Rural Heritage June/July 2026

On a D-ring harness, the front side straps carry the weight of the front of the tongue, running from the neck yoke to the "D" ring. The photo on the left shows the strap before it is tightened. The strap running from the collar to the neck yoke is designed to keep the side strap in place, but here it is sharing the weight of the pole. The photo on the right shows the side strap tightened to take up the weight of the pole so the other strap becomes slack. Donn will loosen these side straps when unhooking before doing anything else, to reduce the tension throughout the hitch, making it easier to unhook the traces.

from memory ( i.e. I always use four links) might be OK, but in public, double check the tension every time you hook up. One problem folks may encounter is, with a light vehicle that wants to move forward and back easily, it is not always easy to tell how tight the tugs are. To correctly test the length of our traces we would like the vehicle to NOT roll easily. This can be accomplished in many ways. If there is a brake, set it or have someone hold it. Use wheel chocks in front and behind a tire. If the vehicle is heavy enough or on flat enough ground, it will stay still on its own. Now ask the horses to gently move forward and back. When they lean back, how much do the traces hang down? How loose are they? If the traces remain tight while the horses are pushing back, that is too tight for a Western Britchen type harness; loosen them one or two links until they are not tight when the horses lean back. You probably noticed they were tight while you were hooking them up, too. If you are on the last link and they are tight, the tongue is too long. Don’t try to fix this by adjusting the pole strap or quarter straps. That is not what they are for. The greater problem (and more common) is when they are too loose. Again, with the horse

leaning back, if your traces are hanging down in a long curve from horse to evener, they are too loose. Reduce the number of links being used until the traces are straight but not too tight. You can double check this when the horses lean forward in the traces. With traces tight, the pole strap and quarter straps should not hang down more than a couple inches away from the belly, and the yoke should still be well seated back against the stop under the tongue. The yoke should not be rocking forward or halfway off already. Also, with the horses forward in the traces you should easily be able to put your fingers under the britchen, but the britchen should not pull away to create a gap of more than an inch. Often what happens is the team or the harness don’t match the length of the tongue from evener to the neck yoke. You don’t fix this by lengthening or shortening the pole straps or quarter straps of your harness. They have already been adjusted to correctly fit the horse. If the team doesn’t fit the pole, you need to correct the pole, and this is another place where folks get into trouble. You can’t easily fix the length of the pole in the moment, and you want to use the vehicle and team anyway. Don’t hook and drive the team if there is too much play.

Rural Heritage

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