Hi all, and hope you’re having a good winter so far Without too many challenges. I have a couple of questions for you, I’m hoping you more experienced folks can help me with.
I am pretty confident my collar and harness fits well, And even got some verification from the folks at horse progress days while the horses were working. All seemed to be in good shape. For most of the year, I don’t have any issue. However, once our winter carriage and wagon season begins, each year I have two spots on my horses that wind up irritated and can’t figure out why or how to prevent it.
First, the breeching rubs the hair down to the skin. I have been controlling it by applying duct tape to that area once it starts—a bandaid cover of sorts to stop the friction. Obviously this is just an extra step I’d rather not take. My theory is that we have a lot of hills in our area, and even with the help of my hydraulic brakes, the horses still wind up having a lot of loaded pressure on the rumps during the downhill over the course of the season. We did roughly 500 miles from late September to New Year’s. I make small adjustments to the hip straps over the course of the season, just to try to spread out where the pressure is, but if I go up much higher, the rubs are worse due to the point of rump, and if I go lower, there can be too much pressure applied to the back of the leg. So I work within that safe breeching zone. Have any of you had this problem and how did you fix it? Would a pad work? It seems like that would be too bulky.
Second, and more concerning is my collars. Again, the rest of the year we have no issues. My collars are custom ordered to fit the individual horse, and most use pads as well. This year I had a heavier horse with no pad, and a lighter horse with a pad. They both developed the issue Of a tender area right at the top of the neck under the collar, starting about 2/3 through our season (roughly 400 miles in). There doesn’t seem to be any movement of the collar, so I am fairly confident on the fit itself. There were no signs of any sores, and in fact, the hair did not even rub off or break much as I’ve had happen on horses in the past. However, whenever the tongue would apply pressure during the downhill, I noticed the horses would start shaking their heads and acting up a little bit. It was like they were trying to shift the collar up and down. After the event, when I touched that area, you could tell it was tender. I applied liniment religiously after each event, and they seemed to be fine by the next day, with no obvious tenderness. But before the next event was over, they would be tossing their heads again, and the Process would repeat. Again, I had the exact same scenario with the horse that had no pad as with the horse that had a pad. I begin making minor adjustments to the Hame buckles, in an attempt to change where the pressure was applied, but this didn’t seem to help. I am clueless as to how to fix it, but would like to prevent it for next season. Any experience or thoughts as to how to fix this problem?
I am attaching a profile photo For reference of how harness is adjusted on the bigger horse with no collar pad.
