Which Horse Trailer is Better?

[Wolf-Kim]

I am not a fan of the slant-loads myself, particularly the ones with the tackroom in the back. You know, where you have to walk the horse past the tack room to get them to their stall?

I had a small mare that was an excellent loader. Well, rider in a friend's slant load with the tack room in back, my mare penned me up against the side of that tack room. Penned me pretty hard, knocked the wind out of me. Many of these tack rooms will fold, but who wants to lug a week's worth of supplies to unload a horse? So I concluded that if I were penned by my trusty mare, had it been a larger, panicky, or uneasy loading horse, I would have cracked some ribs.

Now the big open slant loads aren't too bad. My friend has a large 3 horse sland bumper pull, TB size. It's a nice roomy trailer. I wouldn't mind it, it does not have the tack room in back. We do sometimes have trouble getting a horse to yeild to the swinging partition, and that can be a pain.

Personally, I prefer straight loads and stock trailers. The more room for you and the horse to manuever the better. Getting penned is not fun and it's dangerous, I always look for easy accessable escape doors. My family in laws current trailer is a 2-3 slant converted from a 4 horse slant, so now the escape door is located behind the horses, how useful. It's also been stated, but our two largest horses do not fit in a slant. We would never be able to put a swinging partition on them because they have to stand more "straight" to fit, always crowding the horse next to them.

-Kim

 

[Equest94]

Thank you all for your input.

My horses are big (wide AQH mare and a 17+hh WB gelding) and both prefer slants. Our gelding actually managed to cast himself in a straight load; how? I have no idea, but he did, and actually got himself craned around and twisted his neck in the trailer tie. Slants are a bit more snug and give him the support he needs to encourage him to stand still. My mare is better trailering in general...she just doesn't like ramps - "ramps are just in her way," lol. So since I can't buy one trailer for each horse, I would prefer to get one that accommodates them both; which would be a slant, step-up.


I would really prefer an all aluminum....they are lighter and are very slow to rust and sun damage.


As I have mentioned...I have hauled and showed out of many trailers, but I am not a trailer expert. All of the trailers I used have been ones I have borrowed from friends or those that belong to my trainers (didn't really use them long enough to decide if that's the type I want). So, since I'm finally planning on buying one of my own and am going to put in all this money into it, I want something that is good quality and will last me; something worth the price. With that said, the EXISS and the SUNDOWNER are the ones that have currently crossed my path and both are the style that I would like... I'm just not sure if one brand is better than the other....