Am looking to buy a 3 or 4 horse aluminum trailer with or without living quarters. Never had one before, so I could use input on what is the absolute best brand and why.

I have the in-bed 5th wheel prep option, but capped off. Somewhere I saw a ball hitch that could install there and pop up or retract as needed so as not to interfere hauling drywall or plywood in the bed flat when not towing. Who makes it? Did I even see that correctly? It was years ago. What else do I need to do to my dually to make this work? Never had a gooseneck...only pull a backhoe on my flatbed on ocasion. My '06 got 15 mpg towing my hoe up and down steep grades (8 - 11,000 feet). I imagine the new truck can do it even better, but haven't towed yet.

I looked at a new 2008 Royal T Trailer today, in the Competitor SW line for 3 horses. Seemed decent. They wanted $13,600 for it. It was a gooseneck, all aluminum, and around 17' long weighing around 4500 pounds empty. These any good? Am also open to used ones to save a buck.

And for those of you with horses, the above trailer ceiling height was only 7'. Is this the norm? Do Friesians or Clydesdales need more headroom (range between 16 to 21 hands high)? I'm a newbie with all this horse stuff, so I apologize if any of these questions seem dumb.

 

you can get the hitch ball for the 2011 for hitch prep from etrailer.com.
(as well as ford)
Sam

 

These are very nice
Trails West Trailers
Check here also
http://www.horsetrailerworld.com/home/newhome.asp
7ft is the norm,also I highly recommend a slant load trailer,easier on the horses.
FWIW,I will be buying a Trailswest soon.

 

Not sure how this applies to your hitch prep option but the B & W Turnover Ball is the way to go if you are adding a new hitch. And they are a first-rate company - the owner paid his employees to work on projects to improve their town when the economy was bad & they didn't have any work.

 

7' tall is a pretty standard height, but a warmblood won't be comfortable and a draft probably won't fit. You'll probably want something with oversized stalls for horses that size.

 

7' is the norm and most warmbloods and draft horses will require a taller trailer. My 16 hand tn walker fits just fine in the 7' cimmaron. If i remember correctly he probably has 8 inches of clearance. So anything above 16.2 or so and you might risk bumpin their noggin.

Good Luck and I hope this helps.

 

If you want to go with the best check out Sundowners - but be prepared to pay a little more then some brands. Excellent trailers and craftsmenship, very safe, and family owned. Actually some still use 6'6" as standard height, and 7' is the optional, depending on what base model you start with. Most LQ will be 7' and both will offer a 7'6" -or even taller- which is consdiered to be warmblood trailers for the larger horses. With draft horses I definitely would look towards 7'6" Also check stall width, sundowner goes with 42" size rather then the 36" most start with, and can go even wider. I used to be a dealer rep for sundowner, and personally wouldn't buy anything else - kinda like driving a ford :-) Upside to horse trailers is that most manufacturers will build pretty much anything to suite your needs.

As menitoned, with the prep package you can just get the "gooseneck kit" from Ford which will include the ball and 2 tie down points for safety chains. I love goosenecks and wish the RV industry would go more that direction as well. With that and the prep package everything you need should be in place, and when your towing you wont even know its back there.

 

why do you like goosenecks over 5th wheel

 

I like the gooseneck hitch setup itself simply because it is a lightweight ball that I can install and remove easily by myself, and can stow in my backseat. Pretty much everything I have towed though has been horsetrailers with a gooseneck which are usually lower profile and heavier then rvs, so there could be other issues that might make a fifthwheel type setup better for rvs?

 

Over-Kill, not sure of your location but you might want to consider an insulated roof. It makes a huge difference in the hot sun/high temps. Some manufactures offer this as an option and on some it is std equipment.

Also some manufactures use a steel frame with alum flooring. You will hear arguments from both sides but in all my years of hauling with all alum trailers i have never had a problem.

 

Thanks for your experienced input everyone.
So far I like B&W for the ball setup, especially after that little bit of history, thx Mark250.
There's a local Sundowner dealer about 4 hours round trip, I might go look, but I'm leaning more towards a Four Star aluminum trailer. It's going to need to be taller, wider, and with wider stalls, and Four Star is all custom anyway.

Probably a good idea to go bigger, so I'm looking at a 6 horse center load model (28'x8'x8.5' wide). This layout gives me a lot of central space that I think I'll need if I want to use one trailer to haul other things like snowmobiles. I also like the air ride suspension, 8 lug wheels, 8,000# axles, lots of polished stainless instead of aluminum, LED lighting, electric-hydraulic brakes, DVD players for each horse (LOL), etc.

Not sure what the pricing is like, so I may end up with something good but less expensive. Haven't looked at the links for used/new trailers yet, but thanks for those suggestions. A lot to digest here for sure.

Here are some I've looked at:

<A href="http://i363.photobucket.com/albums/oo71/VonOverkill/2011_4-star_51.jpg[/IMG]" target=_blank>

 

Were do you snowmobile

 

With my rig I'd have to go black, but the white/stainless would go great with your setup. 4 Star been around a long time and is a great trailer too and is pretty well known in the horse and rodeo industry.Stragiht loads a really popular for larger horse breeds. Biggest thing on any trailer is just to carfully inspect the horse compartment area. Make sure all roof vents are recessed or somehow protected so theres not sharp edges, check over welds to make sure there clean and again no sharp edges, no screws sticking out. Bascially just look for anything that a horse could get hung up on and cut themselves on. Seems simple but I've seen some pretty rough set ups even on new trailers before. And I don't recommend letting your horse stick its head out the feed door while barreling down the freeway (just saw this last week!)

 

Molas Lake between Silverton and Ouray.


Thanks Sportcraft, I guess I haven't thought about the sharp edges (and those other things) just yet. I suppose I could just leave a file in the stall, and let them deal?


Well, I found a dealer in Pueblo for the trailers. Yikes! Trailer is a lot more than the truck. I may just have to ride the horse to where I want to go.

Will be checking out the useds. It always costs more than you think.

 

Heres a head to head with living qaurter. Caught my eye since it had the black exterior. Even room for your toys or mini stage coach!

2001 SUNDOWNER SUNLITE SIERRA W/LIVING QUARTERS - eBay (item 110622772304 end time Dec-16-10 14:10:26 PST)