Hi All-

My husband and I recently bought a 2003 Trail-et New Yorker Spirit.  For the most part, we love the trailer.  It is a 2-horse walk through straight load with ramp and tack/dressing room.  There is a full sized escape door on both sides, which makes for easy loading with a horse that won't self-load.  It's very tall and open, and the horses don't hesitate to walk right in.  The problems we're running into are with the breast/butt bars.  They're extremely hard to negotiate and get hooked into place, especially if the horse is putting any weight at all on them. 

Has anyone had similar problems with the Trail-et trailers?  Any suggestions as to how we might make this easier, or modify the existing breast/butt bars?  We're new to loading and trailering horses, so maybe it will come with time.  But right now, we don't feel too good standing directly behind them fiddling with the butt bar for so long.  And if the breast bar doesn't go in place easily, they have a tendency to want to walk right past you out the escape door (which doesn't work, for obvious reasons). 

Could we be loading improperly?  Any suggestions there?

Thanks for anything anyone can offer!

Erin

One thing that I have found helping keep horses off the butt bars when I am loading is the leave the access door at the head open if your horses will not try to go out that door... ie the chest bar holds them in. 

Also helps when unloading as the horses tend to want to crane their heads around looking to see where they are.. and they are off the butt bar, too.

Sometimes I forget, and there is that huge QH butt pushing back on the bar, so I go back up to the head, open the door and he is off it!!!

Jbsny

Hi Erin ~ Pardon me if my reply is insulting or offends you in any way (!) ~ I certainly don't mean to! I was just out looking at the Trail-et New Yorker Spirits on Thursday and also had a hard time putting the pin into the butt bar (with no horse in the trailer!). The guy who was assisting me on the lot showed me the "easy" way to do it... and this is where I don't mean to offend your intelligence because you may already be doing this... but if you're trying to put the pin in by holding the bar close to the pin, it's really hard to slide it in. If you hold the bar on the opposite end, it drops RIGHT in.

Again, I struggled with it with no horse in the trailer ~ once he told me to hold the bar up closer to the wall side, rather than at the center divider where I was sliding the pin it, it was a piece of cake.

If you're already doing it that way, then ignore my response!