I wanted to start driving, but didn’t have the money to purchase the harness I wanted and really would eventually need.  I’d looked at the various parts I had and hitting a horsey type garage sale, I did find some harness parts though none really matched up well or were great quality.  After starting into the braiding, I determined that maybe I could braid harness – at least the breast collar and traces and the hip straps and breeching.  I’d already made the headstalls and driving lines, the back strap and the crupper.  I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do the “saddle” or the driving surcingle of a pleasure harness.  I used the harness pieces that we had for measurement.

Here is the first harness – double layers on the breast collar and breeching, single layer on the neck strap and the hip straps.

Bell wearing the pleasure style harness while ground driving and pulling a “drag” (not sure if she’s hooked to a tire or a pvc pipe here).

Stuffy wearing the harness – open headstall, breast collar with single neck strap and adjustable traces with 3 slots, back strap with crupper, breeching with split “Y” hip strap.  Not sure what we used for the hold back straps here…  The lines are made from green MCR.

Other than the top of the surcingle (Weaver) – everything that “Bit” is wearing is braided from haystring here.  Not easy to see but a new item is the girth on the surcingle – with the wrap straps included!  Wish I hadn’t made the wrap straps so long (measured from a hackney pony harness that was much larger and I didn’t think to shorten the measurements for our smaller ponies), but will do better if/when I make another set.

Bell & Bit wearing their harness’s at the same time while learning to work as a pair.