I would like to do some parades or weddings – and do not know what type of transport trailer would be best for a 17HH Belgian and Vis a vis or wagon – any suggestions?
My BO just bought a long trailer (4 horses) with dressing room. His intention is to remove the wall of the dressing room and move the carriage up there (also two benches vis a vis, plus driver seat in front). Then he still has room for his two Belgian mares. I don’t have pictures of his new trailer which he would pull with his pick up truck with a 5th wheel. It sure would beat the “train” he had before ie pick up truck, horse trailer and carriage trailer or ask a friend to trailer to the carriage trailer. He does have the driver’s licence (he drives semis) to use the double trailer set up.
Sigh, he was to use this for my daughter’s wedding at the end of next month and now we are up in the air. He has not had time to reconfigure the trailer, or to train his gelding who is lame anyway. Both mares are trained but really fat right now (would they even fit in their harnesses?) and one of them is lame. Useless to say, my daughter is rather upset! We only asked 18 months ago…
First you need to measure the vehicle, axles AND hubs, for width. Then height of tallest part with top down, length with the pole removed. You want to measure the parts that extend farthest outward from the carriage itself, because sometimes those detail parts make a trailer unsable.
With the stock type trailers, especially aluminum, they have a door framework set inside the skin. This framework will narrow up the doorway opening. So doorway is tighter fit than wall width!! Very tricky on this, so be careful. Ramps help a lot at doorways, but you can get portable ramps for a trailer to run the carriage inside.
Hauling large sized riding horses, we use a gooseneck hookup, for the better ride for horses, easier parking ability, wonderful turning radius it gives us over any bumper pull tongue. We PREFER to have horses between truck and trailer axles, in the “hammock” for best ride. We have then loaded carriage in behind horses. But other folks would like carriage in trailer first, so horses can be loaded last and unloaded first. If trailer has a sideramp, that can come in handy to unload horses, but will usually cost you more.
Stock trailers seem to be the carriage and horse trailer of choice. Big open interiors. You may want to cover slat sides, to keep carriage cleaner, dust free. Also hang a curtain between horses and carriage, again, to reduce dirt in the air.
So when you shop, go armed with a tape measure, dimensions of your vehicle, and height of your horse’s head, add some extra inches so he doesn’t bump if jolted.
Measure inside the framework of door opening, as well as inside wall widths. Measure inside any interior wheel wells, carriage wheels MAY be wider than that, so it won’t fit. Do NOT believe the trailer sellers, they can be measuring diagonally, which reduces usable length or true ability to fit horse and vehicle inside. I would NOT recommend a slant stall for your big horse, again they use those diagonal measurements, kitty-corner, while he is NOT shaped that way! My tall and long horses don’t fit in those slant stalls, we have straight stalls in our trailers. He is way bigger than they are.
When you THINK you have found a trailer, haul everything over and try to put them all inside. This was how we found out about slant loads. Even a double stall was uncomfortable to our horses, just crammed in. NOT something to haul in for us, would make for some VERY CRABBY horses, then into loading problems.
If you plan to attend things by yourself, you will want some options on trailer like a winch to pull vehicle inside. Sorry, you will be hurt if you try loading or unloading a big carriage alone, can’t count on help at your destinations. Side door to hop in and check contents, change into your nice driving clothes. Good tie rings for your horse to be harnessed at. Then led over to hitch to vehicle or tied to trailer while being hitched to vehicle. I would also purchase some traffic cones, use them to give yourself a marked off space beside trailer for horse and hitching. Be awful to come back to trailer and find NO ROOM beside it.
If you haven’t checked, there are some CDs of MANY common city noises, parade noises, shooting, crowds, that could help desensitize your horse, help him be accepting of various noise situations safely at home, before you go out in public. Sorry, the company name escapes me at the moment.
Get tie rings put in the floor of the trailer where your carriage be riding, to secure it down. Tie rings should be the reccessed type and stainless steel.
And you can never have too many tie rings.
As far as a winch, that could be attached to the back wall(horse compartment side)(of dressing/tack room), to a stud wall(tie ring on the wall), at axle height or in a tie ring on the floor. then remove away from horses while traveling, if needed. A Come-a-long (the kind for building fence) will do in the same or a boat winch if you don’t have an electric winch.
I would also purchase some traffic cones, use them to give yourself a marked off space beside trailer for horse and hitching. Be awful to come back to trailer and find NO ROOM beside it.
I would really 2nd this! LOL. At weddings and such, it never ceases to amaze me how STUPID some folks are around horses and horse trailers. They’ll park right next to you, like you’re a car, but you can’t open your doors or load the carriage!!!
[QUOTE=lealer;5610905]
I would like to do some parades or weddings – and do not know what type of transport trailer would be best for a 17HH Belgian and Vis a vis or wagon – any suggestions?[/QUOTE]
You’ve gotten some terrific advice & pointers here already, nothing I can add about choosing a trailer. I just want to add some unasked-for advice, based on 16 years of doing weddings & special events on a fairly regular basis…
- Always make a check list Make a list of every single piece of equipment you will need for the job, and go over it both the night before & the day of the event. It really sucks to get to a job and find out you don’t have a collar, or a lead line, etc…don’t leave it to memory, write it all down.
2) Make sure your horse is fit If your horse is not used to daily driving or other work, you’d be surprised at how fast he’ll lather, get crabby, or even sore, especially if the folks who hired you want you to go further than they originally requested (which happens all the time) If you usually ride your draft, be aware that riding uses a completely different set of muscle interplay than driving does; you really want your horse to be driven on a regular basis in the weeks leading up to a driving job.
- Always take a helper, and keep him for the entire job Someone already mentioned this, and it is essential IMO. I have done jobs where I had help loading & unloading, but no help while the event was going on - I would NEVER do it again. If you are going at a walk, I would always advise s/he walk alongside at the horse’s head; if going faster, then upfront with you. There are just too many things that can go wrong, which can be righted if there are two people, but not always with one.
4) Don’t be complacent about your horse’s temperament Self-explanatory…no such thing as bombproof…this is the company that makes the CDs that another poster mentioned before: http://www.spookless.com/feedback.html I have never used them, but I have heard good things about them.
Apologies in advance if I told you a bunch of stuff you already knew lol - better safe than sorry. Good luck & happy driving!
The neatest/nicest looking set up i’ve ever seen was an old box truck converted to horse trailer. I looked into doing this myself, but the newer box trucks sit up to high and most do not have rear loading ramps. You could probably add them, but it would be a long ramp for that height and need to be beefy to support the weight.
They ran the carriage up first. Then had a gate that swung closed behind it and two straight load stalls behind the gate. They had side windows added for ventilation by the horses. It was a neat set up. Would have to know a good metal worker to put it together for you.
I met a lady at a carriage show that had a really nice Hawk trailer designed to her specs for her antique phaetons and 2 friesians. From the outside it looked like a 2 + 1 trailer, with side and rear ramps. But the +1 stall was much longer than normal, and her dividers in the back were on a slide that you could unlock them and slide them flat against one side of the trailer. She had a wider ramp installed for the side ramp, not that a full size vis a vis could fit in that direction, but nice for something smaller.
If you are buying new, i would probably go the Hawk route, they will make you anything you want. I would spend the extra for the insulated roof. Depending on where you are, this could really help keep you cool in the hot months. I’ve found it’s safer to keep my horses on the trailer at events with a lot of horse dumb people around, so keep ventilation in mind! You might pick up a 4 stall head to head that is big enough to remove dividers and fit in your vis a vis, but they are typically not wide enough.
If you are needing cheap… Take your carriage over the night before in a cargo trailer big enough to fit it and haul your horses over day of in your present horse trailer. A pain, but that’s the cheapest.
The box truck i mentioned was for sale when i saw it a few years ago, they were asking 6k for it. But i know they invested much more than that to get the truck mechanically sound and then have it converted to how they wanted it.
I am NOT a fan of slant loads, especially for bigger horses. They are not designed for horse comfort, just for human comfort to squeeze more in than they should. I have owned a couple, as well as a couple straight loads, i still have a slant right now and i hate the thing. I think its a personal preference issue, but having done many cross country hauls in slant loads, i find i need a chiropractor out shortly after as hips tend to get out of wack with all the weight on their left hinds (or right hinds on a reverse slant). When i’ve hauled them loose in box stalls, they all like to stand facing the rear of the trailer, and straight. Not sideways. That tells me they dont really prefer to stand sideways themselves either… You dont see many rear facing stalls on US trailers, a few brands in Europe sell them that way, would love to get my hands on one.
I saw this one a while back on draftsforsale.com, sometimes big things like this come up on there already set up for this situation. http://www.besthorsestuff.com/ShowAd/index.php?id=4da8ce7c855a7 There was a pic on the add, you would have to email and ask for one.
Parking can be a BIG issue. I looked into doing this business a while back. Talked to a few different carriage businesses across the US to get some ideas. ALL of them complained about how difficult to get a big rig into some of the parking situations they have to deal with. One of them prefered to have a cargo trailer and horse trailer just because they had more options for parking. That cute quaint little church comes with a cute little parking lot. So you might have to find somewhere else to park, get permission, and still have the cops show up because you are too big on the side of the road or wherever you end up. Speaking of which, that was good advice too, call the local police department first and advise them what route you will be on. If you have a blind turn, a major traffic area, or a hill with low visibility, they will often come and escort you to avoid an accident. Always drive your route before you show up with the horses, you never know what kind of place you’ve got to get around in!
I also heard the cinderella carriages get booked hands down more than your standard vis a vis. I find the cinderella carriages completely tacky personally, but if you are in it for the income, it might be the wiser investment, or prepare to purchase one shortly, so consider you may need a bigger trailer than you even thought you did… Some cinderella carriage tops can be removed for transport, so you may not need as tall, you would have to check with the individual makers for their specs.
The most accidents at these events tend to be jack knifed carriages into people’s cars. Which is easy to do with a big carriage like this, and the cheaper models tend to have a reach and are not fully cut under to help prevent you from jack knifing the suckers. Something to keep in mind when you are looking to buy.
So there is my un asked for advise… 
But good points to know i thought, when i was looking into it. It might be something i turn to when we get closer to retirement years, but i was unwilling to give up my weekends right now. With my husband’s work schedule, weekends tend to be the only time we see him.
