A brake was a horse-drawn carriage

Carriage

A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn; litters and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for private passenger use and for comfort or elegance, though some are also used to transport goods. It may be light,...

 used in the nineteenth and early 20th centuries in the training of horses for draft work. A shooting-brake

Shooting-brake

Shooting-brake, shooting brake or shooting break is a term for a car body style that has evolved through several distinct meanings over its history....

, was a brake pressed into service to carry beaters, gamekeeper

Gamekeeper

A gamekeeper is a person who manages an area of countryside to make sure there is enough game for shooting, or fish for angling, and who actively manages areas of woodland, moorland, waterway or farmland for the benefit of game birds, deer, fish and wildlife in general.Typically, a gamekeeper is...

s and sportsmen with their dogs, guns and game.

There were purpose-built shooting-brake

Shooting-brake

Shooting-brake, shooting brake or shooting break is a term for a car body style that has evolved through several distinct meanings over its history....

s designed to carry the driver and a footman or gamekeeper at the front facing forward, and passengers on longitudinal benches, with their dogs, guns and game borne along the sides in slatted racks.

In the 19th century, a brake was a large, four-wheeled carriage-frame with no body, used for breaking in young horses, either singly or in teams of two or four. It has no body parts except for a high seat upon which the driver sits and a small platform for a helper immediately behind.

If the passenger seats were made permanent the vehicle might be described as a waggonette

Wagonette

A wagonette or an omnibus is a horse-drawn wagon for passenger transport. Two wooden benches along the right and left side of the wagon platform can hold several sitting people facing each other. The driver sits on a separate, front-facing bench.The term carried over to motorized vehicles...

.

Currently the term is sometimes used for an estate car (see also shooting-brake

Shooting-brake

Shooting-brake, shooting brake or shooting break is a term for a car body style that has evolved through several distinct meanings over its history....

) or station wagon

Station wagon

A station wagon is a body style variant of a sedan/saloon with its roof extended rearward over a shared passenger/cargo volume with access at the back via a third or fifth door , instead of a trunk lid...

. In France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

,the term break is synonymous with a station wagon, having been called a break de chasse, literally translated: hunting break.

External links

• Austin Carriage Museum, Weirsdale, Florida
  Weirsdale, Florida
  Weirsdale is a town in Marion County, Florida, United States. It is located near the intersection of State Road 25 and State Road 42. The community is part of the Ocala Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Weirsdale is located at ....
  
  . Formerly Florida Carriage Museum & Resort. Photos and text: click on The Carriage Museum, then on Classification of Carriages, then Breaks.
• CAAOnline: Carriage Tour and *Seabrook Coaching Stable Dispersal Auction: Wagonette. Carriage Association of America. Illustrations and text.
• The Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carriages, Stony Brook, New York
  Stony Brook, New York
  Stony Brook is a hamlet located in the Town of Brookhaven in Suffolk County, New York, which is on the North Shore of Long Island...
  
  : Collection Database. Search break; illustrations and text