Mule Days was two weekends ago in Columbia, TN. As per the norm, we loaded up the pups and went. For those of you who don't know about Mule Days, it is a huge event with, if I had to guess, close 500-600 equine in the parade on Saturday. It is a week long wagon train that ends up in Columbia, then there is a show, a pull, some log loading competitions, funnel cakes, fresh squeezed lemonaid,..... you get the picture. Anyway, I've gone for the last 3 years and over the course of that time, my knowledge of drafts have increased 3,653%. All this rambling brings me to a question, of course. I noticed that a lot of the tugs did not pull in a straight line. Often times, the lazy strap held the tugs up, causing them to "break" at about a 10-20 degree angle. Does this help put downward pressure on the ass end (no pun intended) so they have more traction on asphalt? or, Do a whole lotta people not know how to harness?

The tugs do not improve traction. Good observation, Jeremy, I think you can answer your last question for yourself. Often it is just an omission to adjust the length of the lazy straps correctly.

Line of draft escapes most today due to the lack of real hard daily work. We are always working on the very issue to get maximum performance out of our horses and equipment. We feel very strongly, that if we can improve machinery to the point of maximum efficiency folks can do more with less horses there by freeing up space on the farm for other critters they can eat! It also requires and efficient horse(s) to match the equipment.

Jeremy...how did we miss you? We pulled into the park on Sat., March 29th and headed home on Sun., April 6th...I rode that big spotted mule of mine in the parade...Jordan was on his Paso Fino mule...we were told the estimated number of folks involved this year was about 350,000!!! We've been going 19 years and I think it was the largest bunch we've ever seen!! The weather this year was wonderful, except of course, early Friday morning (4am), the park was evacuated and housed at the high school, for "possible tornado activity"...always action at Mule Day!! Hope you're doing well and getting closer to your own hitch!!

A friend of mine invited me over to hook to his pulling sled yesterday because he was going to work his on it and wanted to see how mine would pull too. He wants me to go with him to some farm pulls this year since he is usually the only one with mules at them. Anyway I had unloaded mine and just finished harnessing them when he walked up and commented that he was glad I knew how to adjust a harness to fit right. He said most guys let the britchen hang way down, quarter straps too loose or too tight etc. We did have to lengthen my lazy straps and do some minor adjusting when we hooked to the sled as my mules have grown over the winter and I have been pulling wheeled vehicles lately but wasn't bad. He says too many people don't take the time to adjust them right. Not really an answer to your question but it came to mind after reading your post.

Never heard of your first reason, I'll go with your second thought, many do not know better.

Glad to hear you are having a good time and learning so much as well. Time well spent!

Having a kink at the lazy straps is hard on the hips and hard on the lazy straps as well. They aren't supposed to be load-bearing.

Has anyone ever done an experiment to really prove that a perfectly straight line of draft is important to developing maximum power? There was a video I saw recently (I thought it was Uncle Joe's TV show) where a Southern mule teamster was demonstrating what he called "plow gear," where the line of draft is intentionally broken by a back strap to adjust the height of a plow. There is no britchin on this style of harness, just a collar and traces held up by a back strap. He even was saying that a broken line improved his team's pull, since the trace was pulling at a better angle on the neck. Granted, his back straps were more forward than lazy straps are on a western harness, but his line was still broken. This type of setup was ultimately putting some weight on the animal's back and the trace line was definitely broken.

Here is the video I was talking about, where the teamster feel a broken line of draft takes weight off of the neck and is a good thing. It makes sense the way he describes it. About 15 minutes into this video:

Sometims you need the line of draft broken by the belly band like when you attemp to pull a log off a bank. JUst try to get it as correct as you can. This is why I'm not a fan of the rope eveners.

A kink at the girth is fine. An unbroken line is not exactly what you're going for. You want the trace to leave the hame at a 90 degree angle. You achieve this by anchoring it at the girth if need be. Then the height of your point of hitch isn't critical. You can hook low to the ground to drag a log or up a big higher to a wagon and that trace is still leaving the hame at a 90 degree angle because the back pad and/or belly band is keeping the angle.

Thanks for the answers, it's nice to be right. ;)

Sharon -
I meant to get a hold of you the week before so we could meet up. LIfe happens.
I tried to text you while sitting, watching the parade, but then realized all I have is your house phone. Didn't work so well. You ever get that wagon up and going? We should get together and chat after this busy stretch I'm having slows a little. Between work, the garden and hives, I'm not even sure what color my house is anymore. I haven't seen it in the daylight in weeks.

I'm not sure; but doesn't a properly fitted D-Ring harness solve many of these issues?

Yes, we have done alot of research/experimentation on line of draft and power.

Good video Charlie T. Interesting how they threw their heads back to keep the collar from sliding down when they were backing. Being poor is often the main ingredient to ingenuity. :) I guess I need to break out some trig books and decipher the increase/decrease of drag in various states of angle. I haven't worked drafts, but I have been around rigging on cranes and heavy equipment quite a bit. It seems to me that breaking the rigging would decrease power because not only would you be moving the load forward, you would also be picking the load up. Which, honestly, is my main concern with the D-ring harness. I don't know though, maybe that slight amount of difference in angle is irrelevant in the whole vista of things. I guess I'll go out in the yard and drag stuff around and see which is easier for me. Or, maybe I'll get my wife to do it so I can sit and take keen observations of the the process. Observation is important.

Well, for me it makes perfect sense for the back strap to pick up the traces a bit and relieve the neck of any down pressure. An equine's neck is not equipped to carry weight, but it's back we know works quite well at carrying weight. Weight carried further back on the britchin might not be as desirable, anatomically speaking. This is why I want to see a scientific, double-blind study with hundreds of animals comparing draft power and trace lines before I will believe anything on this subject for sure. :) But this is hard to pull off I know!