I certainly agree with Don that you can never have too
many brakes, but I guess I did not think a horsebox was a trailer. I
thought it was a truck (lorry?).
As to horses liking to ride backwards, I used to think
that and, indeed, bought my modified stock trailer to allow for that.
However, after a lot of hauling over the past five years, I have come to realize
that it depends on the horse. Just for convenience, I have loaded my 3 in
the same positions for years. Two ride facing backwards and the third
faces forward (so they can kibitz as they travel down the road). Everyone
has been way content with this arrangement. Recently, I hauled the horse,
who usually faces forward, alone and loose in the forward compartment. To
my surprise, he road facing forward even though it meant that he could neither
eat nor drink (since the food and water were hung where he could only get them
if he faced backward). This is a horse that always eats and drinks in the
trailer.
That being said, I do think that horses are more at risk
from sudden stops (which occur relatively more frequently, even when the driver
attempts to avoid them) than they are from the trailer being rear-ended or the
driver doing a jackrabbit start (situations which might force a rearfacing horse
into the divider with his nose).
If I had it to do over, I would make a conscious effort to
ensure that I frequently rotated places in the trailer so that each horse was
used to all possible configurations.
Hello Andrea, you have covered the basics but there has been an
improvement (in my opinion) to light pipe corrals. Here is a link to one type
& there are others http://www.easycareinc.com/hitie.aspx . I would also
recommend trailer brakes on all 4 trailer wheels. I agree about horses
trailering backwards. Whenever I haul my horse untied in a stock trailer he
will turn around and ride facing backwards on his own. He loves it. Don
Huston
