I've got some questions that will probably make everyone else hope to God my family stays off the road in the future. I am attempting to purchase a two horse bumper pull with hubby tagging along to advise me.  Twenty years ago he used to pull a 4000 lbs boat on a trailer with no brakes behind a Ford LTD.  Consequently, he knows everything about towing.

The truck, a Silverado, has some sort of factory installed tow setup.  Hubby is sure it will tow 6400lbs as is.  I'm not convinced. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a weight distributing hitch, sway bars, yada yada installed in the truck. Hubby is willing to concede that a weight distribution setup is a good idea. I want to go out and get the truck set up now, even though I'm still looking for a trailer.  Hubby is trying to convince me that trailers come with the weight distribution bars, and they are specific to the trailer, so I should wait.  I have never heard this before.  Can someone explain what I should be doing as far as setting up a hitch? I'm hoping to get something like a Hawk with dressing room.

Welcome Carp - For a bumper pull trailer, your truck should have a receiver (square hole) under the rear bumper.   A WDH will have a bar that slides into your receiver just like a regular hitch. It attaches to your trailer but they usually are not already installed on trailers.   There's an article by Mr. Truck somewhere on this site that shows a picture of a WDH and how it is attached.  Maybe someone else can point you to it.    

http://www.mrtruck.net/wdh.htm

i would buy the trailer first.  your pickup will certainly get an empty trailer home safely. you may not "need" a WDH at all, of course you cant go wrong with one.  a heads up though, a lot of horse trailers have tongues to short for a WDH.  usually need a 36" tongue to use a WDH.

Thanks for the advice and the article link.  I hadn't known I needed to worry about the trailer tongue being too short.  I know there's a possibility I could get away without a WDH, especially since I'll mostly be towing one horse, but I want to build in a safety margin in case I unexpectedly find myself giving a ride to an extra critter.

I've driven a truck with a floating front end once.  I'd rather not do it again. I had gotten suckered into running an errand for a friend--dropping off a backhoe axle at the heavy equipment dealer. (I think the idea was that the dealer wouldn't hassle a girl.) The guys were able to lift the axle into the truck using a little Kubota front end loader, but they weren't able to push it far enough forward to balance the weight properly in the truck bed.  I briefly lost steering every time I went over a bump.  Whee! 

Welcome to this forum ... You might show Hubby the GM trailering guide.  The footnotes (fine print) says a WDH is REQUIRED for BP trailers over 5,000 pounds.  A lot of people do not have WDH with heavy trailers.  But do you really want to let the GM engineers & lawyers deny design responsibility?  Besides, two horses are not nice stable, secured cargo like a boat.