CUSTOM MADE HARNESS

Single Driving Harness

Standard Amish style, heavy duty harness. High quality all black leather harness. Lockstitch sewed throughout. Made in breast collar or hame style. Unlike most Amish style harness, you can order ours with side-check instead of overcheck bridle, with or without blinkers. Also, you can order ours with shaft-wrap or cart style tug loops instead of the standard carriage style tug loops. Most of our customers order shaft-wrap style because it is quite a bit more versatile and it does a much better job of stabilizing upward lifting of the shaft tips if you are hitching to a cart. New for 2003, our harness maker is making these harnesses with buckle and billet adjustment at the breast strap (on the breast strap style harness) and at the britchen uptugs. This replaces the conway buckle adjusters that were offered previously. We feel that this change greatly improves the look and function of these harnesses, and without a price increase! Also, these harnesses do include holdback straps, which are not shown on the illustrations below. We have our holdbacks made nice and long, so you've got plenty to get a good wrap around your shafts. We don't include the snaps on the ends of the reins that are shown in the picture, since you probably wouldn't want to use them anyway.

With breast collar
Price................................................................................................$480.00

With stainless steel hames, (specify length, price doesn’t include collar)
Price...............................................................................................$500.00

NEW HARNESS STYLE!

This new style for 2005 is going to be much more suitable for those who want to show their horses in combined driving events. This new version which doesn't replace the harness shown above, but is a separate new style we've developed to have some nice changes. The saddle on this new harness has a spring steel tree. It also has patent leather covering over the saddle. The browband of the bridle is fancier, with decorative brass chain attached, and the blinkers (if you want them) are covered in patent leather also. Bridle includes a caveson and caveson keeper attachments to the bit straps on the headstall. The back strap on this style of harness is upgraded from the conway buckle adjustment on the harness above. This harness has a regular belt buckle style buckle and extra spaced keepers to allow making of "brag loops" on short bodied horses. The uptugs on the britchen and on the breast strap are somewhat narrower, making more of a refined look for better presentation. This combined driving single driving harness will be priced $150 more than the harness shown above ($650.00). Also new for 2005, for a little more $, you can order this harness with buckle-in traces in either breast strap or hame style. Brass hames are also now available. Most customers will want to order this harness in black leather with brass fittings.

Collars

We sell high quality Broadhead Collars. We buy them in enough quantity to get a great wholesale price, and pass them along to our customers at usually significant savings compared to buying them elsewhere. We offer all kinds of collars in every imaginable size and a few different materials that affect price. It’s best when ordering collars to call and describe your needs. We can give you a quote for the collar you need, shipped direct to you. Allow a couple of weeks for delivery.

Advantages of Leather

Leather is the traditionalist’s favorite. If your picture of the ideal team somehow looks less than perfect when you see they are wearing a synthetic product, you’d better go with leather. Many of our friends are just romantic enough that they can’t stomach the idea of anything but this traditional material on their horses. The song “Don’t Give Me No Plastic Saddle” pretty well explains it for them. If you are such a person, the smell you experience when walking into the tack room after getting this harness is reason enough to buy it. Leather is a renewable resource raised by farmers and ranchers, and we very much encourage buying this material.

Ådvantages of Bio-Plastic

Believe it or not, my independent survey of what Amish people are using for harness nowadays suggests that more than half of them are using bio-plastic or nylon. It is: stronger than leather (more than twice as strong); lighter than leather; easier to clean (wipe off with a clean damp rag, or use soap if it is really dirty); lasts longer; doesn’t require oiling and all the attendant mess.

Ideally, leather harness should be oiled at least twice per year: more often is better. When you oil leather harness, you discover the principle that “oil collects dust”. Your next discovery is that oiled leather wipes off with a clean rag (and clean shirt, clean jacket, pants, hands, etc). New leather tends to get stiff like strap steel in severe cold weather, while bio-plastic is resistant to such stiffening.

Harness Ordering

If you can afford to wait about three weeks (our normal harness order time frame - this may get longer during the pre-Çhristmas season) for a new harness, then why not order a harness that is custom-made for your horse? Just call or send in the order form with your horse(s) measurements, and we’ll make sure our harness makers make a harness that fits your horse exactly.

Harness Measurement