Short Tug breast collars vs Long Tug breast collars?
What is the difference?
I am looking for a set of small pony biothane Pairs harness,
(that won’t break my piggybank) & I
don’t understand what the difference is between short tug
& long tug (besides price differences)
Anyone care to enlighten me?
Thanks,
J
I wonder if short tug refers to buckle in traces and long tug are sewn in traces? (Since some people call traces tugs)
it has noting to do with sewn in traces
I know on a full collar the long tug is the length of connection from the HAMES to TRACE
Im not so familiar with PAIR harness
Long tugs are for Pairs only, since their harness won’t carry loops for the shafts.
Long tugs on both full neck collars and breast collars come back to the saddle, have the support strap under terret come down and buckle into the top of long tug holding it up in place. This puts the trace buckle at the harness saddle. Strap on bottom edge of long tug buckles into the overgirth. Using these extra buckles and straps, helps secure the long tugs into place, not flopping around while horses are in motion.
Short tugs have no buckles or strap on the top or lower edges by the trace buckles. Short tug trace buckles end ahead of the saddle so they are more out of the way for use with shafts of a single horse. The trace length is unsupported at the harness saddle of a single horse.
You can use either short or long tugs on a neck collar of a Pair, though long tugs are considered slightly “more correct” for Pleasure Driving if things were VERY tight between two competitors. Quite a few folks use short tugs on their Pairs, but you need the additional pieces to finish modifying your single harnesses to work on a Pair. These would include the slot loops to carry traces at the saddle, they would replace the shaft loops on saddle. You would also need to modify the breeching straps to work as quarter straps or go to Yankee Breeching if you need breeching for a vehicle with no brakes on it.
Using short tug (single horse style) breast collars on a Pair is always up for discussion. Yes it can be done, but there are issues to be considered. Single horse breast collars are not made as heavily, have narrower straps across the shoulders, no support strap down to the chest D-rings, usually not as heavily padded to spread out the load behind them. Single horse style breast collars won’t usually have the D-rings for pole straps, may not be built to hold those D-rings if you have them added, so equines can’t stop their load or control the pole.
We have always used long tugs on our Marathon type breast collars, to insure horses don’t loose control of their load, are VERY comfortable in their work, if we should be giving rides to family or hauling the vehicle thru mud uphill with a lot of force. Straps are wider than single horse straps, added buckles, neck support straps help better keep things in place. Even with ponies, Pairs harness is usually made more substantial than single pony harness.
A Pair harness is an entire harness system, so each part works with and supports the other parts as the horses get used. Changing some parts, not keeping strengths needed in parts, may remove those things needed to keep all parts working as needed. Things to look for are quality hardware, no light wire tongues on the buckles. No brass tongues in buckles. Tongues need to be steel, strong enough to take the force of a horse or pony working hard without pulling thru the buckle or bending, to keep strapping and traces buckled up. Failure of the buckle tongues will cause wrecks, so this is VERY important in building harness safely.
[QUOTE=Drive NJ;8170676]
it has noting to do with sewn in traces
I know on a full collar the long tug is the length of connection from the HAMES to TRACE
Im not so familiar with PAIR harness[/QUOTE]
I didn’t think it did, but I’m only familiar with the short tugs on the hames of my single harness and had never heard the term used to refer to breastcollar harness. So my comment was literally a shot in the dark guess, haha!
What a great description! Thank you goodhors - that explains what I couldn’t figure out! I think I understand now!
J
