I got lucky in college and with some help from my parents (who were thoroughly over me ranting about having to deal with other people's timelines, ridiculous trailering charges and all of the other issues trailering with people from my barn caused) purchased my cute little 1995 Trail-et 2 Horse trailer. It's a straight load, and while I wish it had the nice modern soft mangers and a ramp, this little trailer has been a fantastic asset. It's not fancy, but it does the job and it's a thousand times better than the dark, low ceiling-ed steel trailers my friends often came to pick me up in - it has really decent ventilation for an older trailer, a nice high ceiling, and the horse slots are a really good length, so they make up for the annoyance of having solid mangers. My trailer also has a tack room with under manger storage, and a small to decent sized full size area.
When we purchased the trailer, we scraped and Rust-Oleum-ed over some surface rust, sealed the manger windows and escape doors, re-did the top vent, painted the floor boards with more Rust-Oleum to help them resist any damage from urine, added external hooks and added bridle racks to the front of the trailer. My dad did some wiring work to get me rear load lights and a tack room light for any late-night trailering I would need to do (after a bad experience with a late night load without internal lights in a trailer, we both agreed this was a damn good idea).
Now that I've got two horses (and thus 5x the crap I used to) and a much smaller storage area at our house than I did in college (when I was able to take up large amounts of my parent's upper garage storage with blanket bins) I'm looking at my trailer now as having a lot of wasted storage space. I don't love the saddle racks, both the racks themselves (triangular, so metal rods rest against the panels, which is a big no-no for me) and their location. I have three plastic Stanley trunks as a result of the barn with no tack room, and currently two live in my trailer while one is living in the barn, becoming overrun with spiders. The main compartment feels a bit like wasted space; a lot of the leathergoods I purchased the extra bridle racks along the front (curved) for have wound up in my tack locker in the barn, and I keep my saddles in my car thanks to Hubby's wonderful trunk saddle rack he made for me.
I'm considering moving the saddle racks, adding a storage bench, creating a built in storage area under the mangers and a myriad of other things - and my show schedule this year differs from previous years, because I'm planning on a lot of one day shows versus multiple days, which changes the way I use my trailer at shows. I want to revamp my trailer to be more useful for storage - because it's utterly stupid how many times I've had to make do this year because something I need is at home in storage - and also functional for tacking out of for lessons and shows.
I generally only haul one horse (because I'm a control freak and don't like dealing with the myriad of problems a second person and horse bring to the table) but my trailer doesn't have a solid divider, so the second stall space isn't really a viable storage option (at least for anything permanent). I do use the right side manger to hold hay and bedding on the way to shows, as it's so much easier to just put it there and strap it in than deal with moving it once I've arrived and it's about to rain. I do occasionally haul two horses, and always like to have the option. My truck, unlike my dad's, also is limited in storage space, as it's a single bench seat F250 with no back seat, and we don't have a cover for the bed.
SO, dear blogland... tell me about your trailers! What works for you? What do you hate? Have you done anything DIY style to upgrade your trailer?
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| It's even cuter now that I have a truck in a matching shade of red! |
When we purchased the trailer, we scraped and Rust-Oleum-ed over some surface rust, sealed the manger windows and escape doors, re-did the top vent, painted the floor boards with more Rust-Oleum to help them resist any damage from urine, added external hooks and added bridle racks to the front of the trailer. My dad did some wiring work to get me rear load lights and a tack room light for any late-night trailering I would need to do (after a bad experience with a late night load without internal lights in a trailer, we both agreed this was a damn good idea).
I'm considering moving the saddle racks, adding a storage bench, creating a built in storage area under the mangers and a myriad of other things - and my show schedule this year differs from previous years, because I'm planning on a lot of one day shows versus multiple days, which changes the way I use my trailer at shows. I want to revamp my trailer to be more useful for storage - because it's utterly stupid how many times I've had to make do this year because something I need is at home in storage - and also functional for tacking out of for lessons and shows.
I generally only haul one horse (because I'm a control freak and don't like dealing with the myriad of problems a second person and horse bring to the table) but my trailer doesn't have a solid divider, so the second stall space isn't really a viable storage option (at least for anything permanent). I do use the right side manger to hold hay and bedding on the way to shows, as it's so much easier to just put it there and strap it in than deal with moving it once I've arrived and it's about to rain. I do occasionally haul two horses, and always like to have the option. My truck, unlike my dad's, also is limited in storage space, as it's a single bench seat F250 with no back seat, and we don't have a cover for the bed.
SO, dear blogland... tell me about your trailers! What works for you? What do you hate? Have you done anything DIY style to upgrade your trailer?
That looks a lot like some trailers I was considering when I first went trailer shopping! Cute! Tho I've never really used my trailers for permanent storage space bc my last was an open stock trailer (i.e. Open to the elements) and neither it nor my current encloses trailer have dressing rooms. I do like having those hanging storage compartment things tho, and my current trailer has a sweet built in wooden trunk.
ReplyDeleteYour trailer is very much what I'd want if I had the cash to replace mine (and didn't have enough for a 2+1 gooseneck... which I never will) - and I am considering the trunk because of yours! I'm a bit paranoid about inviting rodents in to murder my blankets, but between a packed tack room, packed garage and the bribery from my husband that if I can get my horse crap out of the way, he'll let me get a chest freezer to put in it's place... new blanket storage, at least, is on the list.
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