Critique of new harness setup and questions

[HoneyPie]

I received my new Ozark Mountain carriage harness the other day

and I hitched my gelding up on Tues. I didnt really drive him that day but took pics for review.



I was ground driving behind the cart in this pic. My gelding is 36 in and I was reading a previous post saying most "B" minis are usually in longer than 48 in shafts which these are. Is he took close to the basket? I have never had him bump it.







Alright now the questions! This day I just hitched up and drove behind the cart for pics. I snugged the breeching up on this day and he was his normal stoic self. The next day I hitched him up to drive and let the breeching out a little and headed out driving behind the cart (which I always do just to make sure everything is in order) and he seemed okay. I got in the cart and headed out and he was okay until I stopped him. He stopped, then lunged forward, then stopped and tried to reverse quickly ending with a small rear. At this point I stepped out of the cart and begin ground driving, each stop session was a repeat of stop,lunge,stop,back,fidget. I kept repeating the walk, stop, stand routine over and over until he finally stopped and stood quietly several times. I determined that the breeching might be the issue and snugged it up. His demeanor improved after that and I was finally able to drive in cart with him behaving like his typical well mannered self. How snug should the breeching be? His sets up firmly against his hauncehs and I can slip a hand in between but I feel like its always engaged! Do I keep it the way he likesor ground drive him with it looser until he accepts it? These pics were taken with the breeching where he prefers it. Also his other harness had a pad on the breastcollar pad should/can you pad a curved breastcollar?Thanks for all your help!

 

[shorthorsemom]

Hi, I am sure the more experienced folks will chime in soon, to my newbie eyes everything looks a bit low. Your collar, the britching and your tugs all look to be a bit low. It also looks like you could move the britching forward a bit so it isn't hanging so far back on his butt. Interested to see if anybody else thinks the same. I had leia critique my set up and I am still learning myself, so these are newbie trying her hand at a critique to see if my eyes are starting to be trained . I know for the breast collar, my instructor has me place it it above the point of the shoulder and when I first tacked up my guy I had my britching too far back and too low so your set up looks rather like one of my first hitchings. Thanks for the photos! Your guy is very cute! Adair

 

[Jules]

love seeing other peoples photos, I am learning so much this way - thanks for posting them!

shorthorsemom, that sounds like a pretty good critique think you are a bit more experienced than you give yorself credit for

Looking forward to seeing what everyone has to say

 

[HoneyPie]

I can't bring my breeching forward because that is the only place for it to loop thru on the strap from the saddle to the crupper. He is not a big butted boy but all breeching seems too small!! I thought I might need to lift it and my collar, the curved collar is new to me and determining where it should hit on the shoulder is a mystery to me! I fear if I lift my tugs the shafts will have to much uphill to them but I don't know. My other harness "looked right" when hooked up, I suppose this is going to require a lot of tweaking before its perfect.

 

[HoneyPie]

Shorthorsemom- Thank you for the critique and compliment on my gelding. I forgot that in above reply!!

 

[CZP1]

Cute pony! I am partial to appys! If you can bring everything up a hole or two. The breeching should have two fingers between the horse and you. As for the breastcollar, that needs to come up just above the shoulder but not to hinder the flow of his airpipe in front. Here is a great example if you don't have an instructor to help you.

Part 2
Hope that helps! Good luck!

 

[shorthorsemom]

I had to shorten the back strap on mine to bring the britching more forward. I had to let the crupper buckles out a notch too. I think your cart shafts are sticking past your boys shoulders a bit, not sure how to fix that, my shaft lengths are adjustable on my cart. My boy is still out a bit too far in my cart from the swing tree, but since he threw in a buck recently and got his leg over the shaft and kicked the crud out of everything my trainer wants him to stay out for just a bit longer. My boy is very chubby and my saddle still rides up too high on his withers and we are still trying to figure out how to make my new bucking strap work with my low cart shafts.

it is really important though I have learned to take a look at the hitch up every time you use it rather than try to memorize all the adjustments and hook using the exact same holes every time. In other words, today he might be more "fluffy" and might need a hole let down... I am learning to measure with my hands and look with my eyes each time i hook up. I still have much to learn. I get a swelled head when I totally tack up my boy solo and my instructor doesn't change anything...we just enter and go, feels great, also feels great when this forum does a critique and gives tips... gotta love this forum for that!! take care, happy driving.

 

[hobbyhorse23]

I had my whole reply written out this afternoon and went to look at one of your pictures more closely and the forum ate the whole thing!! Gah!!! :arg!

*sigh* Starting over....

Your smart boy was trying to tell you the right way to adjust the breeching. He's absolutely correct in insisting that you should only be able to get two or three fingers in between the breeching strap and his buttocks when the traces are tight; in fact if anything your breeching is still a little loose in those photos as the shaft tips have gone past his shoulders and the breeching should have stopped them at the point of the shoulder. Horses are much more comfortable with constant light touch around their hindquarters than getting goosed out of nowhere every time they stop. Many an accident has happened because an obedient horse tried to stop, the breeching smacked him in the butt, he leapt forward in startlement, the driver tells him to whoa, he tries and gets goosed again, leaps again, etc., and it ends in a runaway. You're lucky your boy listened!

It's hard to tell from your pictures if he's too close to the basket as it isn't shown, but from the first photo it looks like it's okay. If you let out your traces and set the shaft tips further back that will buy you a little more room as well as making it easier for him to turn. Can you get a set of 24" wheels for your cart? That will help it sit up higher behind him which will allow you to raise your tugs another notch without tipping your seat back and will give him that much more clearance behind his heels.

In general you have him put to very well but as is always the case when we first hitch up, there's a few little tweaks that need to be made to make everything perfect.

Starting at the front I'd say you should tighten his throatlatch a hole or two so that it will help prevent the bridle from being pulled off over his ears if he rubs. His breastcollar is a little bit low, you need to either punch more holes and tighten the neckstrap where it is or let it out and put it back over the checkhook. Normally I'm a fan of having the neckstrap in front of the withers on a carriage turnout but in this case it's a tiny bit small on him anyway so it might look better to have it back over the checkhook. That way having the neckstrap connect so far forward on each side looks intentional instead of like it's too small. Your saddle could be a smidge further back and needs to be padded to keep the bottom of the checkhook from pressing down onto his spine. The waffle pad Mini Express sells fits this saddle well, cleans easily and looks more professional than a fuzzy pad does. Your wrap straps are also a bit loose, they should be gently snug on a harness with breeching to keep the shafts from smacking up and down and to keep the outside shaft near the horse on a turn so the inside shaft doesn't dig into his shoulder. This is another case like the breeching where it's better to have it in gentle, flexible contact with the horse at all times then to have it too loose.

Tuck the end of the last wrap back through the cross-loop just as you did on the holdbacks to help secure it then buckle it behind his elbow. I was also going to recommend moving your hipstrap forward a notch, which is easy to do if you let out the crupper a hole and tighten up the backstrap instead. That should also raise your breeching a tiny bit which is fine but I wouldn't take up any additional holes in the hipstrap as I think that would take it too high. Right now you're getting a good line of draft by running the traces above the holdbacks but be aware when you get bigger wheels that it's traditionally correct to run the traces through the opening by the buckle of the holdbacks, i.e. not the wraps but the space between where the holdback goes under the shaft and where it comes back over the top and buckles in. That traps the trace so it can neither droop nor bulge upwards when you stop.

The goal with fitting a breastcollar whether curved or not is to get it as far as possible above the point of the shoulder without impeding the windpipe. Yes, your breeching is a tiny bit small on your boy but I think you'll find if you pull that hipstrap forward it will look a little better. It's fine to have the shafts uphill, the only problem you're going to have is it tipping the seat back but that's not too big a deal and larger wheels will fix the issue entirely.

Forgive me if any of this is incoherent or run-on, I'm way tired and having to rewrite this stole all the fun out of it!

Boo, because I love critiqueing (sp?). It's normally so much fun.

Leia

 

[New mini]

I am learning from this post as I am also new and am trying to adjust my first carriage. My last carriage did not have any adjustments. I have a question as I am not really following on terms used. Hobbyhorse you said that Honeypie is getting a good line of draft by running the traces above the holdbacks and if she gets larger wheels to run the traces through the openong by the buckle of the holdbacks. I have been taught to just run the traces back to the singletree. What I am reading is that you actually have your traces going through the loop created by the holdbacks (holdbacks being the strap going around the shaft by the tugs) Is this correct?

 

[hobbyhorse23]

I am learning from this post as I am also new and am trying to adjust my first carriage. My last carriage did not have any adjustments. I have a question as I am not really following on terms used. Hobbyhorse you said that Honeypie is getting a good line of draft by running the traces above the holdbacks and if she gets larger wheels to run the traces through the openong by the buckle of the holdbacks. I have been taught to just run the traces back to the singletree. What I am reading is that you actually have your traces going through the loop created by the holdbacks (holdbacks being the strap going around the shaft by the tugs) Is this correct?

Sorry if I got a bit technical!

The holdbacks are the straps that go from the breeching to the footmans loops on the cart.

The ones that wrap around the tugs are called the wrap straps or overgirth, depending on what style of harness you have. Traditional correct hitching meant for British carriages that often had bent gig shafts rather than our American straight/horizontal shafts would have the traces running unimpeded between the tug loop and the saddle then going through the opening in the holdbacks and back to the nice low singletree. That works very well with most traditional carriages! What's important though is that the traces run in a straight line without rubbing on any of your other equipment or pulling things out of place and it's been my experience that with EE carts running your traces "correctly" tends to pull the front of your breeching up which makes the back tip down and causes all sorts of ugly problems. I often find myself forced to run the traces above the holdbacks (this is with 33.5" horses for whom level shafts ride at least halfway up their sides) to avoid messing up my breeching but it isn't technically right.

I'm pretty sure at this point that my sleep-deprived mind said something backwards in my earlier post, but the important thing is that anyone harnessing be aware of the reasons for the rules so you can judge whether it's best to follow them in any particular instance or if that's actually going to cause more harm to your horse. In this case the very good reasons for running the traces through the holdbacks can be outweighed by the damage to either the line of draft (the ideally-uninterrupted angle at which the traces run from breastcollar to cart) or to the way the breeching lays by doing so. Just things to consider!

Leia

 

[shorthorsemom]

whoo hoo Leia, thanks! another harness training lesson for us by the hobbyhorse. love it. You should do clinics.

My instructor is out of town, so we are doing other things right now and driving is on hold until she gets back. I need to get out on my feet and do some line driving. Since the wreck, I am getting full supervision again. Got my harness picked up after the repair of my wreck... I had the strap replaced, the tug repaired and another leather strap modified and the cost was a staggering $13. I kept saying, "are you sure thats all you are charging?" Love my master amish leather guy!!!

My trainer wanted me to ask you "how tight for the bucking strap" How many fingers "give", she knows how to adjust for the biggies, but never used the bucking strap for her minis and knows that some of the translation from biggie measurements is different for minis, such as the measurement for the britching being one to two fingers for the minis. Input on how to set the bucking strap to my aerocrown would be appreciated...

Since I started to try to develop my "eye" for harness critique, I have felt sorry for some of the amish driving horses locally that have britching touching their hocks, and breast plates set too low. Its a wonder they can pull comfortably at all. Not all amish do this, not trying to create a comment thread going there or anything... just seeing many horses that can be helped by better fit to their harness parts. cheers, Adair

 

[HoneyPie]

CZP1-Very informative video! Thank you for posting. I like how he explains why things are done. I wish somebody would do a video like that with a mini.

Hobbyhorse23- I will make the adjustments and try to take pics this afternoon (if it stops raining) or tomarrow. Please come back and re-evaluate the photos. On the neckstrap to checkhook, when I do that it rolls the upper edge of the collar into his chest. After I raise it up it might solve this problem though. Thank you!

 

[CZP1]

You're welcome Honeypie!! Keep us posted on your progress.