editor's note: this is the third installment of our special supplement from Lynn Miller. View Part II here.
Next the harness: With no exceptions, each regular member of the working lineup has his or her own harness and collar. Today all the horses in the barn are mature and have worked long enough that I do not expect significant changes, day-to-day, in their collar fit. Sometimes, fat horses early in the working season will go down one to three collar sizes (inches) within a month to month and a half of hard work. Their necks carry a significant percentage of excess weight and as they sweat and work off that weight, the neck becomes thinner and shorter in depth.
There are many aspects of the harness horse system which are important, even critical. The fit of the collar rises to the top of that list. I pay more attention at the beginning of the season, but even now I frequently check to see how my collars are fitting. I want a perfect fit. If the collar is too tight, it will choke the horse down as he pulls and he'll quit from lack of breath. If, on the other hand, the collar is too loose (by a little or by a lot) the horse may continue working and you won't discover a problem until a sore has formed and the horse is in pain when it pulls. The damage from ill-fitting collars comes, 90% of the time, from the collar that is too loose. And it can be tricky because, sometimes, a collar may look and feel on the standing horse to fit perfectly YET when that horse pushes forward it gets either too big or too tight. When I find a collar that fits my horse I make sure I remember where I put it because it's the first one I want to return to when I harness up.
I've decided that this morning I will be working the two teams of mares first. The plan is to take the young ones out and open a hay land (in our case a strip 150' wide by a quarter mile long). I'll be going through a low area where there might be some standing water and tough mowing. These girls, I know, will keep the pace exactly where I want it, when I want it. The evening before, on the better mower, I sharpened the sickle, hit the grease zercs and filled the oil jug. It's ready. But I'm off the subject, back to the job at hand, harnessing...
In the tack room I get down their two collars, each with sweat pads fastened in. I run the flat of my hand over the inside of each sweat pad feeling for anything sharp or aggravating. I take one collar in the stall along the left side of the left horse. Leaving the collar fastened, I unsnap the mare's stall chain and slip the collar, right side up, past her head and down over her neck into place, careful to pull mane hair out of the way of the top seat of the collar. Then I fasten her chain back up. During this whole procedure this mare stands quietly and accepting, pausing from eating just long enough for me to do my job. I have known horses who would never put up with having the collar go over the head. I didn't raise and train them. Someone else did. And somewhere along the line they decided, out of fear or obstinance, that no one was ever going to put a collar over their head. In those cases, I unbuckle the collar and push it up from the underside of the neck and refasten it topside, a procedure that is perhaps the safest bet for beginners but adds a half minute to my chores. And I like streamlining the process as much as possible. (I chuckle to myself realizing again that I seldom follow the rules and guidelines I have long given out to students at my workshops.)
Next mare gets her collar on same way, nice and quiet, over the head.
I return to the tack room where the harness is hanging on two big spikes driven head high in the wall. I pull down the brichen assembly from the one spike, put it up on my right shoulder and run my right arm under it and down the underside middle of the harness 'til I grab low the right side hame in that same hand. Left hand takes the left hame about in the middle.
All the miscellaneous straps, lines, bridle etc. have been attached, hung, tied, or fastened in such a way as to make my carrying the harness as uncomplicated as possible. And I do it the same way each time I remove a harness. It's very easy for me to tell when someone else has been dealing with my harness because things are out of place. When everything is in the place I want, this harnessing process goes quick and easy.
I carry the harness out and approach the stabled mare from behind. "Get over honey," is my command. She should step to the right and up near her teammate instantly, but she doesn't this morning. "Get over!" I say with more emphasis, and she complies. Walking up on her left side, I lift the right hame high, pointing its bottom skyward, while pushing it and the harness up on her back. The hames go forward to seat in the rib-lined groove of the collar, with the connecting top hame strap at center top of the collar. Backing away slightly, I push each section of the harness, from off my shoulder and arm, up onto the waiting horse's back. Now it sits in a somewhat organized tangle atop the mare. Moving forward in the stall I ask her to back up and I pull the two hames to their seated positions on the collar. I'm careful at this point to see if I have accidentally put a line or harness piece in under the hames. And I am also looking to make sure that the hames are properly positioned. They need to be equal on both sides, with the tug clip centered over the reinforced draft point of the collar. Everything is right, so I thread and tighten and buckle on the bottom hame strap.
The breast strap/pole strap assembly I prefer is removable, which means it fastens on both ends via heavy snaps. Its hanging fastened on the left side, so that when I throw the harness over the waiting horse, there is one less piece to concern myself with. At this point in the process I snap the right side of the breast strap to the bottom hame ring of the right hame. I leave the pole strap to hang for a second while I go back pulling and straightening the harness, gathering the brichen back over and under the tail. I check to see if the belly band in hanging straight down from the tug on the right side. Now I go forward, gather the pole strap between the front legs while reaching under for the belly band. The belly band goes over the pole strap and buckles in loose. Hanging from the two ends of the brichen are adjustable quarter straps with snaps on the ends. I fasten these to the ring at the end of the pole strap. My horse is harnessed.
Copyright © 2004 Lynn R. Miller. Work Horse Handbook second edition, Lynn R. Miller.
