New Trailer!

When Liam came home, it was obvious he was going to be a big boy, bigger than my 7' high, 6' wide trailer was going to be able to handle. I knew I'd need a new one soon-ish... but the real kiss of death was when I took my trusty Bison to the shop for frame repair and got a phone call instead. It needed a three to four thousand dollar repair, not the thousand we expected. What was supposed to be a quick partial frame rail repair turned into a repair where all 3 main frame rails would need to be replaced. To do that, it spiraled into thousands in labor to remove the fenders, all trim, peel back the steel skin inside and out, take out the floors... all to get to the frame to cut it out and replace it. Not to mention the thousand plus to put the paint, floor, and trim right.

All hooked up for the Bison's last drive with us.

So I started the hunt to see what used oversize trailers are out there. My base criteria: steel frame, aluminum skin, ramp, 7'6"+ tall. My hunt took a positive turn when I got some inheritance and was able to look at new trailers. I was originally interested in rear facing trailers, but found them to be too expensive. Sadly, I also ruled out gooseneck trailers. I am uncomfortable hauling one with my short bed, 3/4 ton, gas truck. I ruled out companies that I had to contact a dealer for specs like "how tall is the trailer inside" and "what is empty weight". It's just bullshit that that information isn't easily accessible. Eventually I found Hawk's bumper pull 2 horse straight load with side ramp, complete with Hawk's online brochure of specs. I fell in love with the size of the Classic model and all of the windows (4 extra) in the Elite model.

We had a photo shoot in a Hoss's parking lot. #notashamed

I set about finding one already in existence (the Classic Elite model), but only found one with some interesting custom options I hadn't thought about in OR. I contacted the dealer to inquire about shipping, and they said it would be cheaper to have one newly built for me and shipped directly from Hawk than to buy the in stock 2018 and have it shipped. So I started looking closer.

Ramp down. The passenger horse does have to be a bit smaller and more flexible to use the ramp, but the driver horse has plenty of room (the head divider swings to allow the driver horse to leave).

I did my homework: contacted Hawk for MSRP who also told me the dealer should knock a significant amount off MSRP, got things rolling with a dealer near me, disliked the prices they were quoting me because they seemed to be full MSRP minus a pittance, considered dropping custom options I liked, took the advice of a friend and contacted another dealer almost 5 hours away who quoted me almost $5000 less, so I took that quote back to the first dealer who honored it. Woot!

The driver side has the dressing room door and an escape door, while the passenger side only has the side ramp.

I put that first dealer through the ringer. Constantly asking about different custom options (would you believe there isn't a book of upgrades or even available items you can add on?), constantly asking what was standard vs not (because you know I managed to find things that weren't on that spec sheet), constantly changing my mind, and making last minute changes. The woman I worked with was delightful and took everything I threw at her in stride. Her office now considers her the "Hawk Custom Option Expert". I'm sure there were some exasperated sighs in her office when I'd email her!

One of the late customizations was the full rear doors and extra long exterior ramp.

When I went to the dealership to sign the papers to order it, they had a gooseneck model of the the Classic Elite on the lot and took me to see it since I had yet to see my trailer in person... I may have drooled on it. I wanted that gooseneck model so badly! But I hadn't come prepared to haul that kind of trailer or bargin for that model.

Not to rag on the dealer who sold me the trailer, but my Hawk spare tire cover that came with the trailer magically "got lost" and "oh no problem, we'll put one of ours on there!" I'll be ordering a replacement Hawk cover.

I placed my order on Memorial Day (May 27th), and my trailer was ready for pick up August 3rd! Apparently several customers tried to buy my trailer while it was out on order because it sounded so great and it showed up in the stock list.

I can't pull through parking spaces anymore, this trailer is 4' longer than my Bison. The trailer is 19'6" long, just a hair shorter than my truck.

I opted for quite a few custom things:

• Upgrade 3500# axles (7000# GVWR) to 5200# axles (10400# GVWR, derated to 9990# for inspection and registration purposes)
• Oscillating fans on remote switches in the horse area
• 2 LED lights on each ramp
• Bulkhead window
• Full rear doors with extra long (4' vs 3') exterior ramp
• Tubular head and shoulder dividers
• Retractable screen door for the tack room (and removal of the dressing room door brush box)
• Spare tire mounted to the outside of the trailer

Seriously, if you have the option of doing a bulkhead window, do it. You won't be disappointed. It lets in SO MUCH LIGHT.

Reasons:

• Upgraded Axles: The trailer weighs almost 4000# empty, and with a 7000# GVWR, that's only 3000# of cargo. The trailer is built for oversize horses, so I could easily fill it with 3000# of horse, and we'd be overweight as soon as we put hay, tack, and other items in it. I would never ever do that out of kindness to my truck, but I plan on keeping this trailer for 10+ years, so it seemed silly to put a limit on it now. I expected Liam to be 1400-1500# when he was done growing, so this upgrade seemed reasonable. I will say, the brakes on those axles are beefier and despite this trailer being 500# heavier than my Bison, we towed it home on a lower brake controller boost rating.
• Fans: Duh, it get hot and fans are fantastic.
• Ramp lights: Duh, it gets dark and lights are fantastic for loading and unloading in the dark.
• Bulkhead Window: This was one of the items I considered dropping since it was the silly notion of "I might be able to see my horses from the truck." I am SO GLAD I didn't drop it. It's divine to look through and lets in even more light.
• Full doors/Exterior ramp: Do you know how many times I've been kicked by the horse already on the trailer while trying to load the second? How many horses I've watched try to back out over or under the butt bar while their friend refuses to load? Not anymore! Shut their rear door and they're in.
• Tubular dividers: For increased light and airflow.
• Screen door: I don't want to take barn cats to new farms. I've shooed cats many times, and my old screen door always ensured I didn't take anyone home with me that shouldn't go home with me!
• Spare tire: in the original floorplan, the spare is mounted in the tack room. That's a huge no for me. Non-rectangular tack rooms waste space with odd angle corners, no reason to add to the waste by putting a spare tire in there. I had it moved to outside on the passenger side of the trailer.

There's a tiny step up where the ramp attaches to the back, but it's no worse than some step ups into a barn aisle.

I am beyond thrilled with it. I LOVE it. When it got home to the barn, I gave several tours through it. Love love love it.

Husband and I brought it back to our house before taking it to the barn to put my stuff in the tack room and to change some of the decals. He and I... don't care for dealer stickers. At all. He made the dealership remove their sticker from his Camaro when he bought it. And he expertly removed the dealer's stickers from my trailer... all THREE of them. One of which was very crooked and made his eyes bleed to look at it, and another covered key weight ratings on the tongue. Completely obnoxious.

Husband is good with decals, so he removed the dealer ones and added our own!

Also have to say, it was so cool to haul it home and it had never been driven around. It shipped on a truck from WI where it was made with several other trailers, so it literally had zero miles on it when I picked it up.

The fans are visible in this pic. The trailer came with triangle managers, which I don't think I'm going to use except to catch hay from hay nets. Right now they're water jug holders until I can get everything organized.

I haven't driven it around yet because of my head/health issues that are causing eye strain/fatigue/motion processing issues. Husband went with me to pick it up and has been the only one to drive it so far.

A good shot of the dividers. I love tubular ones!
The air flow in the trailer should be really good- all of the windows open and the rear doors have windows (a huge selling point of the Elite model for me), and there are roof vents that swing two directions as well.

Yesterday (Sunday 8/18), it went to my local truck/trailer/tractor/diesel guy to lose its delightful new trailer smell. To avoid the issues I had with my Bison, he is undercoating it while it still has under 200 miles on it to stop it from rusting outside in, and packing the steel frame with grease to prevent it from rusting inside out. This is the first brand new vehicle I've ever owned, and it will probably be the last, and I want this trailer to last for at least 10 to 15 years.

Safe at home :)

Oh wait, who is this?

Sudden Backlog of Posts Because...

The tree vs house saga continues to be annoying. Advice: Go full 1984 on your neighbors. Survey their trees and their entire property. Apparently when a diseased tree that belongs to your neighbor falls on your house, if they didn't know it was sick or dead, it's your fault. You have to notify them, via certified mail, that their tree is sick/dead and poses a risk to your house. In insurance, apparently ignorance on the owner's side is bliss.

I suddenly have a huge backlog of posts too- I had a ground work lesson with the cowboy dressage trainer LM, we went to another schooling show, and we went back to GP Trainer's barn for lessons! I was able to finagle a day of zero responsibilities this past Saturday, but it quickly filled up with "Spring Sprucing" for the trailer. Sigh. The trailer looks great and needed it for sure, but my relaxing day of getting notes and video together was nixed!

Started by emptying, sweeping, and washing. Husband changed the emergency brake battery too.

Then we fetched our new horse, "Slim." He's a bit long in the back, very rigid, and doesn't fit in the trailer.
He's quite skinny, you can see all his ribs!

Slim in action! (we actually got him to work on the roof, but this was a nice extra use)

No more leaky roof vent.

Husband grinding off rust. There was a lot of it. All steel trailer yo.

After grinding, rusty spots got painted. Certainly not perfect, but it'll continue to slow down the rust.

Before

During- just before this point we decided to go buy more paint and do more than halfway up the walls.

"Strong roman nose on him." - Austen
I painted him with a paint roller, that's my excuse.

Wet paint!

Finished! Hopefully it doesn't take us another 5 years to finish up the doors and divider, lol.
(Paint still tacky, it was cold overnight which didn't let the paint dry. It was tricky putting the mats back in!)

I also caught some video of Penn playing Sunday morning. He's kind of a jackass to the other horses. This is why we have to be careful who he gets turned out with, lol. Kind of funny how after all the shenanigans, he just stops and eats hay.

Link to YouTube

At least he trots real pretty when he's done, lol.

Trailer Upgrades!

Since I have the best husband ever, he upgraded my truck and made additions to my trailer back in January. The week he worked on the trailer just happened to be the coldest week of January. Oops.

First off, I had to empty my entire trailer for husband to do the work. This also meant de-stink-bugging everything (I must have pulled hundreds out of my stuff).

Copious amounts of stuff. (not pictured: water jugs, broom, pitchfork, standing saddle rack...)
How did it all fit in a 4'x6' tack room? (a couple items go in the horse compartment)

After Husband finished the trailer, I had to sort through it all and decide what was going back in... obviously the muck cart, pitchfork, brooms, trunk went back in. Things like: hunt breastplate with standing martingale attachment, XC boots, never used open front boots, and XC crash vest were sent to the horsey boxes in the basement for storage. Things like my horsey medical supplies needed condensed and sorted. Broken and empty bottles needed to be thrown out, same with broken halters and torn blanket bags. My super awesome rain coat was sent to the closet because it fills with stink bugs in my trailer and so I refuse to wear it.

One complete set of jump stuff (saddle, bridle, 5-point breastplate, SMBs, ankle boots) remains in the trailer for trail riding.
There are two additional bridle hooks next to the door, I just didn't take a picture of them.

The horse compartment. No worries, everything is securely bungeed and ratcheted in!
Fuzzy edges due to it being a sunny day reflecting on snow after Snowstorm Jonas.

Ok, on to the improvements! (come on, a clean and tidy trailer is an improvement right?)

Who could forget when Husband messaged me and said my tackroom door fell off?

With all of the in and out of the tackroom in frigid temps, the hanging-on-by-a-thread door fell off. It had been allowed to slam open in a previous life, which meant the hinges pulled the screws mostly out of the framing, it hung crooked (and closed hard). Husband made a new oak frame (shown above) to replace the rotten one. He added some metal edging where the door had lost its original.

Bam! The door hangs straight and closes easily with its new insides!

The next major upgrade? New radio system for the truck. We have trailer cams, and I used to use a screen with an ethernet cable that ran out the door to a phone jack on the bumper. Now it's all built into the truck! He also added a camera to the back of the trailer so we can back up in the dark without hitting anything (and stare at tailgaters), and then he added a back up camera to the truck to make it easier to hook up.

The screen turns on automatically when the truck is put in reverse. The big red button is an override so we can look at the cameras while traveling forward. The little black buttons are toggles and then direct buttons for each camera. This taped on system is going to go away in the next few weeks- husband is ordering a custom face plate for the empty cubby behind the buttons so the buttons are locked in place (and so it looks nicer).

Another good thing is the loss of the ethernet cable and phone jack at the bumper:

Real plugs!

So the big plug closer to the hitch is the electric, but the smaller plug to the left is for the cameras in the trailer and the one behind the trailer! You can also see the truck's back up camera attached to the top of the license plate.

New radio system all lit up (coming home from the last show). It's Penn radio!

Now for photographic proof of just how bright it is inside the trailer, mostly thanks to two truck batteries in the tackroom (which Husband charged the piss out of and they seem to be back in good working shape!). When not hooked up to the truck, I can use them to create an electrical current the same as what's in your house to light up curly cue light bulbs (which are protected from horses by metal cages). Husband also replaced the small, not-as-bright, trailer lights with LED so they used less power.

All the lights on. Every light in and on the trailer. Obnoxious, haha.

Husband replaced the ramp light with a super bright LED flood light.
Now I think this is a welcoming box for the horse to climb into in the dark!

Tack room- filthy from a day of muddy parking.

Lighting improvements:

Look! I can see the hitch in the dark to unhook!

LED flood lights point backwards to allow for night time tying to the trailer (something I haven't done since 4H!), nighttime packing (I used them to pack for the last horse show since I packed in the dark!), or help in seeing what's behind you when backing up in the dark. They automatically go on when the truck is put in reverse (only when the truck lights are on). There are also toggle switches in the tackroom for when it's not hooked up to the truck.

View from behind the trailer with the lights on.

A more normal view of what it would look like without all the other lights on, haha.

The other thing he added were the orange tag lights you see by the wheel wells.
There are 4- one on each end of the wheel wells.

Husband did a good job!

Back to Work

I am finally feeling better, but I haven't ridden Penn yet. It takes a lot for me not to ride- but not being able to breathe is enough!

I long lined him Friday night... I also had to put him back in his place in the cross ties. I don't tolerate fidgeting and moving and pressure on the ties. I just don't. I find it dangerous and rude and annoying. He had almost a whole week of no rules other than behave walking into and out of the field, so he got a quick reminder that he needed to stand quietly. He then proceeded to look like a sad puppy... because he really is just a big puppy!

Anyway, we long lined Friday and I'm making good progress with the canter. Trainer wanted me to apply strong half halts under saddle when the diagonal pair was on the ground, so I was able to apply that to the lines when I can actually see his legs. Worked super well! I am trying to not do as much for him from the ground, but

Penn decided to have a mind of his own when I stopped him to rearrange the lines, he backed away from me, wrapped the lines around his neck and was just like, "Look! You can't make me." It took me a few minutes to get him safely reset, then he got a couple smacks with the whip to get forward thinking again. I had to remind him a couple times I was in charge, and he finished his work nicely.

Friday night.

I long lined Penn again Saturday, and had a slightly less productive work in reference to bettering the canter, but Friday's work had stuck because he didn't immediately zoom off on his own when I asked for it. He picked up a quiet, but still leaning in, canter each way. I only lasted for one or two canters each way before I had to stop- I never used to get dizzy lunging, but it's a fairly new thing for me and my illness made it worse.

Both days I worked more on Penn's pi/pa basics. I've scrapped the hind end for now (more towards pi training, and to be honest, I'm fascinated by passage not piaffe) just because I don't think he needs to learn to sit and plant himself at all just yet. Seems like a can of worms I'm not ready to have opened! He knows to pick up his hind feet if I tap a hind leg, and for now that's good enough. He's super tuned into a tap or two on the front of the front leg's cannon bone though. I sometimes match each tap with a cluck to help him understand I want his feet to move.

He's so responsive to the leg tapping, that I wasn't sure where to go with it other than to put it into motion in the walk while the indoor and wall are available to me. I don't have a bamboo pole or anything, so I've taken to using the handle end of my dressage whip- no lash and it's a good solid rubber handle. He found it a bit confusing to hold his walk on his own while my attention is elsewhere, but figured out quickly that's what I wanted.

So as I watched Alfredo's videos, the pole he uses to encourage passage almost acts like something the horse needs to step over- letting the horse move the leg into the pole, and forward with the horse, and near knee height, he's always encouraging a big step.

Taking that thinking into plan, I found if I get Penn's walk going, then hold the handle of my whip at low cannon/fetlock height and let it bounce against his legs as he walks, he actively takes bigger and slower steps. I match each step with a cluck, and have him continue until he's taken about 6 big steps in total.

He caught on almost immediately- prompt big steps, then he got tons of praise. I only ask for the steps once per long side of the arena, and I don't drill it for more than two or three long sides because he's young, it isn't a huge part of his training, and I don't want to overstimulate him or blow his mind.

I guess I'd like to eventually have someone drive behind him and be in control of where he goes and his speed and gait, and I can encourage the bigger steps. The whole goal of this isn't to create a good passage or one with a rider, just an idea in his head that I can hopefully tap into for a loftier trot while riding so his first level trot work is a step above most everyone else's and not as far behind the imported fancy warmbloods we that we'll be competing against. This subject gets a lot of attention in this post, but in reality I spend about 5 to 10 minutes tops working on it, and usually at the end of long lining since we're already on the ground working in hand (so not much more than 15-30 min per week).

While I spent the entire day Saturday at the barn (working with Penn and then just chatting with BO), Husband was hard at work on my trailer all day Saturday!

Hitch light!

Light down the side of the trailer (both sides) for night packing and backing up.

Backstory: before we bought the trailer, the tack room door experienced a few too many slam opens. Every time it was allowed to bang open, the screws would pull out of the wood a little bit and then eventually the door became sticky to open and close.

On Friday, the door gave up and fell off its hinges. Husband was able to use the lock on the door to help hold it in place for the night so he could fix it Saturday. I got an alarming photo of my tack room door on Saturday while I was at the barn- it was in pieces of rotting wood on the garage floor. By the time I got home, Husband had created a new oak wood frame that goes around the foam and under the plastic skin. It's a new solid surface for the aluminum framing to be screwed to, and it means the door opens and closes properly!

New frame, old rotten frame, the rest of the door in the background.

Back where it belongs! Shut evenly and firmly and attached to the trailer!

It hangs straight and even now!

I had Hawk from No Longer Fiction ride Penn on Sunday for me. I'm still not feeling up to riding, but I think Penn had enough long lining for a few days (I sure did!). She's a wonderful sensitive quiet rider, which is exactly what Penn needs since he is very sensitive to what his rider does (as she found out!). She did a lovely job putting him through his paces and figuring him out. It was nice to see someone else ride him. Thank you Hawk!

BO also gave me a window decal of a dressage horse for my trailer- family sent her a whole stack of them and she was like, would you want one? I was like YESSSSSS.

So obviously we stuck it to the trailer Sunday afternoon after I got home. It's a bit hard to see- I guess I never realized how tinted the trailer windows are... it's kind of hard to see the decal without it being back-lite or something.

Husband peeking into the trailer as we were trying to decide if the decal was straight or not.

It's hard to see from the outside- the window tint and then reflection takes a lot out of the skinny white lines.

The truck is next on the list of things to be updated, and hopefully the trailer is back to the barn sometime this week- Husband needs it here to make sure all the hookups and cameras work after he installs the new radio thingy. However, we need our driveway back!