November 13, 2022

Sundowner Trailer

 I had sadly sold my old trailer last year, it was just rusting in place, large and needed more work again and I was just not up for another project that was going to take me away from my horses.  Dani is not a loader and with her tender feet I think she may be more of a home body.  I'll see what I can do about teaching her to load but I'm not going to hold my breath. Chance for sure is a home body since he is not rideable.  So my two older ponies can live the great life at home and I can ride Dani around here.


My future plan is to begin looking for a younger trail horse that can trailer and is calm on trails.  If I can get Dani to come along great I can may bring Steve too!  But I do need a horse to stay with Chance and I doubt I'm going to expand from my two horses all the way to four at the moment. So for now the plan is a trail horse for myself that I can take all over.

I casually was looking at trailers online and was interested in a couple but never really pursued any.  Then I saw an ad in the local agriculture paper for a 2004 Sundowner in Bahama, my very tiny town in NC.  I called the seller up and then went over and checked out a very well kept two horse trailer with a walk in tack room.  I was beyond happy with the trailer. So we bought it on the spot and brought it home...now for a name....Sunny is too obvious....


We'll need to get new tires and then rerun the trailer hookup electrical line since it's a bit worn out and attempts to fall off when hauling thereby loosing working lights when it does but these are minor issues.  It was a great price so I'm excited to have this trailer!


Now the harder part, beginning to look for another horse with trail riding and trailering in mind.  Dani is a hard horse to beat with her personality. The fact that she's been off for nearly two years and I barely had any issues getting her back in gear for riding speaks volumes about her mind.  She is such a sweet and willing horse, certainly more whoa than go. She may just be a horse for rides around the property and up in the forest nearby she is a confidence building for sure.  I love her to pieces so to find another trail riding horse is hard for me, I feel like I'm giving up on her.  In honestly I'm being realistic.  She has health issues and with the laminitis past I don't know how much she can take on a trail even if I could load her.  I want to get out and about and go up in the mountains and ride and do clinics and finally meet people in NC that like to ride.  I don't see doing that with Dani unless she can load in a trailer and I don't know if she'd hold up for hours of trail riding with her past laminitis issues.  


Only time will tell so I am keeping a close eye on her health. If we can get the track system to have less grass grow in it that would be fantastic.  I definitely saw that she moved a lot more on it which is great! She and Chance are our forever horses so they stay here until their last days. The next horse I bring home will be the same, so I need to find the right riding partner.  That's the long hard part for sure. Trailer was easy!

2 comments:

lytha said...

Hey, does that lovely tack room have a walk-thru door to the horsey area? Cuz I need that so much. I love nothing more than to just hang out in my tack area with my horses, sitting on my camp chair, eating ramen and sharing it with the horses. I'm so happy for you!
I also have a horse who has a deep fear of horse trailers, and I've worked with him to the point where he will go in for me, but it's heartbreaking because anytime the trailer moves, he is soaked in terror-sweat. I've never had the chance to practice with him with another horse to be a mentor for him, to show him that it's OK, to simply eat hay. Since I have no trailer and no friends to help me, we're stuck. And getting the donkey into a trailer is a whole nother thing - you cannot convince a donkey to do something they don't want to do. They are not like horses. If my donkey needed to go to the clinic, she would rather die than get on a trailer.

Christie said...

I feel ya. I'm glad I'm not the only one with trailer issues. It's a big thing to trailer a horse and if you aren't experienced trailering like myself then it's an uphill battle. I need a horse that it's not big deal for to give me experience in it before I give that confidence and experience to a horse that is having issues. I've had several people work with me and Dani on trailering and it's just not panned out and to be honest I just gave up once she was here in NC with me. We just ride around here. She has to wear hoof boots on the front because of her tenderness but she's a horse you can get on and ride after months off, years even it seems. I think I throw my hubby on her without him taking a lot of time learning to ride etc. The new horse hunt has started though.