Rural Heritage June/July 2026

equipment creates the chance for tripping and is a really bad idea with horses half hooked. There is no way I know of to keep the lines in your hands and get from one side of the team to the other short of walking around behind the vehicle and that won't work every time with every vehicle. Step 4. Hooking Up the Traces — Side Two. Now that you are there, hook the second horse the same as the first; inside tug and then the outside, with the same number of links. What to do with the lines? Now that the horses are hooked, you can take the lines with you. If you need to go to the horses’ heads to check if

the hitch is correct, you can keep them with you. When my horses are standing and I step to their heads, I usually hang the lines up on the hames as I go by and retrieve them as I return from the head of the horses. I wouldn’t be as quick to hang the lines up whenever I want if I was away from home and out in public, but it is what I do on the farm every day. Step 5. Getting the length of the traces right. Hooked is hooked right? Wrong! You're not hooked up to a vehicle and ready to go anywhere until you check to make sure you have the number of links of the trace chain connected. On the farm working

Hooking the last trace, Donn pushes and holds the end of the singletree in position with his leg to tighten all the traces as the doubletree equalizes the tension on all the traces.

June/July 2026

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