CHAPTER XVIII

HARNESS

The use of silver-plated instead of brass-plated harness for formal occasions, such as the show ring and park, is optional, but brass-plated harness is more suitable than silver-plated for informal occasions and for country driving.

The correct appointments for a woman’s trap in the show ring are given in a separate chapter, page 245. For other occasions the buckles, etc., may be either square or round, according to the owner’s fancy. Square buckles are more appropriate for formal occasions and perhaps for four-wheel traps; round buckles are rather for carts and sporting vehicles. There should be as little metal about the harness as practicable, and the ornaments should be confined to crests, engravings, or initials, which should be small and inconspicuous and placed only on the winkers, rosettes, face pieces, standing martingale, and pad. Breechings may be used for heavy traps, but are not suitable for light traps such as runabouts or for carts. They sometimes make a nervous horse kick, and in such cases they should, of course, be dispensed with. Kicking straps, as I have said elsewhere, should generally be used for a kicking horse both with four-wheel traps and with carts.

The harness should be made of the best quality of leather and hand sewn, and should always be kept soft and pliable, and never allowed to become hard or mildewed.

Russet harness is perfectly correct for informal country driving and with runabouts or any kind of light country trap, whether two or four wheeled, particularly with traps finished in natural wood.

For all heavy traps, whether four or two wheeled, collars and harness should be used, and it is essential that the collar should fit the horse. In fact, it is most important that each horse in the stable should have his own collar, which should be carefully fitted to him by a competent harness-maker. Collars come in standard sizes, varying from 19 to 22 inches, and are made to fit by altering the stuffing. The Kay collar is the type generally used.

The weight of the harness is in proportion to the weight of the trap; for heavy traps, such as phaetons or dog-carts, the heaviest harness should be used, while with runabouts, basket phaetons, and light carts, lighter harness is correct.

For country use, and especially in summer with all kinds of light country traps, such as runabouts, Hempstead carts, and breaking carts, a Dutch collar is quite correct and is much more comfortable and cooler for the horse than a collar and hames. The Dutch collar, however, should not be used with any kind of a heavy or formal trap, as it is not so well adapted for pulling, nor does it look well with them.

The lining of the collar should be black for all except sporting carts, where russet lining looks very smart, though almost too sporty for a woman.

Driving reins for a woman should be thinner and lighter than for a man, and should be very pliable for the same reasons, as I have explained on page 145, that apply to riding reins.

The general principle to be observed in driving, as well as in riding, is to have as little harness on the horse as practicable, and, above all things, not to have the harness overloaded with ornaments.

For country use, and for all informal occasions, it is not necessary to use patent-leather harness, as it scratches and becomes shabby very quickly. Plain black pigskin is therefore more appropriate and perfectly correct for such occasions. For rainy weather special harness should be used, as the rain injures the leather and tarnishes the metal of the regular harness, and entails a great deal of unnecessary work on the grooms. Rainy weather harness has all the buckles covered and is made of oiled leather.

When the owner is in deep mourning, everything about the harness should be black, all of the bright metal should be covered with black leather. It looks quite inappropriate to see the servants with wide crape bands but the harness with all the bright metal showing and colored rosettes and saddle cloths; or, what is even worse, colored saddle cloths and black rosettes. While it is not necessary to use black harness when the owner is in mourning, all colors should certainly be avoided in the rosettes and saddle cloths, and the servants should be put in mourning also.

What I have just said in the chapter on harness for single horses applies generally to harness for a pair.

Kay collars should be used for pairs with all traps, except that Dutch collars may be used for a pair with runabouts or any other light country trap. There is a very light station trap, finished in natural wood, with which russet harness with Dutch collars, for a pair, looks very smart and may be used in the country.

The horses may be coupled to the pole with either pole chains or pole pieces; the former with oval links are correct when the owner drives, but are never permissible in any trap driven by a servant. The chains should fasten at the pole and no extra links should be allowed to hang. The pole chains, if used, should be of burnished steel and not of brass. Oddly enough, for some reason which has never been explained, pole chains and pole pieces are regarded as belonging to the trap and not to the harness.

Loin straps should be used with a lady’s trap only when a servant drives.

The winkers should be square when square buckles are used, but round winkers may be used, as well as round buckles with sporting traps, for which they are quite appropriate.

Metal rosettes should be used with a single harness and may be used with pair harness, or for ladies’ traps. Silk rosettes may be used of any color the owner may fancy, and should match the liveries. In the show ring and park flower rosettes are worn, but with pairs fancy rosettes are worn on the near side of the near horse and the off side of the off horse; that is, one on each horse on the outside, while on the inside the rosettes should be plain metal.

Double harness should fit the horses just as single harness does, except that the belly-bands should be looser, so as to admit two or three fingers between them and the girths.

A whip with a lash should always be used, except with roadsters or trotting horses, when a straight whip is correct. The whip should be of a length proportionate to the trap and the distance of the horse from the driver. The same kind of whip should be used for driving a single horse as for a pair. The shaft should be straight and may be of any color the owner fancies, and may be mounted in gold, silver, or brass. The best whips in general use are made of holly. For a woman’s use a whip should be lighter and more slender than for a man’s. A heavy whip is very tiring to the hand, and quite unnecessary for the kind of horse that a woman drives. The handle of the whip may be covered with leather or plain, and, if leather covered, may be of any color which goes well with the shaft. While colored snappers are used, plain white is always correct, and I consider it much smarter.

The lash of the whip should always be kept white and very pliable, and, of course, should be pipe-clayed when necessary.

For a phaeton or breaking cart, where the horse is quite a long distance from the driver, a much longer whip should be used than for a runabout or a Hempstead cart.