What, exactly, is a Trace Swivel?

One of our upgrade options is called the Trace Swivel. People have been adding it to all kinds of breast collars lately – spurring me to write this little information post.

The Trace Swivel Upgrade is for the Standard Curve Breast Collar ONLY:

If you look closely at the product photo above you will see the trace buckle is sewn directly to the breast collar. This can cause an issue if your traces attach a little lower than perfectly horizontal:

In the above photo you can see how the traces drop down to connect to the single tree under my seat. This is causing a little bend where the traces buckle into the breast collar.

The Upgrade to Trace Swivel simply means you will have a ring that the trace buckle attaches to. It is not a fancy piece of hardware – just a simple ring.

The above photo shows a comparison of the Standard Curve Breast Collar with a trace swivel (on top) and a traditional sown in trace (on bottom). You can see with the trace swivel, the buckle is attached to a ring and the ring is attached to the breast collar. This allows the trace buckle to adjust a bit to your line of draft by moving up and down without flexing the entire trace.

These tend to come in very handy if your line of draft is not perfectly horizontal, or if you are hitching to multiple vehicles that do not have the exact same line of draft. In the above photos you can see this same harness, along with the Trace Swivel upgrade to the Standard Curve Breast Collar, being used on two different vehicles with two different lines of draft, but the traces and breast collar can remain laying nice and flat. 

To sum up, if you are purchasing a Deluxe Breast Collar, a Comfy Collar or a SuperFlex Collar you do NOT need this upgrade – becasue they already come with this ring!

If you are purchasing a Standard Curve Breast Collar you can add this upgrade!