Horse trailer door latch failures?

[4horses]

Someone went looking for me today while I was riding. She said she has the same trailer as mine and the latch on the back door snapped as she was driving causing the back door to the trailer to swing open. Her horse was tied up front and was fine, luckily.

Obviously this is rather concerning, as I often leave my horses free in the trailer. I can put a chain on the back door in the meantime… She said the latch itself snapped in half. I could understand if it broke at a weld, but to actually snap in half???

Anyone else have any issues with Cam trailer latches failing?

[cayuse]

I had this happen years ago with my almost new CM trailer. I was transporting a horse with colic to the clinic and looked out to see the door swinging, hubby took the first off ramp (which was right there, thankfully) and we had to tie the door shut. While I was trying to do this on a very busy road some couple pulled up behind me and started asking for directions to some place. I told them I couldn’t help, I didn’t know how to get where they were headed as I was unfamiliar with the area and they got super angry. I explained I was dealing with a busted trailer and a sick horse and their response was “well WE are trying to get somewhere and you wont help?”
Sorry for the trip down memory lane. To get back on track, the latch itself somehow broke. I had them replaced with something different on both doors. It was the side doors though, not back.

[4horses]

Wow! It seems like things always decide to break at the worst possible time.

[Bluey]

Cowboy stock trailers spend so much time bouncing around rough pastures that latches have been known to just spring open or break occasionally.
That is why those trailer always have several pigging strings hanging by the back gate and are double secured with one just in case.
Pigging strings are those small short ropes used to tie a calf down after you rope it to treat it.

[Feathered_Feet]

Wow, terrifying to think that could happen at the worst time like on a highway. If my trailer had only one latch on such an important door, I’d take it to the shop and get a second latch welded on.

I bet a store like this has extra parts: https://www.horsetraileraccessorystore.com/

[trubandloki]

Can you clarify where it is breaking? That seems like a strange type of latch to fail that way.

[wsmoak]

Can you post a picture of the type of latch that failed? I prefer this type with the full height bars and metal butterfly latch that you can put a clip through. Especially with the ramp closed on top of them, those doors are not coming open accidentally!

220222_9651 by Wendy, on Flickr

[trubandloki]

@wsmoak, that is the type of latch I was guessing the OP was talking about. That is why I asked for specifics because this seems like a weird thing to break that way.

[wsmoak]

Some of them have only a single clip that you push the bar down into. That’s what I’m guessing broke. Not a fan of this type:

[4horses]

The metal bar snapped in half right where the black clip is in this picture. I’m sort of wondering if they hit a pot hole or something that shook the trailer enough to cause an impact great enough to snap it. That’s not a location that would rust out and it certainly seems like an unusual location for something to fail.

It’s easy enough to reinforce the door on my stock trailer. I can simply put a chain around the door at the top. But I would love to know why it failed, and how to prevent that from happening to someone else.

[clanter]

my guess just looking at the bar from the photo that is was not from forged stock but was cut from a sheet of metal (much less expensive)

That silver clip is stamped from sheet metal