Types of yokes for the D-Ring Harness

[Donn Hewes]

Hi Carl, Just for the record I have not tried the FSS method as I am affriad of messing up the lengths as different people hook up to different equipment. I think you hit the nail when you said your horses lean back. I am guessing you trained them to do that. It would make all the difference. I am hooking horses that feel the pressure and assume they should lean forward, I think they will slowly learn to lean back. I am also hooking an eight year old gelding with two weeks on a tongue. I don’t want to ask him to move too much as he is just learning to keep still. Yesterday I hooked to a fore cart with a rake. It had a slight roll back because of where it was parked. I have to use the lines to back the horses while I hook the last tug. Then I tripped on an evener and banged my shin! dang. I will have to pay more attention to where I leave stuff to hook on to later.

[mitchmaine]

usually when you are twitching wood single with a horse, when you spin at the log you have(or i have) the single tree and slack lines in the same hand. and with voice commands the horse gets the system after a spell and steps back the last couple steps to hook.
that same horse in a team will step back with a pull on the tug and your voice pretty easily, and when he does, your leg behind the evener puts out alot of leverage and hooking is a snap. i’m with carl on that one, but hooking is probably one of those things that you have to find the way that suits you and feels best. probably alot of ways to skin that cat.

[LStone]

Hi Carl,
So the term “nose to nose” loosly translated does that mean using a pole? I never thought that the “inflexibility” would dictate a method of side to side movement or that the extra swivel connection using the jockey yokes would effect whether a horse sweeps when they turn or not. I always assumed that “sweeping” was something trained not done out of necessity based upon the type of equipment used. But it makes sense when I think about it. If that is the case would it be safe to assume that you have to drive differently in turns depending on the type of yoke used? The reason I ask is that every time I use a single piece yoke the horses are not my own horses, and I seem to struggle a little bit driving around turns. Not so much on curves as taking actual turns. Do you think I might need to adjust my driving style using a single piece yoke as opposed to a jokey yoke arrangement? If so are the differences in styles easily described?

Also Donn I don’t know how many people do this but I encourage my near horse to back into hitching the last tug by telling it to “back” while pulling back on the britchen. I also do this while hitching up a single to a log if I need to back him and don’t have lines corectly in my hands. I figure it transfers pressure to the collar nudging the horse back a little bit. I generally need only a couple incehes and this works well for me. Just something I am finding to work out pretty well for me.

Larry

[Donn Hewes]

Don’t get me wrong, I think the horses will learn to lean back while hitching. I just wouldn’t make light of it. This is some thing that they will need to be taught. Unlike Mitch, when I spin a team ( or single) around in the woods, I have the evener in one hand and the lines in the other. I all ways choke up on the lines before I pick up the evener. This way I can easily drive the animal or team with the lines, forward, back, or sides. Thus none of my animals have ever been taught NOT to lean into a trace and hold the load. I think that by pulling on the trace, and pausing for a second, then asking softly for the back, they will learn what to do while hooking. Same as they move over with out asking, when you pull on the trace to move them in. I am working with five horses and three teamster right now so it will take a while for every one to figure this out. I can see clearly in my mind exactly how it is working for Carl, Mitch, and Larry. I just would say don’t make light of some one else’s difficulty. My horses have been wearing this harness for six months and I haven’t mastered it yet.

[Carl Russell]

@LStone 28109 wrote:

Hi Carl,
So the term “nose to nose” loosly translated does that mean using a pole? …..

If that is the case would it be safe to assume that you have to drive differently in turns depending on the type of yoke used? The reason I ask is that every time I use a single piece yoke the horses are not my own horses, and I seem to struggle a little bit driving around turns. …

By nose to nose I meant like in a horse race, both horses moving with heads even…. like headlights on the front on a car.

I think the “difficulty” you are experiencing has to do with the horses not being able to shift their position to easily make the turn in relation to the changing pressure on the bits. When you apply pressure to one side of a double line the inside of the of the outside horse gets more pressure and that animal will settle back a bit, as the inside horse will, or should, surge forward. This is because the lines are not immobile, and will sway off toward the direction of the turn. The other part is the pressure applied to control the degree, or speed of the sideways motion, the pressure on the off-side line. This will also act to hold the off-side horse back a portion of a step.

With a stiff neck yoke, the horses are held even with each other, and the lines and harnesses are working against each other. With a jockey neck yoke, the horses can move ahead and backward easily in conjunction with the evener.

As I said before there are some times when I might ask a horse to back up while turning their direction, Back-Gee for example, but most times when I am turning horses, even in tight quarters in the woods, where a “sweep” might seem the right choice, I ask the inside horse to step up. It helps them cross over their hind feet, and it helps me to have adequate pressure on the off-side horse to control the speed of the maneuver.

By the way, I define a sweep and the horses stepping over directly…..ie. one wheel on the cart stays still while the other moves forward.

A few other thoughts came to mind about hitching the traces tight on a D-ring harness. Most of the time the issue is brought up as it relates to pole height. There may be some need to make the hitch REALLY tight with the intention to get the pole as high as possible. There may be other factors involved. If the angle of the front trace is off, or the front trace is too long, or the jack saddle strap is too long, the D-ring may be too low. Likewise if the front side strap is too long, or the neck yoke is too long, or the pole is too long, the tension between neck yoke and evener may seem to need to be much more to get the pole height correct.

I do hitch my traces tight, but not so tight as to create a difficulty. My front traces are short, the collar angle is aligned with the jack saddle strap, and my d-rings are in a high position. My poles are as short as possible, as are my front side straps, and my neck yokes, therefore when I hitch up my traces, I don’t have to work that hard to get them tight enough to suspend the pole from the jack saddle at the appropriate height. As George has mentioned and shown in his threads, the Plug Yoke can be a huge advantage in this regard.

Carl

[mitchmaine]

donn,
i hope i didn’t sound like i was making light of this harnessing cause i wasn’t. the point i was trying to make probably not too well was the method of harnessing wasn’t as important to nme as results. making sure that when we are finished the horses are heads up with snug traces and they aren’t banging their knees on the yoke and so on.
when i spin a horse to a tree, the lines are between my thumb and forefinger and the tree is balancede in the last fingers and if need be i can drop it pretty quick and still have the lines. if i nsound haphazard about that i don’t mean it cause its pretty important to haqve a hold of your horse. you should have hold of nyour horse with your voice too, right? although easier said than done.

mitch

[Carl Russell]

Donn, as you suggest, it is simply a matter of putting some pressure on the collar and telling them to back. I will first start out by using the lines to get them to lean back just a bit. They are not stepping back, just putting back pressure on the britchen. It is one of those partnership maneuvers, where they learn how to do their part.

I will often ask a horse to back, just with voice command when working. In the woods, sometimes I have my hands full, and I need an extra link on a choker, or they have leaned forward for a snack, and I need them to step back to be hitched. Sometimes when putting a pin into a drawbar on my forecart I need them to back while I am hold the tongue in one hand and the pin in the other. Sometimes when rolling a log onto a sled, I need them to realign with my position, and I will ask them to back up while I stand holding the peavey and leaning against the log to keep it in place.

Backing by voice command is something I work on regularly.

Carl

[Donn Hewes]

Mitch, I hope you didn’t take any thing I said wrong. I am sure you have them well in hand. I just meant my horses haven’t had that chance to learn that specific skill. Now that you mention it Carl, the ability to have a horse or a team ease back a little would be very useful. Hooking a pin is a great example. It is something I have never put much effort in to teaching, I just keep hooking the pins the best way I can. My horses will easily back too hard and too fast if I am not careful. I can usually get them to ease forward and hook my pin then. I think I will start doing some training while hooking from now on.

[Carl Russell]

Another factor that could be affecting the amount of pressure people feel they need to apply to the traces in order to get adequate suspension is the height of the eveners. I am thinking specifically about logging arches, where the emphasis has been on achieving very high hitch points to get logs off of the ground. In those cases, there is very little room left for the triangular suspension between evener and neck yoke, because the evener, neck yoke and pole are already near D-ring height. In these cases, teamster will almost certainly NEED to use the FSS method to get the extra tension needed to get the weight off of the collar and onto the jack saddle.

Another point to consider when evaluating the value of those high hitch carts.

Carl

[karl t pfister]

Is another variable of the evener height, the “ease” of pushing with one’s thigh or as some carts end up with the evener at shin height.

[Carl Russell]

@karl t pfister 28164 wrote:

Is another variable of the evener height, the “ease” of pushing with one’s thigh or as some carts end up with the evener at shin height.

No actually Karl, the lower the evener, the easier it should be to hook into the traces.

This is because with the low evener, the arms of the triangle (Evener (a), Rear trace, D-Ring (b), Front side strap, Neck yoke (c)) are hanging at a sharper angle, so that the hitching process of extending the hypotenuse is not a straight line pull. By stretching the hypotenuse with the triangle hanging from the D-ring, and anchored at the evener, the front end of the pole is lifted.

The higher the evener, the closer it gets to a straight-line pull with very little give.

This is why if a certain pole height is desired, then the front side strap and rear trace (actually at the heel chains) need to be as short as reasonably possible. This means that the pole needs to be short, and the length on the pole dedicated to the neck yoke needs to be short too. The longer the arms of the triangle, the more straight-line the pull becomes as the pole is raised.

Also the more straight-line the pull is the less natural lift there will be on the pole, so the hitch needs to be very tight, hence the need to tighten the hitch with the side strap after the traces are hitched.

Here is a picture of my log cart. The neck yoke is positioned directly under the collar, the point of the pole in under their noses, and it is hitched on one heel link. The front of the pole is 30″ off of the ground, and you can see the whole thing suspended from the D-ring. The triangle represented there still hangs at a reasonable angle, so compressing the evener to hitch and unhitch still has a fair amount of natural give.

[karl t pfister]

Carl I appreciate the photo and your explanation .When I use a White Horse cart I can get the whole picture to look similar ,and it gives one an appreciation for the D-ring design.
What I was trying to say is that the height of some carts puts the evener so low that it is difficult to get ones knee and thigh behind it , and get it singing tight . Or perhaps it is a function of age and things not bending as they once did!!
I learned from Ken Demers,his theory was its hard to get the d-ring harness too tight,but do yourself a favor and get it tight enough so the yoke doesn’t fall off the pole , horses are forgiving and the more they feel you helping them the more they try and help you. Happy trails ! karl

[Carl Russell]

@karl t pfister 28181 wrote:

Carl I appreciate the photo and your explanation .When I use a White Horse cart I can get the whole picture to look similar ,and it gives one an appreciation for the D-ring design.
What I was trying to say is that the height of some carts puts the evener so low that it is difficult to get ones knee and thigh behind it , and get it singing tight . Or perhaps it is a function of age and things not bending as they once did!!
I learned from Ken Demers,his theory was its hard to get the d-ring harness too tight,but do yourself a favor and get it tight enough so the yoke doesn’t fall off the pole , horses are forgiving and the more they feel you helping them the more they try and help you. Happy trails ! karl

I was just meaning that the lower the evener the less power needed, and using the side of the shin/calf instead of the thigh can work just as easily.

Your point about tightness is absolutely correct. It DOESN’T need to be “singing tight”. Especially if everything is adjusted correctly, it only need to be tight enough to suspend the pole from the jack saddle. It shouldn’t require so much tension as to go beyond reason. If it does, I suspect something else need to be adjusted, or modified.

Carl

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