. That is what I said a Horse does not pull a load. A horse that is in a harness pushes a load with his or her shoulders with a collar which is over their shoulders, which is connected to two large straps of long leather which is connected to the load. The horse then moves forward and pushes the load with their shoulders by pushing against the collar. If you ever go to the state fairs that have horse pulls, just remember it is really a Horse Pull. The only real way a horse can pull a load is if you tie it to their tail and they walk forward. Or the horse could use it's teeth to pull on something small and light weight. A horse pushes a wagon, a plow, a sled, a log, etc. An ox does the same thing, it pushes a load with it's shoulders. Horses and Ox do not pull loads they push a loads. . .
Must be a reallllllllly sloooooooooooooooow day on the Homestead Next topic: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
Tango, the collar is pushed, that I agree. However the load is pulled. You ever try to push a trace, be it leather,chain, or rope?
The horse pushes against the collar which has a set of hames fastened around the collar. The bolt or ring that is on the hames, ( which the traces are conected to ) is the point of change from pushing and pulling. The hames are used to pull all of the loads. When the horse is used to back a load backwards, the horse also pushes the load by the britching strap that is around the hind end of the horse. Either moving forward or backward the horse is always pushing on the load ( either with it's shoulders forward or it's hips backwards ) A horse never pulls a load. . .
Yeah my dad had a horse like that. They call that balking. He would decide he wasn't going to do whatever his team mate was doing to make the manure spreader move. Whiping him would not change his mind. A well placed jab with the pitchfork did however. Bumpus: Be careful or we're going to get the cart before the horse and Pappy warned us about that.
I actually saw a picture one time of a horse that was behind a cart that was turned around backwards, with the horse in the back, But the horse was still pushing the cart with his shoulders.
Don't you remember physics class?! The horse is actually pushing against the ground with its feet, not against the harness with its shoulders. The wagon pulls on the horse and the horse pulls on the wagon. The wagon sits still as the force of the pulls are equal. The acceleration of the cart is determined by the net force of the pull divided by the mass of the cart. The wagon pulls the horse backwards, and the ground pushes the horse forward. The net force is determined by the relative sizes of these two forces. If the ground pushes harder on the horse than the wagon pulls, there is a net force in the forward direction, and the horse accelerates forward. If the wagon pulls harder on the horse than the ground pushes, there is a net force in the backward direction, and the horse accelerates backward. (This wouldn't happen on level ground, but it could happen on a hill...) If the force that the wagon exerts on the horse is the same size as the force that the ground exerts, the net force on the horse is zero, and the horse does not accelerate. In any case, the acceleration of the horse equals the net force on the horse divided by the horse's mass. The horse pushes backwards on the ground to pull the cart forward. Bumpus started a thread about Newton's Second and Third Laws of Motion Dynamics.
One of the best examples of horses pushing would be to show them harnessed to a header and header barge. They are used to top wheat for threshing. The horses are behind the barge propelling it forward. The driver/operator half stands/half sits on a seat almost directly over a tail wheel that is used for steering. The wheel is a lot like a caster and is guided from a board coming off of the stem of it. The board is between the operators knees and he moves it about with them. The clattering sickle at the front of the barge spooks a lot of horses, but with the barge in front of them they don't see a place of escape and tend to settle down and work pretty good. Now about those cowboys that throw a lasso over something and wrap it around their saddle horn---- Isn't that pulling? Also what keeps the rope from nearly cutting the cowboys leg off? Seems to me that rope would have a lot of down pressure on it.
Ok, I get it, you're talking about horses in a harness.... that doesn't include loads tied to the saddle horn. Ozarkguy, nice picture!
. Awwwww heck. Believe me. The horse DIDN'T care what you want to call it! He just kept mumbling something like: "Humans! - push/pull - who cares? I just wanna get back to the barn and eat!"
