30th Anniversary!!

We are proud and happy to announce 2022 is the year Chimacum Tack has been in business for 30 years!! We want to say a HUGE thank you to each and every one of you, who have supported us through these years, whether you have been with us from the very beginning, when we were simply selling properly size mini horse halters, or if you have ordered your very first ComfyFit Harness from us last week. We appreciate you.

NOTE FROM JANIE:

30 years!? What a surprise! Times flies when you are having fun…

This all started when I found there was a need for well fitting miniature horse halters at our local 4-H. I found an ad in the back of a Tack and Togs magazine. It said “Horse Halters” and had an address. I wrote to the address asking for a price list for miniature horse halters. He sent me a half-sheet of plain white paper with a polite note on the front saying the shop would make mini halters for me. Their catalog price list was on the back of the page. It was handwritten and took up about half a page. At that time, they didn’t have a phone, so I had to call the neighbor across the street, and give my orders to her. Then, she would run them across the street to the shop. That’s how it worked for quite a while. If I needed to talk to the shop or they needed to talk to me, the harness maker would walk across the highway to the gas station and call me on the pay phone. I got an 888 number so they could call at my expense.

Along the way, in 1993-ish, we talked about making a miniature horse driving harness. I reached out to some of my customers and we gathered measurements for 6 or 8 minis. Over a period of several weeks they designed and made a pleasure style harness. We sent samples out to a few of my customers and they helped us dial in the fit and function of the harness. The Whiteman harness is actually a replica of that original harness! Ron Whiteman was very an important part of that original harness design.

The ComfyFit harness came a little later. The original design was done for a man that was doing a long cross country adventure and needed a well made, comfortable harness for his animals. The ComfyFit has morphed into the well known, very popular sport harness that it is today. Still made by hand, on the same equipment, with the same attention to detail that it was back then.

In February of 1992, the Amdal family was sitting on the porch tossing around the idea of putting Chimacum Tack out on the internet, not one of us knew exactly what the potential was!! Patric needed to build a website for school and when he suggested making one for Chimacum Tack I wondered out loud, “What would you put on it?” He answered, “All that miniature horse stuff you have Mom!” And so our online presence began.

Within a week of the website going up I received calls from people with draft horses asking if we also did draft horse equipment. The truth was, at that time, almost no one made mini horse tack and finding draft horse tack was just as difficult!

When we began this journey our young harness maker was happily married with two very young children. Today he is happily married, the father of 10 children and the grandfather of 6 children. When they started the company it was just the harness maker and one young helper. Now there are at least 15 families who work with him, in their own shops, using his materials, and equipment, producing equipment to our standards!

Our customer base has since spread worldwide and continues to grow every year. Each year as the business grows there are changes made to accommodate that growth. 30 years has brought many changes in materials, economic changes, impacts from the world economic systems up to COVID 19… However, one thing never changes – Chimacum Tack offers ONLY quality, hand made equipment, made by craftsmen and women who are proud of their work.

And we offer the sort of customer service we like to receive ourselves.

Thank you so much for joining us along the way,

Much Love,

Janie

ANNOUNCMENT!

We have been given the go-ahead to sell the very popular and much asked after MaraFUN Harness for the month of August!! From Mini A up to Small Pony Sizes!!

These will be built in two batches. The first batch will be built at the end of the second week of August and the second batch will be built the first week of September. So, you won’t be receiving your new harness RIGHT AWAY, but the wait won’t be too long.

If you would like to order your very own colorful MaraFUN harness you can do so here: MaraFUN Harness Special

This is our way of showing our appreciation of you!