Hooking up a GN is super easy for me as I have an old magnetic base antenna I place on the pickup floor in front of the ball and back to the GN until the front touches it in the right place, generally only once.
Before that I had wrapped a thicker, #9 wire, any stiff wire would work, around the ball’s neck and had it sticking up high with tape on the end in front of the ball. Wire was easy to pull off once ready to hook up.
With the BPs I had to pull up and correct several times until I was in the right place.
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I don’t haul anything myself! But in my experience as a passenger:
The GN seemed more stable and easier for the driver to control on the highway.
But! They do turn differently. One driver turned too sharply at a 4 way intersection and the trailer peeled the bumper off a car!
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Beg to differ.
1st trailer - 1996 - was BP with WDH/Sway Bars.
Bought new from dealer.
Next, in 2010, was GN w/shortwall LQ - package deal w/F250 V10 long bed, crew cab.
Bought from private party who’d kept both garaged (longhaul driver, owned his semi tractor).
Traded (for less maintainence for LQ) in 2011 for GN w/DR.
Sold truck, towed with SUV: Chevy Trailblazer.
Traded for 16’ BP Stock* w/center gate in 2018.
Reason: my aging knees made climbing in&out of the truck to hitch GN a PITA.
I never found backing or hauling the GNs any easier than BP.
I can hitch BP in a couple tries on a good day & knees thank me.
*Like @DMK I haul a cart (sometimes 2) for my mini. Carts go in front, mini is behind the gate, in back.
For Driving, I’ll take a Stock every time for the adaptability.
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I haul a bumper pull because I share the tow vehicle with DH. I have a 14’ two horse with a small tack area.
I frequently drive my friend’s 4 H gooseneck and the difference it the way it hauls is remarkable.
If it were soley my choice and I didn’t have to consider DH’s needs, I’d definitely go with the gooseneck.
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The first gooseneck trailer we bought came on the recommendation of a heavy duty mechanic we knew and trusted. We bought it in 1977. It was a 1964 Atco trailer, which was fully insulated, had had a reefer unit on it. Had been used to haul flowers. 16 foot deck. Came with a plate hitch off a semi truck. Our heave duty mechanic friend said that if the truck and trailer went off the side of a mountain, dropping hundreds of feet to the rocks below, that hitch would still be functional, and the trailer would still be attached to the truck. I’ve never tried that theory out, but there you go. My dad converted it to a horse trailer, back ramp, camper in front. I used it like that for several decades. I took my stakes horse across the Prairies twice with it in the early 90s. But it was getting a bit tired by then. So I had it remodeled. Put in a side ramp, in front of the wheel wells. Kept the bunks up in the gooseneck. Now, horses loaded in the side, and backed into the stalls and walked out forwards. Huge improvement. Used it like that for another 12 years or so. But by then, the ribs were rotting out on it. Used it to bring a lot of crap from the farm we sold to our new farm, and parked it. Then I found a guy who could cut the box off it, make it into a flat deck. It cost $500 to do that. So now it is our farm trailer, we use it take 18 round bales off the hayfield at a time.
Best vehicle to tow with is a short deck one ton flat deck truck. NEW pick up trucks with a box on them have the sides of the truck too high to fit under gooseneck trailers, so don’t go there. Short deck flat deck truck is the key to success. Dodge diesel of course, old enough to not have def.
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I, too, haul w a short bed F 250. It is my only vehicle so I really didn’t want a long bed. I’ve hauled both a square nosed gooseneck and a tapered nose goose neck. I’ve never had a bit of a problem with either. My trick to hitching up… I spray painted a line in my truck bed liner- I just follow that.
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When you say short bed 250, is it still 6.5 ft? Short bed these days means 5.5ft so just curious!
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I’ll have to measure-I think it’s 6.5.
This. After years of backing up European 2 horse BP trailers, the GN I have now seems so laggy. I’ve had one before, so it’s not quite “new” to me, but backing a BP is “easier” to me. The GN isn’t hard, exactly, but it is different.
Re short beds…my Ram has a short bed (6 ft) and my trailer has a tapered nose. I’d really have to get in a situation in order to bash my window in. Of course, now that I’ve said that…
It’s always advised not to use a gooseneck with a short bed, but I think a tapered nose with a 6ft bed is fine. Just be aware and don’t get too crazy.
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I have both. I HATE driving a BP in comparison to a GN. To me at least GN’s are easier to drive, easier to back, pull smoother (and smoother ride for the horse), easier to hitch, more storage room, etc
My truck gets better gas mileage with the GN than the BP, even though the GN is a heavy LQ. BP is only kept because it’s shorter and my DH’s truck can pull it if need be
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In Germany you’d be hard pressed to find a GN so I didn’t have a choice for many years 
They do have “transporters” and those are great. They’re horse boxes or like a box truck for transporting horses. So easy to maneuver and you can do all sorts of things that you can’t with a car/SUV and BP. I often went with my trainer in hers and it was nice. I wasn’t willing to drop that amount of cash though! Or have another vehicle to maintain, really. So the BP was suitable.
Some of the trailers and also the tow rig combos in Europe would make many Americans faint 
If I have a choice in the US on what to buy, I am going to go GN 95% of the time, I’d say.
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The best advice I have heard regarding trailer theft prevention is to order your trailer with a very distinctive color scheme. Then the trailer seeking thief will be towing a stolen trailer that stands out from the crowd of white and silver ones. “Be on the lookout for a purple, orange, or pink horse trailer” is likely to be more productive than “stolen white horse trailer.”
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more than likely it is older goosenecks can not be matched up to new trucks due the truck’s ride height being increased for the benefit of Style whereas a bumper pull is really not facing that limitation as it very easy to get a drop hitch for trucks bumper.
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I’m honestly not sure what it costs to block a trailer, but I can’t imagine it’s a few grand? Although I guess there’s a convenience value to not having to modify your trailer too. That is an annoying aspect.
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Makes things easier because this design funnels the coupler onto the ball – don’t have to be nearly as accurate in lining up with the ball. I’ve used magnetic sticks, balls, etc., in the past and was actually quite good at lining up. But I’m short and this helps.
The Defender does give positive confirmation, IME, as it clunks into place and latches. Personally, I don’t bother with the lock because it’s already latched as much as the usual type of coupler is without it, but I can see that feature being handy when the truck with trailer is parked somewhere. It’s like with our bumper pull cargo trailer – we have accessories to make it more difficult for someone to unhook our trailer and steal it, although it’s not proof against a determined thief. But if it makes the thief move on to another trailer, then it’s helped.
As far as the chains, I don’t like to crawl into the bed anymore, either (part of the reason I don’t want to bother with the lock is because I’d have to do so to unlock it). My next accessory purchase is probably going to be something such as this:
https://gooseneckeasycoupler.com/chain.htm
My ultimate accessory, however, is a very tall husband, for whom hooking and unhooking the trailer is a piece of cake, who doesn’t have to climb into the bed. For many years, I hauled so frequently (multiple times per week) that I generally did it myself, but now he’s usually available (and willing), which is really great.
ETA a video of the Defender operation:
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Yes the 6.5 is what I had on my F250. I now have a long bed dually to haul all the things! (and naturally it was this new truck that I bashed the tailgate)
For trailer height. The newer trailers have been lifted to clear the higher trucks. The difference is significant. My 2011 GN is a step up. If I were to get anything new, I would need a ramp. We went to Midwest horse fair to look at new trailers and to step into the horse compartment in the new ones was a challenge for us vertically challenged people! On older trailers people will add “blocks” to the axles to raise the height to clear the beds of the newer trucks. I am lucky that I do not have this problem with my current set up.
I agree. I’ve got a 6.5 bed and a tapered nose trailer, and it works fine. Previous GNs, I drove trucks with 8 foot beds. One trailer had a square nose, the other was slightly tapered. Worked fine.
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Interesting, re: the defender. I already feel like I don’t need to be dead on accurate to hook up, but I probably have a greater tolerance for giving the bed a jerk to get things going than most people.
I use a plastic “hit the ball” to line up, as I’m often not straight to the trailer because of how I park it.
@clanter can you explain to a technology challenged person how an AirPod tracker works? As a person who just bought a nice trailer I’d like that level of security. I have a wheel lock and a hitch ball lock. Didn’t realize they were so easily defeated.
Back in the day, with my first GN trailer, my farrier (who was also a successful team roper) demonstrated how to get into the bed, with one’s back against the side of the bed and one’s feet against the nose of the trailer, in order to give a mighty shove that moves everything enough to drop the coupler onto the ball. HA HA HA, yeah right.
I’ve always had to count on accuracy. What’s been consistently aggravating to me, over ownership of four Ford pickups, is that I can nail the distance, put the truck in Park and it rolls just enough to be off (husband experiences the same, so it’s not just me). Don’t know if this is particular to Fords, as we only haul BPs with our Ram. Those days are over with the Defender.
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