I am considering a basic no-frills 2H bumper pull slantload. This will be my first time buying/pulling a trailer, so I am trying to learn as much as I can and hopefully avoid major mistakes. I've been reading Scheve's book (very helpful) "complete guide to buying maintaining & serviing a horse trailer", and it says that even a small horse needs 9' length and 3' stall width. Applying some trigonometry to the floor plan of the CM slant gives me about 7.35' length and 21" width (measured at right angles and center front to center back). This is for the front stall--of course the back stall would have more room.  Is 9' L x 3' wide really necessary? Surely people haul horses in these all the time. I have a half-arab about 14-2 hands...anything smaller would be close to a pony. I also picked up the info sheet for the basic straight load manger model. This actually has more length and width for the stalls, but I had been leaning toward the slant as it would be a little longer, hopefully more stable, and have a dressing room for not much more $$.

Thanks in advance for any input/advice! This site has been very helpful to me so far.

Jennifer

Hi there-

 Bigger is better. It's better to have more room than not enough. I made the mistake of purchasing a trailer that is not tall enough and the stalls are not long enough. 7' tall in one trailer may not be the same as 7' tall in another. I would go bigger even if it's just for resale value alone. Guaranteed, in the future you will want to upgrade. We all do it eventually!

I had a 6' wide 3 horse slant with mangers and 16 hand, long, wide quarter horse rode just as comfortably in it as he does the 8' wide he rides in now. The stalls were longer, {set at more of an angle}, on the 6' wide than they are on the 8'.

The horse has to have the length room. The horses don't know how wide the trailer is. They know how much room they have.

Try this site:

www.merhowtrailers.com/Slant_Load.html

While you are correct the angle has to do with how much room they actually have, I dont think she is talking about your 6' slant w/mangers.   I believe she is talking about the Dakota with which I have actual experience.  And of course there is mine/yours definition of comfort.  IIRC on the 6' wide model the first stall measured 112" on the diagonal......I dont remember the width, but I do remember it was barely enough for the horse to stand on the diagonal to take advantange of the pitiful 112" to begin with.  Although things may have changed since 2004, I see on the for sale listings the Dakota is also avaliable in 6'8".....used to be the smooth sided Dakta SSL in 6'8".

The best advice for buying a slant is to put the actual horse in the actual trailer.  If thats not possible, then measure and make some sort of home mock-up. 

Yes, I was lookong at the 6' CM Dakota. I can see that without knowing the angle or actual stall length/width, it would be impossible to compare 6' wide trailers. A horse could fit fine in one but not another. Maybe I will need to go with the little straight-load manger trailer after all. I really can't justify moving to a high-end trailer as I will only be hauling occasionally, and I'm also shelling out $$ for a truck. I'll keep noodling this...

Thanks everyone for your help! If anyone has suggestions for a particular brand/model of starter trailer, please let me know.

Jennifer

Keepsake Farm,

Thank you for the very helpful link about the slantload geometry. All those examples are definitely bigger than the one I was looking at. It would be helpful if the manufacturers would put the partition length and stall width on their floor plans, as in the article in Keepsake's link. I think they are counting on the fact that the math-challenged will not be able to figure out how small the stalls are. This will be a good problem to give my students the next time I teach trig.

I put my largest (longest) horse in my arena with the edge acting as the manger and drew a box the size that I thought I needed around her.  Then, when I looked at trailers, I measured all the stalls and compared the measurements that I'd taken.  And then I did actually haul a mare to a friends and load her in a trailer the same size before I bought one.  It's been fine, but I really did want a two horse straight load, but hubby wanted the 3 H slant. 

Good luck!  Make it fun if you can.