The features of a good horse trailer

Between teaching for 28 years now and earning my living trailer training at one time, mannn I came across some trailers whose design was not fit to transport horses and some of them where the design itself was the cause of the horse’s trailer loading problems and where the design itself caused a wreck. 

Let’s list some of the problems to avoid:

• Trailers with sticky outy bits. I’m smiling here cos’ that expressions is a family joke about mowing lawns. The topic is a serious one though, because I’ve seen trailers with bridle hangers in the horse’s head space that could poke a horses eye out in a flash.  And there’s sooo many trailers built with gadgets that could catch your horse’s halter – while they’re traveling or as they’re backing out – and create a wreck.
• There’s a well known brand of trailer in Australia that has a crappy feature that totally beggars belief – it has a head space that isn’t actually big enough to accommodate a horse’s head and neck – the horse has to stand with its head tilted to the side (that’s in a straight load!) to fit their head and neck in the space.   And heaven help the horse if you had to brake a bit hard when they were already twisted to the side.  It stands to reason that the horse’s trailer loading problems in that float were caused by the trailer itself.
• A divider that goes closer to the floor than where their body meets their legs is a monumental no- no and I don’t care if it’s a piece of thick rubber or a solid divider.  A horse needs to be able to spread their legs for balance and if the divider stops that from happening, they’re going to at best be unconfident on their feet and at worst they’ll be scrambling to try and stay on their feet.  If a horse is scrambling, they’re panicking and if they’re panicking, that’s a wreck in the process of happening.
• Electric brakes not set properly, driving too fast and braking too suddenly.  I was watching someone come in for a clinic one day, thinking “ooo that’s a bit fast”.  When she braked, the electric brakes grabbed and the horse was almost launched through the front window.  Sometimes it’s an easy trailer training, when the cause of the horse’s distress is so obvious. 
• Beautiful big front windows that appeal to us, are very often problematic for horses.  I had one horse who had to travel on high speed two way roads where the oncoming traffic was zooming toward him within a couple of feet of his trailer.  Think about it from his point of view.  He didn’t know what it was that was flying towards his eyes at high speed, so of course he was freaking out.  Big windows doesn’t have to be a deal breaker though because you can tape part of them up.
• Trailer vents right above your exhaust pipe are another no no.  If you’re ever stuck in traffic one day, the trailer can fill up with exhaust fumes.  That particular horse was VERY happy when I understood the cause of his trailering distress.
• Trailers that have metal top doors that can’t get taken off can be problematic.  Great for camping but an extra claustrophobia for a horse who’s learning to be happy in a trailer.  And why make it harder than it needs to be?
• A tall horse needs an extra height trailer.  Our Oliver at 18 hands, was only a couple of inches off the roof of our tall trailer when he was relaxed.  Just imagine his fright if he tossed his head a little at a fly and the roof was that close.
• Crappy floors.  There was a horror story coming out of Canberra a long time back, where the horse went through the floor.  I’m not going to tell you what happened, it was just too ghastly to think about.  Suffice to say – you want a thick marine ply floor and you want to check the floor from underneath the trailer and make sure that the floor is still solid and the metal supports are still healthy metal and not rusted out.
• Wheel balancing.  I know the tyre places tell you that your trailer tyres don’t need balancing, but that’s a living breathing being in that trailer and they do.  Need balancing that is. Humor me.
• You want good springs on the tailgate,  if you have one, so that it’s not too hard to lift up – but you want the tail gate to be on the ground.  It’s unnecessarily scarey for a horse to be stepping back onto a tail gate that suddenly drops down the last few inches.   Springs are replaceable though.
• If you have breaching bars or breaching doors, it’s also useful to have a hook or something to hold them back until you’re ready to close them so they don’t whack your horse accidentally while you’re loading.  It’s a monumental pain in the butt to have them getting blown around in a wind.

Today’s photo:  This is my horses playing at loading themselves on the trailer.  Bobby was already on and Sunny was trying to push him to the side so she could get on too. 

When Mel bought this beautiful camping float home, we needed to make a lot of adjustments to make it safe.  It had sticky outy bits everywhere that needed to be cut off or padded up.  It had a very deep divider for the beds to slot into that was so uncomfortable for the horses that even Bobby the utterly brilliant and happy traveler couldn’t balance and hated it.  I had a simple divider made that solved that problem.