I can't figure out why I wanted a slant load trailer!

[Bluey]

@soloudinhere

How could it possibly be a slant load trailer if it has no dividers forcing it to be a slant load trailer? If you can stand two horses side by side, then why not call it a straight load? After all, they’re standing straight? Here, such a trailer, even with a fixed slant wall, is a stock combo.

I don’t usually go by what people advertise things as on Craigslist, but whatever. Semantics. I would never back a horse around another horse on a “slant load” but I also wouldn’t load horses on a trailer with no roof so it’s obvious that Bluey and I do not exactly have the same view on trailers.

:lol:

Practically every “cowboy rig” here is a half top, because of loading cattle in there out in pastures is easier like that.
Those trailers and horses and cattle in them haul for way more miles in a year than most people haul their horses in their lifetime.
You know, there are hardly ever any accidents, in 45 years only two and one was a dawn wreck of a big truck running into the back of the trailer when the driver went to sleep, the horse and cowboy were fine, the trailer and pickup totaled.
Both wrecks would have happened no matter if the trailers were full or half top.

By the way, our stock trailers have all been full top, we don’t have to get cattle in there where we need the half top, so we prefer to keep the inside out of the rain.
That picture was our neighbor’s trailer, that came by to get two of our horses to move some cattle, rather than drive 20 miles and back to his place.

[Risk-Averse_Rider]

@Bluey

By the way, our stock trailers have all been full top, we don’t have to get cattle in there where we need the half top, so we prefer to keep the inside out of the rain.
That picture was our neighbor’s trailer, that came by to get two of our horses to move some cattle, rather than drive 20 miles and back to his place.

So cattle load better in an open top trailer?

[Bluey]

@Risk-Averse Rider

So cattle load better in an open top trailer?

At the end of a rope they do, that is why the half top, so you can throw the rope over the nubs welded up there, sometimes those are plain hitch balls and you can pull the roped cattle right in there, the horse back toward’s the end pushing them in, the rope keeping them in there.

Beats having to, with a full top, turn loose of the rope to quickly run it thru the bars and then dally again, before the cattle take off.
We just don’t pasture rope hardly ever, that is why our trailers have most been full top.

Hope that makes sense?

[Nestor]

I’m another vote for straight loads over a slant.

As others have said, the issue of not being able to get to the first horse in the event of an emergency is a big problem. Maybe it’s because I’m in New England, as others have pointed out, but I have never seen a horse-sized escape door on a slant load. Even ones purchased out west and brought back here. Maybe a people sized door, but never big enough or low enough to get an injured/panicked horse out of it safely.

I like straight loads, preferably a 2+1 set-up though I don’t see those anywhere around here really. The more options to get a horse out safely, the better, IMO.

Having also seen someone get dragged through the narrow back door on a slant by a spooked horse, and then tossed 20 feet, I also hate the narrow opening on most. I had no idea you can even get slants without the rear tack, which would help this problem. That or backing a horse out.

I also hate having to crawl under the dividers to get a horse out. Sorry, I don’t like opening the divider and having the horse just straight-tied. I guess I’m a spoiled East Coaster who doesn’t know many horses who straight tie. :lol: Also, my first horse would panic if straight tied in a trailer. He’d stand tied all day, but not in a trailer without a divider or butt bar. So opening a divider in a slant load with a horse still tied on the other side gives me serious anxiety.

And the fact that slants just aren’t as roomy as straight loads. You can only make a trailer so wide. A 17.3hh horse doesn’t do so well in a slant load, even the biggest ones.

I have a lot of opinions about slant v. straight, apparently! :winkgrin: