Sometimes trailer stuff just happens despite precautions that you think are all taken care of. Several years ago we had a lynch pin shatter while on route to pickup a new horse. This occured on the highway about ten miles from home and with no horses in the trailor. The trailor recievor came away from the main hitch and the trailor swung for a brief period by the safety chains before the oscilation sent it careening off the side of the highway embankment. My friend had properly hitched the trailer. I can attest as I watched carefully admiring the ease of her rig. My aerospace engineer husband did an analysis on the remaining pin pieces and deamed it to structurally have failed. The only way to have prevented this was to have proactively replaced the lynch pin on a regular basis. I now buy new lynchpins intended for such loads on a bi-yearly basis. Seems like cheap insurance to me. I saw that trailor whiz by and can only be thankful no horses were in it!
