Chat
06-29-2016, 01:27 PM
Lazy straps are what I call the pieces that buckle to the rings on the britchen and hold the traces up on a heavy working harness. I had them on my stage coach harnesses when I did the carriage business.
I used stay chains on both sides as a safety device so that it would be impossible for my horses to get severely uneven in a runaway situation. It was recommended by Steve Bowers in the book I read on learning how to hitch and drive. He says if one horse spooks and suddenly lunges ahead, you lose rein control over the other, and pretty soon they are both plunging and see-sawing which causes the situation to escalate very quickly. Stay chains prevent this since neither horse can get far enough ahead of the other to make you lose control. I figured since I was a complete novice teamster and my horses had never pulled, it would be in my best interest to utilize as many safety devices as possible in case of accidents or emergencies. The stay chains on my horse hitch were never used, but they were there "just in case." I also chained the yoke ring to the stop on the pole so that if, say, a trace came unhooked, the pole would not be able to drop out of the yoke. Because if that happens you have no steering or brakes at all! But most people don't chain the yoke to the pole for some reason even though it seems like having an "emergency brake" is a really super idea!
So on the subject of spreaders, I have read that their main purpose is to allow the horses (or goats in my situation) to "float" in the traces and drift further apart and turn their heads more. I never used them with my horse hitch. I always just figured I should adjust my stub lines so that the critters would be positioned in the middle of their traces when properly aligned on the bit (or halter) when their heads were facing forward. So my question is, if I were to use spreaders, how would this affect the length of my stub lines?
I used stay chains on both sides as a safety device so that it would be impossible for my horses to get severely uneven in a runaway situation. It was recommended by Steve Bowers in the book I read on learning how to hitch and drive. He says if one horse spooks and suddenly lunges ahead, you lose rein control over the other, and pretty soon they are both plunging and see-sawing which causes the situation to escalate very quickly. Stay chains prevent this since neither horse can get far enough ahead of the other to make you lose control. I figured since I was a complete novice teamster and my horses had never pulled, it would be in my best interest to utilize as many safety devices as possible in case of accidents or emergencies. The stay chains on my horse hitch were never used, but they were there "just in case." I also chained the yoke ring to the stop on the pole so that if, say, a trace came unhooked, the pole would not be able to drop out of the yoke. Because if that happens you have no steering or brakes at all! But most people don't chain the yoke to the pole for some reason even though it seems like having an "emergency brake" is a really super idea!
So on the subject of spreaders, I have read that their main purpose is to allow the horses (or goats in my situation) to "float" in the traces and drift further apart and turn their heads more. I never used them with my horse hitch. I always just figured I should adjust my stub lines so that the critters would be positioned in the middle of their traces when properly aligned on the bit (or halter) when their heads were facing forward. So my question is, if I were to use spreaders, how would this affect the length of my stub lines?