Horse Collar - Weight Pulling Studies

Weight Pulling Studies

The French cavalry officer Lefebvre des Noëttes experimented with the ancient throat-and-girth harness in comparison the later trace breast-harness and the finally the matured form of the medieval collar harness. In his experiment of 1910, he found that two horses (aided by effective traction) using the throat-and-girth harness were limited to pulling about 1100 lbs. (½ ton). However, a single horse with a more efficient collar harness could draw a weight of about 1½ tons.

However, the findings of Lefebvre des Noëttes were not without challenges, notably the argument that there was an early partial horse collar, a dorsal yoke system, dating to ancient Rome, and that Lefebvre's designs did not accurately reflect those actually used, but rather created an inaccurate design that was less efficient than any actual ancient harnesses used. While Lefebvre's experiments clearly demonstrated that the throat and girth design he used rode up on horses and cut off their air, images from ancient art and partial yokes found by archaeologists suggested that with proper placement and the addition of a stiff partial yoke, the breastcollar remained on the chest, and wind was not in fact cut off while pulling. Further studies conducted in 1977 by Spruytte and Littauer, followed up by Georges Raepsaet, with more accurately reconstructed ancient designs suggested that horses with ancient harness designs could pull nearly as much as with the more modern horse collar. The primary benefit to the use of the modern horse collar, it is argued, was that it allowed a lower point of attachment and in doing so the increased usability of horses for ploughing.