rub marks on gaskins from traces

[Andy Carson]

I have been doing alot of snow plowing lately, which involves alot of tight turns for me. At any rate, my horse is starting to get little rub marks on her gaskins from the traces. They are not really bad right now, but I have decided to that I should come up with a solution for these before the rub marks get down to the skin. Any tricks out there? She works in the V-plow without shafts, and she mostly gets the sidestepping right when we make tight turns, but with lots of turning it just gets to be too many little mistakes and her gaskins suffer. I thought maybe I could wrap her legs or put something over the traces to make them less abrasive. My traces are nylon, are they more prone to rubbing? I do have a set of biothane traces I could swap out… Is this a sign that I might need a wider single tree? I have a 32 inch single tree and my horse is about 17 hands, maybe 1700 pounds. The singletree seems like the right size unless I’m doing a job that requires alot of turning…

[grey]

This is a problem that is inherent to nylon.

[Andy Carson]

Thanks Grey. Easy to fix then, I’ll just swap out my traces for the biothane ones. I really do love my nylon harness, didn’t know it would rub like this. Is biothane the most gentle? I could sew on a leather tube…

[grey]

A leather sleeve would work just fine, assuming you kept any seams, edges, or splices away from the mare’s legs. The long seam on a sleeve should face outward, and the sleeve should be long enough that the beginning and end of it is away from all the action.

Not sure how you ought to go about securing the sleeve to the tug. Maybe try to find some photos of folks using chain traces with leather sleeves. My first inclination is to say not to affix it in a permanent fashion, but make it removeable.

A sleeve sounds kind of expensive to make, though – leather isn’t cheap. If everything were compatible, I would just swap out for the bio tugs, myself.

[grey]

I don’t use much biothane. I have bio lines in the matte granite finish, which I swear by. I would happily use biothane tugs as well. However, I like the stuff that touches my horse to be leather. It conforms in a way that nothing else can, and – if thoughtfully constructed – is easy on the hide.

[J-L]

Nylon just rubs worse than leather. If you use them very much, they all get rub marks somewhere, even with leather harness. I covered one set of Nylon tugs with a sheep hide and it still didn’t keep it from rubbing this particular mule across her ribs. The way she’s made, there is just no avoiding it.

[Andy Carson]

Maybe I’m overreacting to the issue, but most of the hair rubbed off on one side in the last 3 or so snow plowing sessions and I was afraid of what would happen when the traces got down to rubbing on skin. Maybe the skin is more resistant to rubbing, or toughens up and this isn’t a problem long term. I still think I’ll try to sew on some soft leather pieces to provide a little more protection. I don’t see how it could hurt. I have some soft mooseskin left over from another project, so the cost should be minimal. I’ll take some photos to share if the thing turns out well.

[Andy Carson]

After some trial and error, this is the way I attached the leather to the traces. I seems to help with the rubbing but it’s hard to know for sure as I haven’t been doing exactly the same jobs. At any rate, I thought I would share in case anyone else wants to try something similar. I also like that it’s removable I won’t ever be worst than I started out.

[grey]

I really like the method you devised for attaching it. Looks like it ought to stay put. And it has to be easier on the horse’s hide than the nylon. I can’t imagine but that it will help!

[J-L]

Looks better than the sheep hide I duct taped to my little mule harness! I’m going to have to do something better (like you did) as it’s rubbed down to the hide on her ribs, no sore or anything but it looks like hell.

[grey]

One thing to keep in mind when choosing the leather to line your nylon harness with; smooth, hard leather rubs less than soft leather with any kind of nap or “grip” to it. My leather traces are smooth as polished granite.

[Gabe Ayers]

It is worth noting here that although leather is better in some circumstances, much of that rubbing you are describing depends on the individual horse. For example, we used three horses this winter for logging, and all three went both single and double, loose and on arches. Only one of the three had any rubbing at all, and he was in a leather harness with leather traces. The other two were in leather and biothane and had no rubbing at all on the gaskins. We spent a great deal of time fiddling with Dan’s rigging but he still rubbed a bit. He is a long legged Belgian cross with a somewhat unusual body type and he jest seems more prone to the traces rubbing. Also, I used a single Belgian a great deal in the woods for field work (including haying) in Maine and she never had a bit of rubbing with a basic nylon harness, no matter what you put her on.

[Andy Carson]

Bradbury, I couldn’t agree more with you. I would like to add that it also seems to depend on the particular job. I never had any rubbing using this basic nylon harness with my current horse before I started doing jobs that require alot of tight turns. I had another horse before this that never had any rubbing no matter what job I was doing with a basic nylon harness. I really love the nylon for how cheap, light, strong and easy to repair it is in general. This leather lining is still working, by the way, and was a cheap and relatively easy fix to the problem. The leather I was using did have a little nap to it, but after a couple times using it, it had been rubbed smooth. Just as another side note, I have had to tighten the lacing a couple times, particurly when the leather got wet. Not a big deal, and the stretched and dried leather seemed to get a little harder and smoother.

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