Progressing with Horses – part 1

by Paul Schmit of Luxemborg

Still on the right track?

In its October and November 2002 issues a German riding magazine published a report about a family farming with horses in the USA. Prompt following in the next issue of this magazine was a readers’ letter complaining about the fact that this was again only one of these nostalgic stories and the report simply too blue-eyed. The letter writer expressed his regret, that the care of the draft horses, a matter sometimes worth discussing at the one or other farm, was neglected within this report.^[1]

In November 2008 an article appeared in a Luxembourgish daily newspaper about a new completely eco-friendly technology developed in Austria for row crop work in organic farming. No, this time it wasn’t talking about the use of draft horses in agriculture. A new solar powered self-propelled vehicle was shown which has more resemblance to a moon buggy than a farm implement. They expect that the first prototypes will drive on the fields in 2009, this for a price of about • 50.000 (~ $ 62.500). Fitted with solar panels, this solar tractor can be used for cultivating, harvesting or irrigating vegetables. For an extra two thousand Euros you can even have the GPS version, which renders the driver superfluous as it is completely controlled by satellite technology.^[2]

What do these two publications, about six years apart, make clear to us?

The first one shows that there are people who have a critical attitude to the use of animal traction and especially the care, which some of us grant our animals. The second article calls to mind that there exists alternatives, which are as least as environmentally compatible as our horses, mules or oxen. You classify the first group of people as completely mad and declare that using draft animals is part of our history and tradition. Against the second story you can make a point by explaining that the use of draft animals is far less expensive than this high-tech solution. But none of these arguments completely solves our problems. The second article was published on a full-page multicoloured layout, a privilege our draft horses and everything around them haven’t attended yet in Luxembourg’s newspapers.

Does my view seem to be anew too pessimistic? Well, let me add another example. During the time, when I wrote these lines, I visited the Sima [The Paris International Ari-Business Exhibition]. As always at these big fairs for agricultural machinery, I was on the search for new parts for my different projects of modern horse drawn implements. Normally I pass with quick steps through the halls, where the big international manufacturers display their equipment, as I’m more interested in finding particular components instead of joining the crowd of people standing with admiration in front of those glitzy giants. New Holland, however, drew this time my interest. On a platform in the centre of their exhibition stand was exposed this year’s gold medal winner at the Sima, a tractor powered by pure hydrogen. Instead of an internal combustion engine, a fuel cell is mounted, which transforms hydrogen into electricity for powering various electric motors onboard. Some of them are located in the wheels, another one for driving the pto. The complex gearbox of todays tractors is superfluous on such a vehicle as the speed of all shafts can be easily governed by the amount of electric current, which is fed into the motors. Besides this, the electric motors offer the big advantage of a high starting torque, a fact which also hybrid cars use during acceleration. That this technology works and is close to readiness for mass production have shown yet five fuel cell buses put in daily use for public transport in the City of Luxembourg, this within the European wide CUTE program. CUTE stands for Clean Urban Transport for Europe and regrouped 9 cities, from Stockholm in the cold North down to sunny Barcelona, where fuel cell buses have been tested since 2001 under everyday conditions.^[3]

So far a nice story, but nothing to do with a horse-powered farm. Not really at first sight, but the main idea behind this new technology of New Holland is to produce hydrogen out of pure water. This can be done locally on the farms themselves by using solar or wind power. Another possibility would be by splitting off hydrogen out of methanol, which can be produced by the fermentation of plants containing sugar. Within this context they speak about self-sufficient farms and that’s exactly the point. Isn’t this one of our favourite arguments, which we always bring into play, when we discuss the advantages of animal powered farms?

Science fiction: everything too complex, simply too expensive, you think? In Luxembourg, in the last few years, a lot of farmers have covered the roofs of their barns and cowsheds with solar panels, as our Ministry for Environment supports this financially. The same is true for the farmers, who formed an alliance to invest in wind power plants, which you can find at more than one of the so called “wind farms” in the hilly northern part of Luxembourg. Instead of selling the electricity to energy supplying companies, the local use of this green energy for a self-production of hydrogen seems to be a cogent next step.

We can’t ignore that times have changed. In order to prevent that we, the “old fashioned” farmers, are outstripped by these new technologies and working with draft animals is reduced to an antiquated image, we have to face this challenge. The first and most important question to answer within this context is which way we choose for getting on.

In 2002 my wife Cathy and I attended a so called “draft horse festival” in Belgium. For this three day event we supplied some modern farm machinery, which was more or less shown as filler in the breaks between the riding, coach driving and show contests. In the marathon competition a French competitor forced his four-up hitch with loud shouts and harsh use of the whip to pass with an incredible speed through a water obstacle. When leaving the obstacle, consisting of a deep creek, the two leaders fell. Without spending some time, or should I say losing some seconds in the race against the clock, inspecting both horses for injuries, the groom simply sprang off the coach and forced the horses to stand up to continue immediately the contest. For most of the spectators this was simply one of the spectacular scenes they love. With enthusiastic applause it showed admiration and respect for this foolhardiness. Half an hour later, after having left this place of the show ground with deep detest, my eyes fell on a spectator who was headed straight toward another person. This person was the previous mentioned competitor, who had joined the crowd near the beer stand-up stall in the meantime. The spectator showed some moral courage and asked the contestant in front of all the other people what he thought about this incident. Shrugging his shoulders and with a bright grin on his face the man only answered “ça arrive!”, which means “this happens”.

You might state now that this story is only an individual case, simply a “faux pas.” Well, we decided after this event that we had seen enough of these blunders and don’t visit anymore these spectacles, which claim to promote the modern use of draft horses. Facing the challenges of the future should focus first of all on our ethics, long before asking about the right implements and harnesses or, at worst, inventing new games and competitions with draft horses. Literature shows us that in the decades before WWII, the health of most draft horses in our region was ruined by overwork and rude manners before these animals were even mature enough, physically and mentally, to be put to work.^[4] Maybe, the people at that time hadn’t alternatives. Their poor economics and finally also the poor education of the rural population didn’t leave them another approach.

The industrial revolution and finally also the prosperity of the rural regions in Luxembourg was rung in during the 19th century by the railway, which not only allowed us to transport heavy loads to and from the ironworks, but also agricultural products, like potatoes or oats to the markets in the cities. In the 20th Century everybody’s mobility played, by the advent of the automobile, an important, if not the most important role in the life of many people. However, the dwindling oil resources make us slowly clear that, in the beginning of the 21st century also this era draws to a close. Might we cry now “Hey, here we are again” and promote the modern use of draft horses as the only alternative? Yes, but keep in mind that every single action is scrutinized today more than hundred years ago.

In order to have valued arguments in hand, we have to change our philosophy of living and working with draft animals in order to ensure its survival into the 21st Century. Please understand me right, I don’t want to make pets of our draft horses. But writing ambitioned articles, publishing colorful illustrated books or letting everybody sign hefty tome charters isn’t the paper worth it’s written on if the reality behind the scenery is another one.

This article is the beginning of a new series, which will probably not be written in a row as the preceding series. It will focus on new developments around draft horses, especially items designed to make their work easier. Another main topic will be the question of the power needed by the horses to perform at different tasks around the farm and in the woods, thus measuring and evaluating objective values for draft forces.

True Champions

Exchanging experiences with “true” draft horse people, analyzing their ways of problem-solving and their visions for the future is my favorite occupation during the small leisure time, which we can save from our daily work. Last August this desire guided us to Sweden. It was perceptible yet when entering this magnificent country by leaving the 19 km (~ 12 miles) long Öresund bridge between Denmark and Sweden, that the Swedish people are something special. On continental Europe, driving on motorways means participating in a motor race, where pushing one’s way to the front is standard. In Sweden, however, you enter into another world, a world of calmness and unassuming nature.

Discipline was not only the name of the game in the road traffic, but also at our first destination, the “SM Brukshästar,” the Swedish championship for draft horses. The 2008 edition took place near a gymnasium for agricultural educations in Rättvik, located more or less in the centre of Sweden. To come to the point, speaking about the Swedish Champions is simply an understatement. The people we saw at this 2 day event are worth being called the true European Champions. Not only in the horse lodging contest, which took place at the same time as a riding competition on Saturday, but also in a coach driving contest on Sunday. The harmony in the cooperation between men and women and horses was impressive.

The competitors in these contests had to qualify through preliminary regional competitions and therefore the men and women we saw in Rättvik were the top of the top in Sweden. The competitions themselves consisted of different parts, where the challenges for the teamsters and horses were close to the daily situation on the farms and in the woods. Not spectacular scenes or the self-projection of some narcissistic people were the goal, but great precision was the measure of all things, not to forget a true horsemanship. Therefore the first station of every contest consisted in a judgment of the harness. Without a correctly fitting and setting of the different harness parts and a proper relation with the horse, winning the competition would have been a pure illusion. During the lodging contest also the rules of an energy-saving work had to be respected by the competitors. For the coach driving competition every contestant participated with the same cart, a small four wheel farm wagon, which had not only to be maneuvered through cones and obstacles or driven on a straight line, but also to be parked backwards around a corner or stopped for a certain time in a slope.

During the preparation of this trip I did contact the “Jordbrukare- Ungdomens-Förbund,” an organization of young farmers in Sweden, whose subsidiary “brukshästkommitté” organizes every year the draft horse championships and the national plowing competitions. Very soon after I had addressed my request for information to this association, I was contacted by the chairman of the “brukshästkommitté” Mr Sven-Olof Salomonsson. He offered us to serve as our translator and guide us around to explain the rules of the different contests at the event in Rättvik, where he also served as judge. When discussing the differences between the way a lot of horses are harnessed and handled in our region, especially at lodging competitions, and the exemplary way of the Swedish horse people, he made a statement which engraved itself deep in my memory “Nevertheless, it’s clearly evident that our horses don’t perform less than the others.” In my eyes he was completely right with this statement. You don’t need to shout with horses, you don’t need to beat horses, just explain them friendly, clearly and distinctly what the task is to do and enjoy the work with them.

In the week after the event in Rättvik, we also took a tour with Sven-Olof Salomonsson to visit some horse loggers and farmers, as well as draft horse breeders and trainers. It is with deep gratitude that I look back to this time together, as Sven-Olof Salomonsson opened for us more than one door. The two main draft horse breeds in Sweden are the Swedish Ardennes and the North-Swedish draft horses. Today the breeding areas of these two distinctive horse types overlap more and more and the rivalries between the breeders of the bygone time are nearly forgotten. A lot of these small and extremely versatile draft horses are used in the woods, but some of the loggers are also using them for agricultural works. Most of them rely on traditional farm equipment, but around the one or other farm we could also find modern American products, like Pioneer and White Horse forecarts, or Pequea manure spreaders and tedders. The imports from USA however, still range in a modest scale and in order to keep the shipping costs in an acceptable limit, orders were often combined at a last time with ones from Germany.

One of our ways guided us also to the farm of Marianne and Per-Hugo Claesson in Bildsberg, located in the south-western part of Sweden. Per-Hugo runs a farm and a company selling building materials. Besides this duty, he is also a member of the direction board of the Swedish Ardennes breeding society called “Avelsföreningen för Svenska Ardennerhästen,” which was formed in 1923.^[5] On his parents’ small farm, where Per-Hugo learnt early in his life handling and working draft horses, all the daily work was done by three Ardennes mares. However, due to the illness of his father, this farming activity stopped when Per-Hugo was only ten years old. It took time until 1974, when Per-Hugo bought his own horse, an Ardennes mare, the foundation of his breeding activity.

Per-Hugo believes that the most important part of a horse is his head. His breeding activity tends to get good tempered horses, calm and apt to work. He used for years an Ardennes stallion called Lakej, who was born in 1997. Furthermore Per-Hugo thinks that it is also very important to handle young horses to get them familiar with people and teach them good behavior. Another thing that impressed us also in a very positive way, when visiting Per- Hugo’s horse herd, was that the typical Ardennes horse can still be found in this world. The Ardennes were imported yet in 1873 by the count C.G. Wrangel from the Ardennes region, located in the North-East of France, the South-East of Belgium and Luxembourg to Sweden in order to establish a heavier draft horse breed and improve the efficiency of the Swedish agriculture.^[5] As in all the other European countries, the number of draft horses has also dropped considerably in Sweden with the mechanization in agriculture and forestry since WWII. However the Swedish Ardennes are still closer to their roots as elsewhere in Europe as the breeding standards prescribe a height of 155 to 165 cm (15¼ to 16¼ hh) for the stallions and 152 to 162 cm (15 to 16 hh) for the mares. Following a database published in “Ardenner Nytt,” the news magazine of the breeding society, the measures of Ardennes stallions have been kept nearly constant since the first recording in 1910.^[6]

The Ardennes has never been a big horse like his French colleagues, the Percherons, Boulonnais or Bretons. Even in these breeds there existed in the bygone time smaller types, called “petite taille” or “postier.” To my great regret, these horses became extinct, as after the WWII most of the horses changed from draft into heavy horses. Their only remaining purpose was and still is the slaughterhouse, where only the carcass weight counts. Since the entry of the East-European countries into the European Union, I believe that also another, even more important merit of the Ardennes, is completely neglected by most of the breeders. It’s nothing else than what Per-Hugo estimates as the most important in horse breeding, the character of the horse. A French breeder, who also trains draft horses for driving, recently told me “If we have a young mare which we can’t sell because of her madness, we put her in breeding,” furthermore he added “If everything goes wrong, there is still the possibility to sell the horse to the east of Europe.” Even if also Swedish Ardennes horses have that fate to go on animal transporters for being slaughtered thousands of kilometers further south in Italy, I think that the breeders in the Scandinavian countries have never lost sight of the working type horse.

Refreshingly different

One more difference between the Swedish way to work with horses and the one further down in Europe is their harness. Most of the horses we saw were harnessed with a mostly uniformed harness called “Värmlandssele.” The collar assembly consists of a ring or three piece collar, which is open at the bottom. Wooden hames, which are assembled with two leather straps, are standard. The back of the horse is protected by a well-padded two piece leather back pad, wherein the two parts are connected by a steel arch. The biggest difference between the Scandinavian harnesses and those used elsewhere in the world are the traces. By wide leather front traces, whose length can also be adjusted on several models, the horses are hitched directly to the shafts. These are fixed to a steel tug ring, which is held at the right height by the so called saddle straps. The connection of the shafts and the steel tug ring is realized by a steel flat bar, which is passed through the shafts and secured by wooden or steel pegs. The breeching is also attached to this tug ring. For hitching to a coach or pulling tongue or shaft-less farm implements like harrows or plows, most of the teamsters make use of leather or hemp traces. The main advantages of this type of harness is that it causes definitely no pressure on the spinal column of the horse and it’s extremely fast to hitch the horses to an implement, whatever it is.

Furthermore we saw in Sweden no horse driven with severe bits. Long shanks like most of the horse lodgers in Luxembourg and Belgium traditionally use, are looked down upon. The preference is given to straight bar working or snaffle bits. The only thing I may be permitted to criticize within this context is the fact that not every Swedish horseman or woman takes advantage of verbal communication with the horses and gives only signals by the lines.

In order to get first hand information about Swedish harness, we visited two saddleries. The first one was the Tärnsjö Garveri AB in the Eastern part of Sweden, where we were guided around by the sales manager Mr. Anders Engman. The history of Tärnsjö can be traced back to 1873, where Fredrik Aström, a shoemaker apprentice, started a tannery in the locality of the same name. At first he supplied leather products to the farmers in the area. This was the only activity until 1900, when the founder decided to start a saddlery and began to manufacture working harnesses. Following the information received by Mr. Torbjörn Lundin, CEO of Tärnsjö, the real genuine Swedish working harness is still produced after same patents as nearly 110 years ago. The company employs today about 50 people and the range of products has grown into a wide range of industrial leather products, all kinds of furniture or working gloves and snowshoes to name a few. The list of customers also includes prestigious names like the Swedish car manufacturers Volvo and Saab, who order leather inside furnishing for prototypes. The leather, which is tanned in Tärnsjö is recognized by the German TÜV as completely chrome free. It’s vegetable tanned and of a quality I had never seen before. This counts also for the stitching, which is executed on all harness parts with an exemplary exactitude. Stainless steel hardware all around is another guarantor for superior quality. In order to pass all these skills to future generations, Tärnsjö has run since 1993 a saddler school. In 2008 a total of 27 students were inscribed in a three year long education program. Surely not all these girls and boys, who join Tärnsjö from all over Sweden, will manufacture someday working harnesses for draft horses. Someone will specialize themselves in pure riding equipment, which attracts especially the girls, others will find a job in the furniture industry. It’s, however, reassuring to see that this tradition in craftsmanship is full of promise for the future, at least in Sweden.

The second saddlery, which we visited was the “Svenljunga sadelmakeri” located in the western part of Sweden. Nicklas Larsson receives his leather raw material from Tärnsjö and runs a one-man-business. Only if the orders situation permits he falls back on interim employees. The main difference between the Tärnsjö and Svenljunga harnesses is the size of the back pads. Nicklas Larsson manufactures the leather back pads in two different sizes, a smaller one measuring 15.5 cm in width and 24.5 cm in length (5/8” x 31/ 32”) as well as a wider version offering 3 cm (~ 1/8”) more in width and 1 cm more in length. The Tärnsjö pads can only be ordered in the standard size, which is the smaller one. The perfect fit of the back pads to the different horse sizes is guaranteed in both cases by three different lengths of the 16 mm thick steel arch, which can be ordered in 30.5 (~ 1 3/16”), 32 (~ 1 ¼”) respectively 34 cm (~ 1 5/16”).

Lars-Göran Göransson, the chairman of the association Skogshästen, which might be translated into “forest horses,” estimates that out of their 1000 members more than a third consists of professional horse lodgers. The rest are not only sympathizers of the idea of using draft horses, but a lot of people who are using draft horses in their leisure time for making their own fire wood or cultivating some plots. Together with his wife Jenny, Lars-Göran runs a farm in the museum Kulturens Östarp, located on the south coast of Sweden. The visit at their farm had to be well-timed as Lars-Göran, having just arrived back home from Rättvik, where he served among other duties as commentator, had to leave again for attending another activity for which we can only admire the Swedish draft horse people. I’m talking about the educational program, which Skogshästen initiated in 2006 at the agricultural gymnasium in Kvinnersta near Örebro in the South of Sweden. During 1410 hours of theoretical and practical lessons young people are taught to handle, harness, drive and care for horses to be used in the woods, in the fields and also in cities or for tourism. No fewer than 18 municipalities in Sweden are using draft horse hitches for lawn mowing.

Following the figures recently published by Eurostat, the European Office for Statistics,^[7] Sweden counts 30.9 million hectares (~ 119395 square miles) of wood, which represents about 75% of its total territory. This puts this Scandinavian country at the top in Europe. At the second place follows Spain with 28.2 million hectares (~ 108880 square miles), representing only 57 % of the space. Therefore it isn’t surprising that Sweden is also within the countries of the EU27 the most important wood producer with a total annual output of about 64.6 million cubic meters (84.5 million cubic yards) of sawveneer, grain and firewood. About two thirds of the Swedish forest is in private hand. The winner of the SM2008 in Rättvik, the 29 years old Tobias Andreasson runs his own 700 ha (~ 2 ¾ square miles) of woods. Simply gigantic figures for someone like me, living in that small country called Luxembourg and counting only 1.7 ha (~ 4 ¼ acres) of his own woods.

Even if the economical pressure, especially since the European-wide storms in the beginning of the 90’s, has also asked yet its tribute among the horse lodgers, the working conditions in the Swedish forest are without any comparison in Europe. Therefore you might think that there must not only be a market for harnesses, but also for modern lodging and farming equipment in Sweden. For the first group of implements this is true. Each one of the main horse lodging wagon manufacturers in Sweden, Julsgard’s Mek and Tegmyr Svets, can count on the experience of having built between 400 and 500 wagons in different configurations. Their equipment is simply a classic example for simplicity and efficiency. The nearly 70 year-old Ingemar Tegmyr, the founder of Tegmyr Svets, confessed to me in Rättvik, where he showed some of his forest equipment, that he had also thought about designing and manufacturing forecarts for agricultural works. However, he thinks that there is no chance to compete against the Amish manufacturers with their competitive prices and their experience in that domain are simply unbeatable. The same is true for Hakan Carlsson, who has stopped his production of horse drawn reel-type lawn mowers, this for economical reasons. Morgan Andersson, the man behind Österby Smedja, has taken up anew the challenge and has launched last winter a prototype of a forecart for various applications with some remarkable details. His SV lodging wagons, built since 2005, have reached in the meantime the fifth stage of development and are manufactured in an old smitty, called „Österby Smedja”, whose history can be traced back to 1904. More about these very interesting objects can be read in the second part of “Progressing with Horses.”

Try it again

With no exception, every horse which we saw in Sweden was driven with open bridles. When playing around on my grandparent’s farm as small kids in pre-school age, my brother and I sometimes measured our trust. One of us had our eyes closed by a piece of cloth and the other guided him around by voice commands. The play however ended always the same way. It was one of my brother’s amusements (he’s two and a half years older than me) after having guided me around the legumes in the garden or the machinery in the shed, he would lead me straight into the manure heap, for example. Loud crying, I ran into the house informing my mother that I would never play again with my brother. This statement however was fast forgotten.

Playing and pitting one’s wits against others let us develop intellectual capacities in childhood. Education later on in school forms us as individuals, often (self) declared superior to the rest of the living beings in the world. But is this true? I have my doubts about this superiority when I see how some teamsters tread their so called “best friends,” the horses. Without respect on both sides no true leadership can be established. Therefore it’s essential that you question yourself from time to time. In my article “Communicating with Horses” published in SFJ winter 2007 issue, I confessed that we tried to drive our horses without blinkers and decided after a near accident, which wasn’t due to the horses but to my own mistake in designing an implement, to return to the more traditional way as cart horses in our region were driven exclusively with blinders in the bygone time.

Excited by our impressions in Sweden, we decided to test it again. Before putting the open bridles on, I swore to myself that I would not make the transition only for copying others, but to let the horses make the choice. Irmi, our most sensitive Ardennes mare, was our test candidate. Due to bad weather circumstances we were forced to make some haylage bales in one field last September. As there were just eight bales to be transported home, we hitched her in single to our single bale transporter. The task to be done included nearly every aspect of farm work. Travelling on public roads, entering a field through a small gate, backing to load and unload the bales, etc. Sure the first time the horse wasn’t so concentrated on the work, as she turned her head more than one time back in order to see and inspect everything that was going on behind her. A more important aspect, which was apparent right at the beginning, was that Irmi was of a calmness she never showed before. Big tractors crossing or fast cyclists overtaking us on the road, were no problems. Later on, when trying the open bridles on Jalouse des Joncs, our other main working mare, we could notice that her willingness to back with a forecart in order to hitch a trailer or implement improved considerably.

Did you notice it? …

… we’re back again to the story told in the section here above. Imagine once yourself in a situation with nearly closed eyes, while another person asks you to go back without seeing where you put your feet on what stands behind you. That’s more or less the effort which we ask of our horses. There are surely thousands of engineers around the world working on comfortable and ergonomic working procedures for agricultural works with modern machinery. I think we should follow the same path and improve the comfort of our horses while in work. Since our beginnings we have also tried a handful of bits on each horse. Changing the bridles was also a good moment for questioning the bits again. Since last September we are using exclusively the open bridles with straight working bits, which we had yet some years ago in use. As with the blinkers, we let the horses take the decision, which setup fits best and I finally think that our choice is finally their choice. In order to prevent that the rings being threaded by the cross lines into the horse’s mouth, every bit is fitted with rubber bit guards on both sides. The encouragement to change the elbow bits, which we always only used in the upper ring position, came also from one of our horses. Jalouse des Joncs developed over the time a penchant for catching the stub line from her work companion with the shank of her bit, not a very safe working situation, is it?

For testing the open bridles again, we ordered a sample of the Tärnsjö bridles, which offer beside their light weight and the smooth leather improving, the comfort on the most sensitive part of the horses, their heads, some other unique features. By assembly of two thin leather straps, the height of the bit can be varied without changing the position of the nose band. The crown around the ears is cut out in order to prevent that the leather chafe on the ears. Cathy has used this type of crown from a German manufacturer for years to her full satisfaction on the riding bridles for our Arabians. By their temperament these thoroughbred horses show faster if something is wrong than our Ardennes do. We consider this change, how minor you might classify it, as another step on the road to improvement. If you ask me now why I haven’t tried it yet earlier on our draft horse bridles, I have to admit that I’m at the loss of a satisfactory answer, Maybe, that I focussed too much on the nuts and bolts around our implements and the works itself to be done with horses than on the part, which I consider in the meantime as the most important one, the harness.

Breaking up traditions

Beside the open bridles, we ordered also some modified back pads for testing from the Tärnsjö and Svenljunga saddleries. Modified because the standard pieces would not fit into our American/Canadian/Luxembourgish harnesses (please refer to SFJ Winter 2007 issue). Swedish harness uses a different backing system, wherein the hold backs are fixed immediately to the tug ring assembly. By this, the belly band needs to be tied to the belly in order to avoid that the whole assembly moves back and forth when the horse is changing from pulling to breaking the load. As we prefer to not tie any strap or band, except the hame straps, to allow to the horse to put itself in the most comfortable position during heavy work, we ordered the pack pads in a customized version and different sizes. Our final choice fell on the Svenljunga product with the bigger pads, as they offer, by their shape and stuffing, the best contact to the horses’ back. For every horse the perfect individual fit was searched by varying the length of the steel arch.

Swedish draft horse people seemed to us very traditional-minded and started a critical discussion, especially about their harnesses, is like treading on thin ice. Therefore, it called for some telephone calls and e-mails, not just for exchanging drawings to make sure that all the details were understood in the same way, to get the deal ready for making our special parts. I personally think that every harness, which can be found around this world, has its particular advantages and disadvantages. The same is surely true for the type of harness used in the Scandinavian countries. The most important point about harnesses is the correct fitting. Even the best horse can’t develop its potential if the collar or breeching are poorly fitted. As I mentioned yet before, having a sense for old-established traditions is good. However, further developments are an essential step for keeping these traditions alive.

Changing the back pad also made it necessary to change the straps between the breeching top and the hames, which were cut into two pieces and attached by snaps to the back pad. This prevents the straps from getting under the back pads and scrape on the horse’s skin. Another advantage is that the whole breeching or the back pad can now be disconnected from the front part of the harness by simply unsnapping. This allows handling the different parts separately while harnessing. A procedure which my back, not getting younger with the years, fully appreciates.

Furthermore the line setup had to be re-thought. As the Swedish back pads are fitted with line rings, the standard American length of the stub lines of about 1.80 m (~ 6’) only fit when using line spreaders on the hames, an additional element, which I wanted to avoid. Right after having discovered this problem, I did what I always do when I’m confronted with such a problem, I had a look to good literature. Doing this, I discovered that Lynn Miller raised up the problem of short cross lines under a chapter called “fine tuning team lines” in the second edition of his book “Work Horse Handbook.”^[8] Following his appeal to scrutinize more about the length of the stub lines, we started testing various line materials, setups and lengths and our final choice fell on beta lines with 19 mm (~ ¾”) width and over lengthened cross lines. I’m surely not a fan of all these synthetic materials, but compared to leather, the PVC covered nylon straps called beta, offer advantages by being extremely lightweight, having no splices and stitching and, even being so small, having an unbeatable strength. My horses might forgive me that I hadn’t replaced earlier our heavy leather lines of 28.5 mm (~1 1/8”) width by these softer and really more sensitive connections between my hands and their mouths. Using snaps on the lines, an idiosyncrasy, which we copied also by in the beginnings, is no question for us anymore. The side check lines of 19 mm (~ ¾”) width, are still leather. Especially in the spring of the year and during hay making, when the temptation for the horses is to lower their heads to pick up some small snack of fresh grass or hay is simply too great, we put this extra item in use. To safely pass these check lines around their heads, the Tärnsjö bridles are fitted with 19 mm (~ ¾”) gags with conway as we used it before on our American bridles.

Before I risk to bore you anew with too much of my wisdoms, let us quit the theory and have a detailed view on our harnesses. Why not make a short quiz?

The next two pictures show our harness anno 1999, a standard American western-brichen harness and our actual version incorporating various elements of the European traditions of harness making. It’s up to you to find at least 10 differences between both harnesses. The riddle’s answer will be given in the next part of “Progressing with Horses,” where more aspects of the interplay between the harness and the hitch gear will be delighted, especially our new line setup and evener/tongue respectively evener/shafts assemblies for farm hitches of one, two or more horses hitched abreast.

Beside the new harness parts are also two Swedish Ardennes, Jasmine and Loke, who arrived last autumn at our farm. You might ask now, why we bought two horses so far away after I praised the French Ardennes so much in my article “Living with Horses” published in SFJ Fall 2006 issue. Well, it seems that our way to see the future of this horse breed isn’t in line with the targets of the French breeders. First of all, looking for the smaller type of Ardennes has gotten something like searching a needle in a haystack. We contacted and visited breeders in the whole Ardennes, not only on the French but also on the Belgium side, exchanged information with the breeding societies, and even had a close look to other breeds such as the Comtois in France. Actually the market, whether the one of the livestock dealers or the one of the coach drivers, is asking for big horses. The French Ardennes breeders follow this appeal and are buying Ardennes stallions in Belgium, who have always been closer to their cousins, the Brabants. However, as an old breeder told me in 2007, “Getting them bigger is no problem, but the reverse isn’t as easy as the morphology of the old Ardennes will soon be lost.” Another view which causes our displeasure is the training of the horses. I know from trainers, who trained some years ago half a dozen young horses during a winter, nowadays try to put up to eighteen horses into shafts at the same time. Even colts of 18 months are put in training and pulling loads.

Sure, it depends how you look at it. However I think, that quantity does not always means quality. Not just searching for short time profit, but relying on quality should be the way to follow. The burst bubble of world wide liberalization, globalization and hunt for even growing profit, has taught us urgently, that the trees don’t grow into the sky. In Europe people breeding draft horses and working with them are a small minority and I don’t think that the governments will throw us a financial rescue line like it has been done with the banks and automotive manufacturers if also our small world collapses.

Buying the horse Jasmine was for me not only a question of buying a horse with some good pedigree. Researches into this were a joy by scrolling through the webpage of the Swedish Ardennes breeding society, which offers pictures of a huge number of stallions. In the one or other bloodline you still can find ancestors with roots in Belgium or in the case of Jasmine, even in Denmark. The vast majority of stallions show, however, a short and thickset body with clean legs, thus the work type Ardennes as we are looking for.

It’s also a continuation of a story, which her former owner Jan-Ingemar Gustafsson couldn’t regretfully finish. Jan-Ingemar died unexpected in February 2008. Having started an informatics business in 1963 and run a farm for raising Charolais cattles and loaning big harvesting machinery to other farmers, he got in later years to like working with draft horses. With the help of the very skilled horse trainers and breeders Bengt Mårtensson and Johan Petersson, the whole Gustafsson family devoted themselves wholeheartedly to this more traditional way of farming.

Before travelling to Sweden, I made some contacts with Elisabet Gustafsson, one of the two daughters of Jan-Ingemar, as her family had announced horses for sale on the web page of “Skogshästen.” Elisabet is a moviemaker and works part-time in Paris. By that she speaks perfectly French and communicating with her was no problem. On their farm at the outskirts of Vimmerby, the city known as the place of birth of famous Swedish children’s book author Astrid Lindgren, we had the pleasure to meet Elisabet, her mother Marianne, as well as her sister Cecilia. While inspecting the implements and hardware now standing quietly in the barn and waiting for a buyer, Elisabet showed us a piece of equipment, she couldn’t classify. It was a martingale in biothane, which her father had imported from USA together with a ground driven manure spreader, some modern forecarts and a huge inventory of steel eveners for various hitch configurations. All this equipment as well as his plans for the future, which Elisabet explained to us, showed to me that Jan-Ingemar was a progressive man. One of his plans for example was to break up the Swedish tradition of tethering the horses during the winter into stalls and build a new stable for keeping his horses during winter into groups with free exit. A man who tried to leave the usual paths and test something new, thus “progressing with horses,” while keeping an eye on lasting quality.

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Bibliography:

[1] Die ohne Autos sind – Achtung Kutschen-Verkehr, Roland Blum in Freizeit im Sattel 10/2002 – 11/2002

[2] Bio-Bauern setzen auf Solarenergie, Yvonne von Hunnius in Tageblatt 26.11.08

[3] CUTE The European Commission – Directorate-General for Energy and Transport 2002

[4] Landwirtschaft in Luxemburg, Editions Saint Paul 2003

[5] Flyer „Ardennerhästen,“ Avelsföreningen för Svenska Ardennerhästen 2008

[6] Mått på Ardennerhingstar genom tiderna 1999 …Ardenner Nytt 01/2007

[7] Die Waldfläche in der EU27, De Letzeburger Bauer volume 63 / issue #1 02.01.09

[8] Work Horse Handbook Lynn Miller 2004