0i10l8.8426.21577.0.26655.16.12.4.0.0.0.131.1293.2j10.12.0…0.0…1ac.1.HtnIF3PDtXk

[CanoeTomah]

Grey your explanation on the draft and holdbacks is very helpful and easy to understand.
I’ll check the seat angle on the cart next time out. The shafts have to be horse size as a draft would not fit between them. Tess may be a little small for the set up as she is only 14 hands.
I would like to see the pulley system in action. I am wonder in if the high angle of draft could be making the collar ride up some.
Deckle thanks for the link, I tried to view but currently out of bandwidth.
Thanks to all for your help and taking the time to post.

[grey]

I just noticed that your hames don’t sit right on the collar. The top hame strap feeds through a loop on either hame. The loop can sit in one of three notches on the hame rachet. You are in the top notch. You either need to come down one notch or tighten the top hame strap. Perhaps both. If you look in the photos, the bottom of the hames sit too low. They should be up snugly in the hame bed, just under the rim of the collar.

[Dickel]

If you can find a way to watch the video it would be helpful. It shows how the collar should fit and shows and tells why the traces/tugs should be pulling at a 90 degree angle from the hames to place the load on the horse in the most comfortable place on the horse. If you watch Neil Dimmocks videos and then watch the heavy weight horse pulls you will notice that they are both harnessed the same as far as the pull point. I have watched the many heavy horse pulls on youtube several times each at full screen to see the harness positions. I see something each time I watch that I missed before. Well worth my time anyway. I also watch the European horse work and pulling videos for the same reason. A lot of them use what we or I would call a heavy driving harness for plowing and horse pulls as well as logging.

[CanoeTomah]

Grey thanks for the tip on the collar we adjusted the top up a notch on the last run and it worked better.
Spot on!!
I still need to check if the seat is level when hitched up or if we can lower the shafts some more.
Dickel, I was able to watch Neil Dimmocks on the link you provided.
It was very helpful I am going to watch his others posts.
My wife and I had a good trip around the lake a week ago.
We have the sleigh runner attachment for the forecart.
For the life of me I do not know why they are made with front part of the runner at a 45 degree angle.
It really catches if you have changing ground conditions. A curve like normal sleighs would seem to work better. It must be harder to make them with the curve.
Thanks for your help. I’ll post the next time we adjust harness from the prior posts.

[Author]

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