I moved 800 miles last summer, I broke it up into two days.   I have bucket brackets mounted in my trailer and when I haul long distances I hang rubber buckets with water for the horse to keep in front of them.  I don't know if they drink it or play with it, but I refill the buckets at every fuel/rest stop we make.  I know that my 5yr old mare likes to splash the water out of the bucket onto herself when she gets hot.  I also keep a full hay bag in front of them.  4 eat the hay, 1 plays with it and makes a big mess and one won't touch it while traveling.  

Fairgrounds are your friend!!  On my move I stopped at a fair ground over night and unloaded(call ahead and make sure they are open and not booked for events).  I let my horses run around the arena while I got pens ready for them.  They ran, stretched out, rolled and then were ready to eat.  I had my trailer parked right in front of the pens and chained my dog to a tie ring on the trailer.  If anyone had approached the trailer or horses I would have been warned.

Oh, now I also carry tools in the truck trailer to fix wiring problems.  I stopped at a truck stop in San Antonio to get fulel/go potty and when I came out of the store there was a kid in the back of my truck playing with my generator.  He had stepped on my trailer wires (or pulled on them) while getting in the truck and pulled my running lights wire loose. Fortunately I checked my lights before I left, I had to make repairs at the truckstop so I could keep traveling.    I have never wanted to beat someone so bad.  His mother said "he's just a boy!  He wanted to see what it was! He's not hurting anything!"  She was standing there ignoring him while she talked to someone. 

I really ^^^5 http://www.horsemotel.com/

I moved three of my horses from WPA to SoCal in 1998, then from SoCal to Middle Tennessee in 2003.

I learned from the first trip that my horses don't need to come out of that trailer until it's time to stop for the night.

What I did do was offer them water every time I stopped for gas (often with that old 454), and I made sure they had hay to munch along the way. I carried my own grain for the lay-ups but cut them way back.

I did both trips in 4 nights and 4-1/2 days.  Some days we were on the road nearly 10 hours because of construction delays, but we had to make our schedule lay-ups.

The horses were none the worse for the wear because I was hauling them.

They are also horses of "average use" to where being in a trailer all those hours did not cause them any harm.  They don't even get on the scale of superior athletes that would need to be pampered a little more regarding hours on the road stuck in a horse trailer

Keep their fly masks on during the trip.  PLEASE keep their fly masks while they are in the trailer.  I would remove the masks once we got to the lay-up and rinsed them out in the sink in the motel room for the next day

Look at this as an adventure because you will meet the greatest folks! I sure did.

Have a great and safe trip, and watch out for the morons in cars that don't pay attention to their surroundings and should've never been allowed to have a driver's license in the first place.

Thanks for all of the info and such!!!  I never knew there were such things as horse hotels.  I will check out the web sites and book referenced.  I do like the idea of fairgounds and letting the horses play a bit.  Lots of water I will take with me :)  My horse trailer has screens on the windows but I still like the thought of using fly masks too.  I was floored to hear the story of the kid messing in the truck and messing up the wiring.  And we wonder what's wrong with this world now-a-days.  Geeze!!!  I hear ya on the morons out there on the roads.  I can't wait to get out of FL becuase of that one point.  No one can drive around here, its real bad.  Between hauling horses and also being a motorcyclist we need to do something about the stupidity on the roads!!!  My family has been in the Harley Davidson business for 61+ years now and my father raced motorcycles before he could drive and to this day he won't ride a motorcycle on the road unless he has to.  He thinks I'm nuts for owning one and 'enjoying' riding it on the roads.  Anyhow, not to get on that soapbox.

Thanks again for sharing and all of your advice.  I'm still praying my husband takes our 2-yr.old daughter so I don't have to factor in her needs as well during the trip.

Happy & safe haul'n to all of you!!!

Kristie