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Transporting carriages in trailers...

Driving
#1

I didn’t want to hijack the other topic, but I’m planning (plotting) my next trailer purchase, and since I would very much like it to be my last trailer purchase, I’m trying to think ahead. I may or may not end up with a presentation vehicle (I certainly hope I’m good enough and have the $$), but the last thing I want to do is fork over a good chunk o’change for a horse trailer only to find out I didn’t consider all contingencies. I’m going with a BP, either stock or straight load with a side ramp/extended space for the carriage. The ultimate goal is to put the marathon in the bed of the trailer (I’ve got that down today) if/when I need to transport a presentation vehicle as well (otherwise if it is just the marathon, that will go in the trailer)

A regular 2H straight load with added space+ramp up front is my preference because I’d like to use that space for semi primitive type camping. But I figured I should really get a handle on lengths of cob size presentation vehicles, because if they will not fit in sideways in a standard width (80") then I would either need wider (custom), or I need to account for putting the vehicle in via back ramp which means it either needs to be a custom 4 $tar w/quiet ride* or a stock with a gate (because everything in between is a PITA to break down).

So anyone with presentation vehicles, if you have a clue, help!

  • don’t get me wrong, what I really want is that 4star, customized … but I have a feeling I am going to fall over in shock when I see the price of what I want, so I’m trying to figure out what I want versus what I can live with.
#2

I have an Exiss bumper pull. It’s essentially their 3 horse slant that I modified to a 2+1. I have a 5’ side ramp and two straight stalls behind. It was just under $20 when I bought it a few years ago.

I have friends with sliding center partitions to make it easy to bring a carriage up from the back ramp. If you want more details about my trailer, let me know. I can probably dig up the specification sheet.

I like my trailer a lot! I have a Tundra that I use for both daily commuting and hauling. I did not want to go any bigger than that. To haul a gooseneck with that much space on the floor, I felt that I would need a 3/4 ton.

Good luck with your research.

#3

I’ve got enough truck for a GN (F250 but gas, not diesel) but probably not ideal for a GN that is long enough to haul up to 2 carriages and 1-2 ponies. Also (and this is the most important part) I just do not want to be bothered with that much freaking trailer every time I pop over to the local trail system or a local dressage show at a small farm. I’m too old and too bitchy for that.

I’ve found quite a few brands that can work with that BP config now that adding a ramp to a straight load is pretty standard, and assuming I can swing that 4 star, they do 2 things that appeal to me - one, they have a divider that pivot/walks over to the side and snaps into slots along the wall and that looks pretty useful in general and two, they have a tack room that is built on the nose and only uses 12" of the floor plan and has a straight wall. It’s pretty small as tack rooms go, but I really only want to use it for stuff that can go flying around under horse’s feet (buckets, harness, etc.) .

But… 4 $tar…

I have seen those sliding partitions on a Hawk, I think. Do you know of any other brands that do it, because that was another backup plan. Good to know you got the Exiss modified, that was one of the other options I was looking at (Kingston, Exiss and Trailers USA) when I get off the floor after seeing the 4 Star price! Do you know what your floor length and overall length is?

More hive mind requests: Winches and awnings, the good, the bad and the ugly?

#4

I have a 2+1 I just bought new. I absolutely love it! I’ve seen these hauling presentation vehicles as well, either in the front box stall or in the back straight stalls. Our set up right now is the box stall is for the ponies, and then the 2 two wheel carts go in the back straight stall area (the divider has been removed). I had extra tie down rings added in the four corners to be able to secure the carts and it works really nicely.

#5

have you seen them putting the presentation vehicle in the side ramp (sideways not front to back)?

#6

We just had a custom Cimmeron horse trailer built for us for carriage driving. Now its quite large and not what you need (ehm, 52’ long with LQ), but it has some really nice features that we thought of and had them design. This was a total custom build and was a lot of work!

Ours is 8’ wide, 3 stalls in the back that are on sliders. When we get to a show, we pop the pins out of the dividers (we did want full dividers as we use one of the stalls for “stuff” such as wheelbarrow, generator etc and did not want it moving into the horse area), and these work amazingly well! We are able to clean our carriage in the back horse part and still have plenty of room out front for other things.

Our carriage area is 18’ of open area (the back horse part is 10’, so when we open the gate from the horse part, we have 28’ of carriage cleaning area).

We have a side ramp that is 6’ wide and we drive our cob sized marathon carriage up it, then slide it to the gate right in front of the horse area. We then drive up our cob sized presentation phaeton and put it beside the marathon carriage. We can then drive the 4 wheeler up and have it beside the presentation carriage. We still have plenty of room beside all of that stuff for totes for harness etc.

The one thing you do have to be careful of is the width of the trailer. We had them made the fenders on the inside as short as possible as the carriages just fit. The longest part of the carriages is at the whippletree hight and it just goes over the fenders. The wheels on the presentation carriage just touch each of the fenders and the body of the carriage are over the fenders. We were very specific when we had the trailer built on the dimensions as this had to work for us.

So yes, to answer your last question, we travel with our carriages and 4 wheeler sideways as we can fit them in a lot better (as the carriages are only 4ft wide but are almost 8ft long). This way the 2 carriages and 4 wheeler take up about 13’ of space in the 18’ area (we keep a bit of space between each of the carriages of course). These are both cob sized pair carriages as well.

Let me know if you have any other questions and I can answer them as best as I can. This trailer was 10 years in the making and we knew excatly what we wanted. There are still a few things that we missed, but its pretty much perfect for carriage driving/competing :slight_smile:

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#7

We had an Exiss before this trailer - it was a 4 horse head to head but it was modified as a 2 + 1 with LQ for us. We had it for 16 years and it was a great trailer but was too small. It was only 7’ wide and we could only put our marathon carriage and 4 wheeler in the front box stall. It was also quite large and was 38’ long, but not quite as big as the trailer we have now :wink:

#8

My Exiss is 17’ 6" on the floor, 7’ wide and 7’ 6" tall. I pull up my marathon carriage up the 5’ side ramp with a winch that my husband mounted to the floor.

My friends have had the sliding center divider added by Yered Trailers in MA. I don’t currently bring a 2 wheel cart with me to competitions. If I did, I would put it in the bed of the truck.

I have a wooden box in the off side stall, as well as a full partition. I fasten items in there with dog collars. it serves as my tack room. I also have plywood walls on the front of the trailer, as well as a shelf with a lip for additional storage. It serves me well.

#9

No, the one I saw with a presentation vehicle had a large horse, so they actually removed the dividers and wheeled it in through the back door, then put the dividers in and put the horse in the rear. They said their marathon fit through the side ramp, but the presentation was a little too large.

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#10

OK, that was what I was thinking - that in order for a cob presentation vehicle to fit sideways, the trailer has to be 8’ wide, thank you so much!

I have been noodling over this for a while, thinking about must haves, wants and what I can sacrifice on the alter of $$ (and I have a while longer since I’m not planning on ordering until Q418) and I was all happy thinking if I had to settle for an 80" wide trailer I could live with it. And then I thought… perhaps you should not assume your (imaginary future) presentation vehicle will be the same length as your marathon vehicle, thank you all for confirming the obvious. :wink:

And Diamond Jubilee… 52’ !!! I’m impressed, but thank you VERY MUCH for the suggestion to shorten the wheel well as much as possible, that is brilliant and never in a million years would I have thought to ask if that was possible.

#11

Yes, our presentation carriage is close to 12" longer then our marathon carriage (we can remove the back step extension for the marathon carriage which helps. Our patent leather fenders on the presentation carriage stick out quite a bit! Its the carriage in my profile pic, it works for a single as well).

They were able to change the hight of the inside fenders from about 19" high (which would have been too high for our carriages) to 16" just by using thinner mats on them. Plus they did make them as close to the tires as they could (engineers were fully involved of course. This is also a triple axel trailer so the wheel wells are quite long inside). It worked out perfectly for us and I mean our presentation carriage just fits!!

Good luck and I say go for it! Get that dream carriage trailer ;D

#12

LOL it’s probably not going to be the “dream” trailer, but hopefully it will be awesomely practical, which for my pragmatic soul will be shooting pretty close to dream trailer!

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#13

That being said… a cob presentation vehicle probably WOULD fit in the rear two horse compartment. If you only have one fjord, mine can attest that the box stall in front is quite comfy for riding in. I actually have my pony and mini cart in the rear compartment, and then they ride together in the box stall in front. I’ve seen it done both ways.

#14

yes, I was pretty sure it would, but if possible I’d like to avoid putting a horse up front since I want to keep that area clean (for primitive camping). But if that is the only way it fits, then that’s what I will have to do!

#15

I finally got my Kutzmann marathon carriage this week, and have driven it two days now. I absolutely love it, however, I was bummed to find out it doesn’t fit in my trailer when loaded in the side ramp! It was supposed to be 6 feet long, and my trailer is 6’9". The ramp door will not close. My trainer removed the shafts and slid it around to fit as if had been loaded from back ramp. I do not want to deal with removing the shafts and putting them on each time I trailer, so I guess I will be removing my straight load stall dividers, making it one big box stall for the horse, then load the carriage through the back ramp, sliding the partition closed, then load my horse.

Ugh! I am sooooo bummed. I did tons of research and thought I had the perfect stock combo 2 + 1. Please tell me this won’t be too difficult to deal with. I had really not wanted to tie my horse to the trailer while I unloaded and loaded the carriage.

#16

Why don’t you just load the carriage in the back compartment and have your horse ride up front in the box stall? This is what I do with my ponies and their 2 wheel carts. Both carts fit in the back stall area, and then the two ponies ride together in the front box.

#17

Kris, I guess I could do that. However, I had multiple tie down rings installed in the front open area, and my winch is installed in the nose area, so I obviously couldn’t bring my winch cable through where my horse is.

#18

With the side ramp unavailable, parking carriage in the rear area, use the winch to load vehicle, tie things down, coil up winch cable. Then put pony in thru the side ramp last. Nothing around his legs then. We think horses get a better ride between the truck and trailer axles, in “the hammock” area.

I know you don’t want to mess with shaft removal, but does your vehicle have a full 5th wheel? Remove the shafts. Can you now totally turn the front wheel assembly 180 degrees? Bizarre suggestion here is to check how much shorter vehicle might be if you put the shaft side of front wheels under the seat, see if that would shorten it enough to fit across trailer width and let you shut the ramp? You can probably load vehicle, be able to pull and steer it inside trailer with shaft holders as handles, then spin the front wheel assembly once in the trailer to shorten things. Then park vehicle and do the tying stuff down for travel.

Other idea is to modify the rear platform on carriage. Our 4 horse vehicles have an additional metal piece that slides into pipes to make a bigger platform area because 2 grooms need more foot room. Perhaps a local welder could shorten the platform area to even with rear of wheels, create the add-on platform for use when vehicle is not in the trailer. Husband is very handy, had modified our carriage platforms for various reasons.

I have seen some “unique” methods used to fit carriages in and on trailers, to get things to the competition. You do what you have to! Those are my best 2 creative ideas! Ha ha

#19

You might also want to look into the sliding center dividers that we were talking about. then you would just need to reposition the winch to the front of the trailer instead of opposite the side wall.

I was surprised when you said it was 6 foot long, mine just fits in my 6 3/4 bed. I mean just fits! I need to tie down the single tree because it could go crack the back window without too much effort

#20

I thought I would follow up on this thread since I finally (finally!) picked up my new carriage trailer. I ordered a custom trailer from Trailers USA (they have built some carriage trailers down here in the South and generally had a clue about stuff I needed even if I didn’t know I needed it).

It’s a bumper pull, 20’ floor space, 8’0 wide. Stud doors, carriage tie downs, 60" side ramp, center divider is on a track and it takes maybe 2 minutes to move it. The stall length/head space is 87/30 instead of 91/36, but given that the stalls are much wider than a regular oversize trailer I figure that is a fair trade off for space for larger horses. Plus the current occupant is only 14’1 :smiley:

A couple of things I added - the stalls can split 50/50 or 35/65 (that’s to give Xan a mini box on long trips and set my scooter in the skinny stall), and of course the divider can be locked up against either wall if you need to bring a carriage in the back ramp. The other thing was a shelf above the windows in the nose. This is the greatest thing ever. They put a lip on it as well as rings to put ratchet straps across to hold stuff in. When I “designed” the shelf I imagined it would hold so much stuff. Then I saw it and was disappointed. It looked small. Then I started putting stuff up there and it is AMAZING how much stuff goes up there!

So far I love it! Anyway, pictures…

no more loading a carriage into the bed of a truck (until we are good enough to be worthy of - and afford - a presentation carriage) https://www.flickr.com/gp/24594726@N04/24iz9y

best idea ever: https://www.flickr.com/gp/24594726@N04/2S0881

mini box set up: https://www.flickr.com/gp/24594726@N04/905VnX

front storage area: https://www.flickr.com/gp/24594726@N04/crx4Tv

looking back to stall area: https://www.flickr.com/gp/24594726@N04/741L6z

It’s an awesome trailer, but it is for an awesome pony (warning, shameless pony pics ahead)

dressagin’

marathonin’

cones!

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