Rural Heritage June/July 2026

What to do with the lines? Now that you are correctly hooked, you can take the lines and take the seat. Enjoy the ride! How to unhook. To unhook is basically undoing everything in the reverse order. You always unhook traces before the yoke. It would be an easy mistake to make, but imagine for a moment a team of horses all hooked up on the evener with the pole laying on the ground. If they take one step, that will likely be a very bad accident. Then proceed to disconnecting the yoke. Manage your lines as before, and don’t leave anyone sitting on the wagon while you unhook! What about the D-ring Harness? In this article, I have focused on the Western britchen type harness, which I used for many years before switching to the New England D-ring type harness. The reason I concentrated on this harness is because it is by far the most common work, show, or wagon ride harness in use in North America. While a side backer harness has some different parts and connection to the yoke, the steps to hooking up are the same. The tension in the hitch should be the same and can be tested in the same way. There are only a couple differences when hooking a D-ring harness. First, yoke before traces is still the rule, no change there. The biggest difference is not in the steps but in choosing the correct tension in the hitch. D-ring harnesses rely on tension between the tugs on one end and the yoke on the other to hold the pole in the proper position, placing all its weight and motion on the horses’ backpads instead of their collars. Sometimes this can be hard to accomplish by pulling on the last trace. There are a few tricks to getting the last tug hooked when using a D-ring harness. One is to always back the vehicle against a block or wheel chock before unhooking and don’t point downhill. This will allow the horses to lean back and aid in hooking the last tug. I also used the inside of my knee on the end of the evener and a hand on the chain to lever them together. Today I use a method many farmers and loggers routinely use. We always loosen one side of the front side straps (on the left side of each horse, just for consistency) while unhooking, which loosens

the hitch and makes it easier to unhook. I do this as soon as I get off the vehicle and before I begin to unhook the traces (which includes more walking back and forth from back to front of the team). Despite going to the horses’ heads to loosen this strap, we still need to unhook traces before the yoke. When we are hooking up with a D-ring, we do the same steps to connect the yoke and hook all the traces to the right length. Then, with one extra step, I use the tightening of the front side straps to create the correct tension and raise the pole to the desired height. You can watch Donn go over these steps in detail on our YouTube video, “Hooking and Unhooking with Donn" on the Rural Heritage YouTube channel.

June/July 2026

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