I am looking at a new trailer 3H goosenck w/ living quarters.  I think I really like the idea of a mid tack.  Lots more room for stuff and then more room in the trailer for the horses.

Any thoughts???????   Good or Bad.

Midtack is great, we use it like a mudroom to keep the LQ cleaner.  Ours is really big, so there's plenty of room for everything.  I think a rear tack would be easier to get saddles out of though...

Amanda

There are several mid tack designs.

One of the 1st trailers I had came with a mid tack. It did not go all the way across the trailer. It was more of a "V" shaped room that fit between the slant of the horse section and a squared off wall of the DR. Everything was placed in or taken out fromt he door. You did not enter. It was great.  It left the horse compatment wide open.

The next trailer had a full width mid tack and a rear tack. Saddles, blankets went in the rear, People stuff, camping stuff went in the mid.  With a door on one side. It had two slant walls that ran parallel to each other. It was basically the size of a horse stall. An outside door on the curb side and a pass through door to the LQ.  It was awkward. With stuff staked in the room, I couldn't open the pass through door. If I stacked stuff at the far wall ( street side) I could not reach it with out crawling over stuff closer to the door. Left empty it was a nice mud room. But with a LQ in the front section, I had no where to store, lawn chairs, camping stuff.  I used it more as a coat room. I would hang all my coats, chaps, slickers on the wall. I did once banish a traveling companion to sleep in there because he snored so bad.  Put him in the mid tack, set up a cot for his sleeping bag, shut the doors, cut way down on the snoring noise.

The trailer I have now doesn't have a mid tack. I went from a 3 horse to a 4 horse trailer. Deciding that I needed to haul the extra horse more than I needed a mud room. It has a rear tack (for saddles and blankets) The rear tack also has a 34 gallon upright water tank, And there is room between the water tank and the saddle rack to stack several Rubbermaid tubs that I stored my campng stuff in. ie Highline, electric fence parts, hobbles. This trailer is slightly wider that my previous trailers, It has mangers, and the extra width shows up in the mangers. Where I store a bag or two of feed, horse blankets, helmets, hoof boots, my farrier tools and hoof jack, water buckets etc. I don't miss the mid tack.

I don't miss the larger mid tack. It was just a cluttered mud room for me.  If I ever had one again, I would have the 1st one, Just a reach in room big enough for the saddle rack and some blankets. 

The disadvantage of the rear tack, is you can not fold the panels back out of the way and have a full width horse area. Managers are also part of this problem. On the trailer I had without, I would frequently fold the panels flush with the street wall and load in 4 horses in the space of 3.  ATV's,  With a collaspable rear tack you can remove the saddle rack, But it's a pain and where do you leave it while it's out of the trailer. A 3 horse rear tack trailer IS a 3 horse trailer, there is no squeezing an extra horse in.

I have both.  Stall sized mid tack with doors on both sides of the trailer (its the way Logan builds them) and a collapsible rear tack.  I follow the general rule of thumb everyone else has mentioned, smelly horse stuff in the rear tack and I use the mid tack as a mud room and for extra storage a great deal of the time.  Chaps, extra coats and baseball caps stay in the mid tack, and I got a set of plastic drawers where I keep clothes for long shows, when everything doesn't fit in the LQ storage, but I don't have to live out of a suitcase.   Works great.  I got a portable generator last year and mounted a framework in the rear tack to keep it from moving while going down the road, so now my rear tack is semi-permanent (would have to unscrew the framework from the floor to collapse the rear tack).  Saddle rack now has to go in the mid tack because of the generator, but my saddle gets unloaded when I get to a show anyway so it doesn't smell up the mid tack.

I'd recommend both, but get the collapsible rear tack.  You can't have too much storage, and if you need an extra big stall or for whatever reason need a big opening at the rear, you can fold it away.

We love love love our mid-tack. Now that we have one we won't be without on future trailers.  I too have stackable plastic drawers for all my horse blankets, first aid stuff, camping stuff, extention cords, etc...  It makes a great place to stash the wet dog, wet clothes, muddy boots.  Make sure to get walk-thru doors into the LQ AND the horse area.  As mentioned above it can be a pain sometimes as there gets to be too much stuff piled up in front of the doors but we've found that once we unpack when we get where we're going that problem is solved.  Some stuff is getting used (lawn chairs, folding table) & other stuff may get put in the first horse stall (kids bikes).

We have a trailer with both, The center mid tack is similar to PH's first trailer. It carries everything that can't be contained within the LQ and rear tack. It's one of the reasons we bought our trailer.

Our other trailer only has the rear tack area. For the shorter duration trips, it's adequate, but would not be our choice as our only trailer. A longer trailer with an unused stall and escape door, results in very usable storage space that can be modified to suit any need.

Every inch of trailer space is precious, the more the better.

Gard

One of the trailers I am looking at is the Logan Edge.  It has the mid tack with doors on both sides and the rear tack .  The other is a Merhow with 6' slide out and just the rear tack.

The truck is a Dodge 2500 diesel long bed ...   Thoughts

Mine is a Logan XT With the platinum Interior. It is a 4 horse trailer.  I'm sure it weighs more than what the 3 Horse Edge you are looking at will weigh.

I pull mine with a 2006 F350 SRW. When I'm loaded up with horses and gear, I am right at Max GVW  & GCVW for the truck.

The truck pulls the load just fine.

I just got my Kiefer 4 horse in the fall and only used it twice before it got parked, but I already know what I would change.  It has a rear tack, collapsible, and I would prefer the mid tack instead, preferably something where the saddle racks swing out so you aren't climbing in and out. 

Getting the horses to load in past the rear tack is easy, getting the last one out again is not.  They are still used to a stock trailer where they could turn around and walk out, and now they have to back out past the tack room, and the step down to the ground is fairly high.  Obviously I will just have to go and train them to do it, but the first try was kind of hairy -- and that was with my dead quiet horse, not the excitable ones.  I can collapse the tack room if need be, but that would require it to be EMPTY first, so not always convenient.  It is, however, great for when you need to load a quad.

Also, that 4 saddle rack in the rear looks great until you realize you can only reach the bottom 2 racks.  I think I'm going to build a portable step that I can use for unloading my horses, as well as for standing on to reach up into the rear tack.  I don't find having tack at the back of the trailer as handy as having it at the side, where the horses are tied.  It's more running back and forth.

Now, that being said, when I was trailer shopping there wasn't one in my price range with a mid tack, so I bought what was available - a 4 horse.  I usually only haul 2 or 3 horses, so this way I have extra space that can be storage, or a stall, and that's very handy.  I really, really like that extra stall with it's escape door.  It's great for hay, buckets, fork, etc.  I think if I ever go trailer shopping again, I will have a mid tack, AND and an extra stall, and no rear tack.