I am a former standardbred trainer. Quick hitches are the best. There is no need for thimbles or tugs. However in harness racing there is a saftey strap that goes around the shaft of the cart and attaches to the hitch itself or a D ring. This stops the cart from flipping up and over in case of an emergency. They also have the shafts cut back to the hitch now. However hitching with straps I like the thimbles and the tugs.
Also the breaching in the picture I am not sure I like that attached to the cart. It looks more like a kicking strap. I think if you have your cruppers adjusted properly there would be know need to have a breaching strap. I think the less stuff one theses little guys the easier and free there movement is.
Just IMO
As a carriage driver, I have to disagree. If the breeching hinders the movement of the horse, it is not adjusted correctly. Thousands of advanced-level driven dressage drivers wouldn't be without their breeching, so there is no way that correctly adjusted breeching and cruppers are going to create freedom issues for the horse. If that was the case, the driven dressage drivers would be the first to dump it. Granted, in the Jeff Morse webinar the other day, he showed a photo of an advanced-level horse doing dressage without breeching, but that four-wheeled vehicle also had mechanical brakes. I don't know of any four-wheeled single horse vehicles with brakes for minis. The reasoning given for the lack of breeching on that horse was the clean look. There needs to be some form of braking on every vehicle, and I would rather use a method that is comfortable for the horse.
Please also remember that quick hitches are perfectly acceptable for very lightweight vehicles on flat smooth surfaces, like a track. If you are going to be doing ANY driving on ANY other surface, i.e. hills, hard turns, fast stops like in obstacle driving and hazards, then breeching is the most logical and acceptable method of harnessing. Again, using the big beefy haunches for slowing and stopping the vehicle is the most comfortable instead of using the girth and withers of the horse. If you had a wheelbarrow strapped to your body and you couldn't use your hands, would you rather stop it by your armpits/chest or your butt? When you think about it this way, I can see how stopping a vehicle with the front portion of the horse's body would force more of the horse's weight on it's front legs in order to hold the vehicle back. Doesn't this contradict how we want a well-balanced horse to stop?
I bring this up not to create an argument, but to help any beginner drivers who may also be reading this thread.
Myrna
