Thank you for the replies to my other thread about a cart I was curious about. In that vein, please recommend and provide examples, where possible, of carts you would recommend for a stout 13.1 Haflinger mare for just pleasure driving on dirt roads/fields. Something easy to get into and out of preferably as this is my daughter’s horse and I’m sure one of the grandparents might like to come along eventually. Thank you for any help/advice/wisdom.
crickets
Maybe let me narrow this down. What I’m really after to begin with, if there is such an animal, is a small cart that will maybe fit in the spare stall of my two horse gooseneck trailer, where I could take pony and cart along when I wanted to go carting someplace away from home. I was looking at the Cob Cart that Happy Hill Farm in LA makes with that in mind. http://www.happyhillsfarm.net/Carts.htm
While I love Meadowbrook carts, my current truck and trailer will not accomodate horse and cart both so will have to start with something small.
I also found Wagner Carts http://www.wagnercarts.com/ and they even show where one person takes her cart apart and puts it into her trailer, but I think that’s going to be rather alot of work for an afternoon jaunt but did like their carts alot.
Hi,
Is this a 2 horse trailer and you are trying to get a carriage into one of the side stalls, or do you have a 2 + 1 and have a box stall to work with? If its a 2 horse trailer, I really can’t think of any carriages that would work in such a small space unless you take the carriage apart. We have a box stall that we are able to work with and we are able to get a marathon carriage and a 4 wheeler in side by side, or we have also put a meadowbrook in with the shafts up on the stall divider. If its a 2 horse, bumper pull - are you able to put something in the back of your truck??
If ‘old folks’ like myself are going to be involved the ‘easy entry’ is the way to go.
I own a G&S trail cart and am happy with it. Would love to own a Sprint made by Fry at Colonial Carriage but I bought the G&S before Fry started making his and although mine does not have the features of the Sprint it is well made and less $$. BTW, the Sprint is so popular it is back ordered about 3 months last I heard.
I’ve had several carts with my Haflingers. I really liked the one I got from Ahonen Carriage works. The shafts are removable, making it easy to transport: http://www.ahonen.com/training.htm I’ve since graduated to driving a pair and I use another Ahonen carriage with them. It has a pole and also shafts for driving to a single pony. All are easily removable: http://www.ahonen.com/challenger.htm
An unsolicited suggestion about your stout Haflinger would be to consider whether she might be better off if you took some weight off of her. Haflingers are indeed of round, sturdy build but they don’t do well being overweight. Laminitis and founder are constant concerns for the portly Haflinger. I thought my two were the heavy drafty type until I took about 100 lbs off of them a few years ago and discovered a pair of well-proportioned fairly athletic ponies under the fluff. :lol: My boys are 14 hands. I weight tape them every week and if they go above 860 lbs on the tape, it’s diet time. They still have plenty of ‘substance’ but they look and ARE healthier.
I think on top of what you need to fit it into, we need to know your price range…
The carts on the happy hills farm page are really crappy construction in my opinion and not going to be something you’ll be real happy with long term.
The wagener carts are known to be good construction, but they are also a bit expensive. I had inquired about them quite a while ago, so i cant honestly remember the price but i thought it was close to 3k.
The sprint cart takes 6-8 weeks to get made, but i dont think they are 3 months behind. I ordered one last month and it will be finished Jan 7th… With the options i ordered on mine, it was $3500. I’m sorta in the same boat with fitting mine into my slant load trailer as my marathon carriage goes in my truck bed. I can easily remove the shafts off the Sprint, but will also have to remove the wheels, which isnt too terrible to do, or so they tell me. The other option, which i’m looking into, is to get a cart rack for the back of your trailer. I’m not sure that my trailer door can support one yet. If you search through here you’ll find some pics of Cartfall’s really nifty cart rack built onto the rear frame of her horse trailer, i beleive it cost her around $800 to do. But there are some cheaper options if you’ve got the supports in the right places on your rear door. Though it will be a pain if you have a ramp load.
a more expensive option, and yes this is a UK brand and you would have to go through a US dealer to get one:
http://www.benningtoncarriages.co.uk/carriages/pleasure-driving/bennington-buccaneer
but this would reduce itself easily for your trailer.
No two wheel cart on the market will fit in a single slant stall. Possibly with the shafts up over the divider, but it’s going to depend on how big of wheels are on the cart, and i’m assuming for your size animal you’ll have wheels around 42-44". If you do not have a rear tack and thus your rear stall is bigger like mine, you might have an easier go of fitting bigger wheels into it?
I had a G&S trail cart… I would not recommend it for a bigger animal. I had a mini and i competed and trail drove over some crazy stuff with mine, for the price, it held up, but i wouldnt have trusted it to hold up with the torque my welsh cob could put on it. It also rode rougher than all get out and i vowed to never own one again. It’s really sad when you love to drive but would rather not because it beat your brains out… If you havent had a better cart to know how nice they can ride, you might learn to live with it… lol But me knowing better, it was pure torture.
Its hard just starting out spending a lot of $$ on a cart… You think, i just need a starter cart, something to plunk around on the trails with… But honestly, the cheaper vehicles are so poorly constructed, they arent safe.
For cheap and nice, i would recommend the “country gig” from here:
http://www.countrycarriagesusa.com/vehicles.html
Do NOT get anything with wire wheels. I crushed those with a mini taking a naughty turn back to the barn. I would hate to think what a bigger pony would do to them. There is one at my boarding facility right now in horse size that is crushed and broken to pieces from an accident too. I would label it to horse owner stupidity… However, a better constructed cart might not have escalated the accident to the level it did. Ie, the horse wouldnt have freaked out when the cart fell apart…
Thanks all, this is the feedback I needed. It just may have to wait as yes, I have a 2 horse goose straight load, walk through trailer and a shortbed Chevy 2500 truck. I wanted to keep it $1800 or less, but I every time I look at it, it gets more and more expensive. But then doesn’t everything with horses? LOL!
Yes, Buttercup needs to loose a 100 lbs but is beautiful even as fluffy as she is. We got her home this evening and she went right into the “Jenny Craig Pen” with our mini donk, Vidalia. Thanks again.
So even with a short bed truck, you could still easily put your cart in the truck bed, you just put your shafts up over the cab. Of course, wrap the shafts in a blanket to protect the paint on the cab… But that would fit anything you would be looking at. My toyota Tundra has a 5’ bed and fit any cart i ever put into it, including my big bennington buccaneer with room to spare.
I’m not sure by “Walk through” trailer if you are meaning there are side ramps like a 2+1 type of trailer, or if it’s a front ramp with no front dressing room where the horse walks out closer to the tongue of the hitch? If it’s a side ramp with a 2+1 set up, you might have more room to put it in the +1 area, but not sure…
Driving is a bit addicting. You might find your daughter’s pony will become the go to pony for fun for the whole family which might lead to more use in the way of driving shows, CDEs etc… So if i were you, i would save my money and get something very versatile and built well. The country carriages “country gig” so you get your front entry, is pretty enough for pleasure driving shows, but is often seen in training level CDE type stuff as well. And they ride very nice for trails. You can also find these used now and then too.
If you havent yet, joined the CD-L email list (google it). People use this to advertise vehicles and harness for sale daily. You can write and say what you are specifically looking for.
And i dont care what kind of diet SOME Haffie’s go on, many are still much more stout than the average 14h pony and will need wider shafts… My welsh cob is no chunk, but with her thicker bone and substantial muscle she’s pushing 900lbs at 14h. They are all very individual on how they are built. A diet doesnt always fix things if there’s nothing to fix! 
I just don’t see how a cart is going to fit in the bed of my truck with my goose neck trailer nose resting in the bed of the truck already? The trailer has a ramp on the back. By “walk through” I mean there is no manger. Just two straight stalls for the horses then a walk through space in the front of each stall with hay hooks and an escape door on each side; no side ramps. Yes, it can be used for extra storage space and has been, and you could even trailer a mini up there, but I don’t think a cart.
Buttercup isn’t morbidly obese but losing a 100 pounds probably would be a good thing. Will see how it goes. Less calories and some exercise will not hurt.
ah, ok, i was picturing a “walk through” as one that has a ramp the horses walk through to unload off the side or front of the trailer… And guessing it was a bumper pull, i must have miss-read that somewhere. Then you are correct, no a cart will not fit in the truck bed whatsoever!
I would look at the cart racks for the back of the trailer door then. There have been a couple pics of those posted here before, and some people have installed a hitch on the back of their trailer and used the “cargo platforms” that attach to a hitch to hook their cart down onto. But i think the downside to those would be they would likely bounce quite a bit and have to be fully removed before unloading the horses, though possibly a cheaper alternative.
Can you remove ALL the dividers in trailer - essentially turn it into a large box stall. If so, then you could haul with the cart in front with the shafts stuck into the gooseneck area. Then put some kind of divider (a piece of heavy plywood cut to fit should work) behind the cart with the pony in the back.
Christa
Who has actually removed the dividers and put a meadowbrook and 12H pony in regular 2H bumper pull.
LOL! Now there’s an idea. I think I need to borrow a Meadowbrook and see as yes, I can remove all of the dividers.
