What did you do today?

[Nanno]

Cool photo! I too have driven horses both in teams and in a single hitch. I owned a horse carriage business for two years and conducted carriage rides around the historic downtown area in Lake City, CO. My horse harnesses have work collars, so I've never driven with team breast collar harnesses, but I've been thinking about how to fabricate a piece I can attach the yoke to that won't weigh down the goats' necks. The neck strap is fairly wide and sits right in front of the withers, which is the same place where a work collar rests. If I can hook a strap into that where it can't slide forward then I don't think the yoke will be too heavy for the goats. I could even make a pad for the neck strap if necessary. A properly fabricated yoke and pole should not weigh very much. I also need to make a pole strap that attaches from the yoke to the breeching. I can repurpose the holdback straps into quarter straps. I tried attaching my two goats by the ring on the breeching, but it didn't do any good because I don't have pole and quarter straps to hold the breeching in place when the goats decide to turn and face me. All they did was pull the breeching off! I'll get it sorted eventually. I have lots of scrap nylon and a good sewing machine. I'm sure I can fabricate something. I'll need to buy some hardware first, though.

I've been daydreaming about how I would design the "ultimate" harness. The stage coach harnesses I bought for my horse carriage business are awesome--they are fully convertible from a team harness into two complete single harnesses. If I could get the same harness in breast collar style for my goats I would! The only other thing I would do differently from that harness is that I would not have buckle-in hold down straps on the shaft loops. I would use wrap-around style hold downs so the shaft loops could be repurposed into trace carriers in the team set-up. The less spare parts and pieces floating around the better!