draft tandem

[youngwhip]

my clydes have been driven tandem, and so have I, I just haven’t done it with my own horses. I’ve not been able to see clearly in photos where to attach things for them, and I don’t know how far the leader should be and all that. Can anyone help me out? I need to get tandem lines made. My harness guy needs to know how long they should be.

I’ve seen people that just used a carabeener and attached the heel chains of the leader to the lower loops of the hames (where the pole strap goes) of the wheeler. I’ve seen chain extensions and then attaching them to the cart, or the pulley idea on the cart’s whippletree. I just want to keep it simple.

[youngwhip]

The rules say the leader’s traces must be attached behind the wheeler’s girth and not to their hames. If I put carabeeners on the first link of the wheelers chain and pass through the trace carriers I should be a be to connect those to the leader, ya? Will I need some sort of carriers further forward on the wheeler? Any idea how long the chain extensions would need to be? And leader driving line length?

[Chewbacca]

I really don’t know anything much about tandem, but I would imagine on a draft, you would want a tandem bar? Although, I also don’t know anything about full collar harnesses, so I would have no idea how to attach a tandem bar/leader bar to your wheeler.

With the miniature horses (lol, a LOOOOOoooooong way off from drafts, haha ha!) that I drive tandem, I have a set of trace extensions that are 14" long attached to my wheeler’s breast collar, at the shoulders, where the traces would buckle in.

the 14" of space between them, plus the length at the end of the traces gives what I think is the perfect space between them. When they are both working properly and in pace, the traces to the leader are slack, there’s about maybe 18" of room between the horses, and everything “jives” really well.

When they don’t work properly, and my wheeler slacks off, the leader ends up too far in front and pulls the traces taught, and there’s ton of distance between them. Or, on the opposite end of it, if my leader for some reason backs off (rarely happens), the horses get smushed together and my wheeler can (and has) gotten her leg over the leader’s traces. One good reason why a leader bar would work in my situation, so that hopefully wouldn’t happen, but I don’t have a good way to attach one.

Are you planning to show the draft tandem?

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