Several years ago a friend's teenage daughter was trailering her horse home from high school rodeo. She had an old two-horse trailer and when she was a mile from home on a slightly bumpy dirt road, the trailer came off the hitch, went off the road and fell on it's side. The sweet quarter horse inside broke his pelvis, was in great pain and had to be put down after suffering in the trailer for a while. It was so sad and traumatic! She told me later that the part of the hitch that goes around the ball had worn over the years and didn't clamp around the ball, just rested on it, but she didn't know that. The bumpy road lifted the trailer right off. I don't know if she had safty chains on. Another thing to check on older trailers.
Linda in the 90 degree Mojave desert
