I am ordering a custom gooseneck trailer and was going to add tie downs in the dressing room (esp gooseneck) and the main horse area to secure hay bales.
Any suggestions on where to put them, what height works the best?
I was thinking to do maybe 4 to 6 in the gooseneck area. A couple in the dressing area and then maybe some at the heads of the horses? Not sure if it’s a good idea to add them further back than where their heads are at.
Any advice or lessons learned with your trailers would be appreciated! Especially what height was most helpful.
Do you have a diagram of the layout of the trailer so far? Even a hand sketch would be good. I have thoughts, as I did not add them to mine and I pay for it every horse show.
Apologies for piggybacking on this question, no intention to divert / derail …
A straight-line two horse bumper-pull (not a slant) with only one horse on board, what about using the open horse side for hay bales, strapped in somehow? Is it safe, what is your experience, how can it be done safely?
That open space is just there, looking so useful. I’ve never stored anything there for travel, though. Recurrent waking nightmares of what might happen in an accident, even a urgent braking, if whatever it was became loose and impacted the horse-occupied side.
I had a horse get his shoe caught up in a hay bale string. I don’t know how much of the trip he spent standing on three legs, but he was amazingly calm when I opened the door. The bale slid across the trailer floor ending up in front of him. I thought I had secured it well. After that I paid extra special attention to securing any bales in the trailer and I also bought my first trailer camera system.
I added tie strap rings in the dressing room. They have been so helpful in stackable trunks and stacks of muck buckets strapped to the wall.
Not my trailer – in mine, the larger containers are held against the wall by straps attached to the tie rings that were added.
Not my trailer, but here is one elaborate solution from organized trailer tack room photos … this one used the grid but rings can also be worked in as well.
I was going to say that I didn’t know where the frame was and my previous Equispirit had them welded in but I just looked back at photos and they were bolted in
OP, you might have to find a google image of what you are envisioning.
Maybe I drive like a grandma when towing but I have a 2003 Exiss 3-horse gooseneck as well as a 2022 Lakota 5-horse with living quarters and I have never strapped in a hay bale and I’ve never had an issue with one moving. In both trailers, if I do not have a horse in the front-most stall, that’s usually where I will put hay bales. Now with that said, I do bed heavily with shavings. Perhaps that keeps the bales from moving?
If I do need to haul hay in my dressing room (which I have done before), I put the hay into large plastic totes with lids, to keep my dressing room clean and hay free.
I have also hauled hay bags and hay bales on the bed of my pickup truck but that you MUST strap down and secure or they will move (simply from the air moving around and suction).
I guess for myself, I would be worried about having some sort of latch/hook that you can hook a rachet strap … but that isn’t going to scrape a leg or scratch a horse.
Do you have any example photos of what you have seen?
These are Equispirit’s, they look pretty safe to me. 🤷
My two horse had them on the bulkhead (as shown here) and I did use them one show when I needed to bring two (stacked) bales of hay and two horses.
In my 5H H2H gooseneck, I like to put hay in the right rear horse stall, using the left rear and left and right front stalls for horses. I don’t have stud dividers and I need to bring 4-5 bales, so stacking that many next to a horse makes me nervous without strapping them in (I currently ratchet strap to a few tie rings) I also bed with shavings and a few times have put in my box stall dividers to haul gear and nothing moved. Still… I’d also be able to haul trunks or wheelbarrow, etc in the back of the trailer if I could tie things in. As it is I’m putting trunks in the dressing room and the wheelbarrow goes in DH’s truck bed (which pulls the travel trailer).
Those are pretty neato in their design, but I wouldn’t want those anywhere in the horse area personally.
I’d just use regular old D rings - they fold flat to the wall, and you can shimmy a piece of rubber in them so they stay up for easy hooking and don’t rattle.
My old Equispirit has them forward of the chest bars and hay bag mangers. They are bolted in.
Pic is of when I redid the floors so the divider and chest and butt bars are all removed.
I’d really wait until you have the trailer and then you can actually put a bale in there and see if that’s still what you want. You can screw ‘D’ rings into the floor, just cut a circle in the mat. You can screw them anywhere in the walls where there’s an upright. Not difficult. We do it a lot for customers.
Would screwing them to the floor be sufficient? IIRC, the floor boards are just laid flat under the mats (not screwed down), wouldn’t they move if something was strapped to them?
If I could get it together like that … 
