New pony is hopefully going to help with light barn chores in addition to pleasure driving. Is a collar and hames ideal for actual pulling/work? What about the shaped breast collars? Do they work similar to a collar?
Style depends on your description of ‘work’ for the animal. You talked about a forecart, usually hitched with a neck collar harness. But what do you plan to attach behind? How long do you plan to work the animal pulling things?
Neck collar harness is a game of it’s own, keeping animal fitting their collar as they get fit, muscled up over being just grass plump. Preventing shoulder soring, burning the skin with weight of load. You can burn a horse is a really short time, 10 minutes or less, then will need to let him recover, a week or more as skin heals. Angle of traces from hames to singletree of vehicle makes a big difference in how efficiently animal is using power to move loads. Even with smaller loads weight wise, the constant pressure of neck collar can help or hinder the horse in work, sore him up.
Forecarts are notorious for being shaft heavy when hitched, some will balance in the tug loops with an attached load behind. You need a wide harness saddle, with a tree in it to prevent weight on animal spine (bony column) during work. Many draft style harness, work harness, do not have a saddle with a tree for those forecarts. All the weight of load is on the equine back and spine, which is NOT built for direct weight loads. Just because folks use those type no-tree saddles with forecarts, doesn’t make it right or efficient use of the animal.
Like weight in body building, it isn’t the amount you lift, it is how much and how many TIMES you lift that changes your body or just wears you out. Same with the animal pulling loads, small constant weight behind can be very tiring, hard on shoulders with incorrectly sized or fitted neck collars.
I was told (and it makes sense) that a forecast is not really built to be super balanced and is mainly intended to be used at the walk. Hitching one up to my horse made it apparent. The fit of a collar and correct adjustment of the traces is also critical to preventing soreness…and as you increase toward the total weight limit your horse can pull, it’s more and more sensitive. A big heavy horse can tolerate a bit more imbalance than a lighter horse for whom the set up approaches their pulling limit.
Just what the teamsters told me. You don’t want to drag down your heavy horse either, but there will be a BIT more tolerance to the higher shaft weight and the slight imbalances caused by the drag on, say, a plow.
I asked the teamsters specifically about the French collars and the shaped CDE breast collar things. They looked well-designed to me. My question was met with definitive eye rolls from all the people who farm with their horses. “Just buy a good collar that fits and use hames.”
I know that over loading minis is a serious concern.
She would just be hauling manure to the manure pile and possibly (2) square bales from the stack to in front of the pens and other random hauls. Nothing heavier than I could pull and would be about 5 mins a time loaded. Thinking loads similar to what a big wheelbarrow could hold.
Another consideration though, is that the haul to the manure is mostly a slight downhill slope. How to I take that into consideration when harness shopping?
My other harness has a partial saddle, and was planning on the same sort of thing. No pressure on the spine and the tugs can slide a bit side to side.
Is there an option other than a forecart that I could make use of to haul manure/bales?
(she isn’t a mini, she is a small pony)
I wouldn’t use a forecart to haul those things. It’s meant to go in front of an implement, like a harrows.
A wagon is meant to haul a load and is much easier to pull.
I’ve only dabbled in driving so take what I’m going to say with a block of salt. 
The new cde type of fitted breast collars are really nice and you can get a good fit with the way they adjust. They should be fine with the light “work” you are looking to do. I’ve seen some very poorly fitted hames at the local farming shows. I don’t know how some of those horses can pull with the collars halfway up their neck.
I hope we get to see pictures of your new pony!
My pony hauled manure tubs to the manure pile during last winter for us when we had no other way to get there. We just used a regular harness with a standard breast collar and he did fine. In fact I bought a very inexpensive nylon harness for the job so the snow and wet wouldn’t wreck it. He did not work too hard, maybe ten minutes at a time. The load was light, one or two manure tubs that I could lift.
I hope you post some pony pics!
For the simple chore of hauling sand and gravel from the creek to my barn, I have thought of attaching a singletree to a thick black trailer mat. This would have the advantage of not rolling up on the horse when going downhill.
I haven’t done this yet but will use a neck collar and traces because the line of draft would require it.
For the simple chore of hauling sand and gravel from the creek to my barn, I have thought of attaching a singletree to a thick black trailer mat. This would have the advantage of not rolling up on the horse when going downhill.
I haven’t done this yet but will use a neck collar and traces because the line of draft would require it.
[QUOTE=Gestalt;8383848]
I’ve only dabbled in driving so take what I’m going to say with a block of salt.
The new cde type of fitted breast collars are really nice and you can get a good fit with the way they adjust. They should be fine with the light “work” you are looking to do. I’ve seen some very poorly fitted hames at the local farming shows. I don’t know how some of those horses can pull with the collars halfway up their neck.
I hope we get to see pictures of your new pony! :)[/QUOTE]
I don’t even really dabble yet, but I did take a clinic with all these teamsters/farmers and one of my goals for my horse is to do some farm work (harrowing and plowing. ) I asked a lot of questions about this.
The teamsters I talked to were quick to tell me that there are plenty of “bad” examples to look at with collars. They pointed out draft shows as a great place to look for over sized parade collars. There’s no excuse for a sored horse, burned under the collar or sour…they said that if you’ve got that happening, it’s almost certainly equipment fit. These were teamsters who use horses to put up sections worth of hay every year… and take pride in the fact that they’ve never had a white hair or sour horse. They seemed to know what they were about. Their main concept was “buy equipment to fit the horse” …don’t try to make the horse fit the equipment.
A well fitted collar is very nice thing! You can see how it distributes the load along the big muscles of shoulder/neck and gives the horse something to push against. Line of draft is also a consideration with a load.
The trainer who just took my draft x mare does CDE driving, he much prefers using collars on her type of horse (he drives a team with a really similar build.) Maybe the preference is strong because of how the big horses are typically built? My mare is tricky to fit a breastcollar to, it needs to have quite a “swoop” to accommodate her low set neck and still leave the shoulder free.
It is my opinion if you are going to actually pull anything with any weight that you should have a collar harness, it just does such a superior job of putting the weight against the shoulder compared to a breast collar harness. to me the two advantages of breast collar harness are that it is cheap and light. neither of these factors are significant enough for me to use breast collar harness, but for you they might be
fitting collars is not rocket science, proper fit is important but you can also use collar pads full and top, as well as adjustable collars(which i hate) and be able to accommodate up to 6" change in collar size, ie an adjustable 25-27 with a full pad and collar pad can fit a horse that goes in a 23. not optimal but doable.
The biggest problem people tend to make when fitting a collar is leaving too much room, so they can as they say make the horse comfortable. It is better to choke the horse than to have too much room, because then the collar moves and makes the horse sore. you should be able to just barely get your hand in the bottom of the collar flat.
As far as line of draft is concerned anything that has shafts is probably going to have a very not correct line of draft, even a forecart so it is a non issue. Make sure you drive in a fore cart before you buy one, The ride is normally awful, they are heavy and noisy, my opinion is that they are about the worst vehicle shy of a sled but then again that is my opinion and many people swear by both.
Decided instead of forecart I am just getting shafts made that can connect to a snowmobile sled in winter, and a four wheel wagon in summer to help with chores. Something she can pull while I lead her. I do think I want to eventually get a collar, but will wait until she is fit and less hairy to make fitting easier. I just kind of like how a collar looks.
Call me crazy but leading a horse pulling something is not safe, you should have a bit and lines because you have very little control with just a lead.
Yes, I guess leading was not accurate. more like driving from the side. But she is tiny, so pretty sure with a lead I would still be ok.
For serious work, I have always used a work collar (as opposed to a buggy collar). And work hames.
[QUOTE=Stonewall;8384716]
For the simple chore of hauling sand and gravel from the creek to my barn, I have thought of attaching a singletree to a thick black trailer mat. This would have the advantage of not rolling up on the horse when going downhill.
I haven’t done this yet but will use a neck collar and traces because the line of draft would require it.[/QUOTE]
Somehow I missed this when it got posted.
I really don’t think using a rubber mat will work for hauling stuff. Firstly the rubber is not made to be pulled on, it rips off the rest of the mat. It is designed as a cushion, not going to hold up to pulling especially when weighted with dirt on it. I would not expect to arrive at my destination point with much of the dirt still on the mat. With no edges, undulating ground surfaces, not a road, the dirt or gravel will probably roll off the sides during the trip.
You might consider making a sledge type vehicle, for hauling your dirt with. I saw an older person using a car hood, upside down, to move hay, dirt, manure, with a single light horse. Loads were not large, hood has a LOT of contact with the ground for extra ‘drag’ effect. However it didn’t get hung up on lumps and bumps in the ground either, sort of spanning them in going forward.
You probably should rig some kind of bolted on ‘pulling point’ to attach the singletree to for pulling a car hood from. But the front is usually already curved a bit on hoods, so like a sled, it is above the ground to not catch on things you are crossing.
Make sure to have LONG reins for this kind of set-up, length gets you off to the side so you don’t get run over by the sledge with load going places. If the ground gets too slippery going over it time and again, you could attach a car tire dragging on the back of hood sledge separately, to add more drag, so equine is constantly in draft uphill and down, loaded or not. Helps keep the sledge under control better.
You will want hip straps supporting your traces, to keep them out of legs of equine in work. Sometimes a horse can get a leg over traces, SHOULD stop and wait to be fixed when you tell them WHOA, if you have practiced this during training. Other horses never learned this so they will over react to a leg with trace rubbing the inside, get into trouble. So best to have traces run higher, able to be above a possible prancy step that could get leg over the trace.
For collar use in work, you need to take the horse shoulder build into consideration. What makes an efficient working draft horse is not what shoulder set up you find on a LOT of ponies and riding horses.
A nice gaited riding horse tends to have a more sloping shoulder, laid back as they say, to give those comfortable gaits. This is not really helpful in pulling with a full collar, since the angle of collar on shoulder is not working with the load behind the equine. Minis do not have any room for mistakes, no distance for ‘almost’ fitting, over perfect fit in full collars.
Draft horses, breeds known for Driving skills like Hackneys, have a much more upright shoulder angle. They are EASY to fit, angle of draft-to-load is much better with the full collar. Their shoulder presents almost perfectly to inside surface of full collars for contact. In work there is no collar movement during work, rocking from top to bottom, just by having the proper shoulder conformation on those kinds of horses. Many of these breeds are not that comfortable under saddle with such an upright shoulder.
So no really ‘perfect’ choice in harness, it always “depends” on loads being moved, how the equine you plan to use is built.
We have used both full collars and breast collars on our horses, same breed horses, usually even the same horses for both. Sometimes they like the full collars better and other times they went better in breast collars during a year. Vehicles were wheeled, but the weight required on both Pair and Fours carriage for FEI CDE is substantial, so animals WERE working to go the distances in time required and recover quickly.
In horsey history work horses wore collars.
You do know how to put one on correctly, right?
