Karen's tandem riding harness

I just finished this unique set today. It was inspired by a picture my friend Karen Meekma saw in her copy of Moseman's Illustrated Catalog of Horse Furnishing Goods. This book is a reproduction of a tack catalog originally published in 1893. It has over 2,000 illustrations of all sorts of tack items. Karen scanned a few pages for me including this one of the tandem riding harness.. Here's the brand-new, model sized version.As you can see, this is not a completely faithful reproduction. Since Karen's riding horse will be wearing competition style English tack, I decided it would be more harmonious to modernize the driving horse's tack as well. The design I came up with is equal parts Moseman and Dovers! The surcingle is very much like a like a regular training surcingle and the reins attach with snaps.

The bridle is of a standard carriage type without blinkers. I am quite pleased with the drape of the sidecheck. Preparing the lace was by far the most time consuming part of the project. I spent nearly three hours on the reins alone... It's boring work, but extremely important to the finished project.

Thanks for such a fun order, Karen. I hope you will be as happy with the results as I am!