A friend's dad is a truck driver and he sometimes takes photos of bizarre sights on his routes. Yesterday, he sent her this one. This rig was traveling down interstate 40 in Arkansas. It is from a cell phone, so it is sort of blurry, but I think you can make out what it is.
If you can't make it out, it is 2 horses in a flatbed trailer meant for hauling lawn equipment or tires. It has a 4 foot high "cage" built on it and the owners have added some cattle panels to extend the height. The horses are not secured and the rear "gate" is another section of cow panel.
Sigh, the things people will haul a horse on.
.....and I bet they "wonder" why their horse doesn't trailer well after this?.....MORONS!
ReplyDeleteOh my....God watches out for children and fools, doesn't He???
ReplyDeleteIt sometimes amazes me that horses thrive as they do, being in the care of idiot humans.
I have seen shit like this in Arizona too.
ReplyDeleteCIP- a station wagon, loaded to the brim with crap, pulling a similar flatbed loaded halfway back- brimming- with crap. On the very back of the trailer was a pony who was riding tied at least, but in this situation, probably not a good thing, with his/her head under the tarp that covered most of the 'trailer'. The back half of the tarp was loose and flapping over the pony's back.
There was no way the driver could see the pony for all the crap in the back of the station wagon or the front of the trailer.
The trailer 'floor'- diamond mesh.
F'ing brilliant!
Nobody is immune.
If I could have loaded that pony into the back of the truck and brought it home it would have been safer for the journey.
People do the dumbest things. I can honestly say I have never seen anyone do that before but the pony things is much worse. I don't have a trailer myself but I know people who actually have HORSE trailers that I can borrow. (I am trying to find a good used trailer and you would be surprised how hard that is around here. Most of what I have found is complete junk.)
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, don't I know firsthand how dumb people can be about hauling horses. I actually rescued my horse thanks to such a situation. It was actually a real horse trailer, but it had a big hole in the floor, and the guy hauling them was actually surprised when the horses fell through and one (my horse's mother) had to be euthanized as a result. I mean, who the he!! can't see that one coming?!
ReplyDeleteOMG - I wouldn't even think of hauling a couple of SHEEP in a rig like that!
ReplyDeleteNOW, we DID haul our old mule over to our new place- in one side of the factory-built two-horse WW straight load, with large bookcases packed in on the other side of the partition. They were taller than the partition, so no way to fall to her side and all tied down.
Wow. This just smacks of Flea Market Culture.
ReplyDeleteMy mother-in-law's sister is married to one of those guys - a wheeler-dealer in anything from BYB puppies to collectible plates *snort* to really nice antiques.
He goes to whakadoo auctions and comes home with goats, ponies, and all manner of QVC merchandise. Which he turns around and re-sells.
CP- they seem to be everywhere, don't they?
ReplyDeleteKatherine Swan- there was a hauler who showed up at our place to take a horse to his new, out of state home. He was pulling the most rickety, pieced together mess you could call a trailer. Holes in the floor you could see daylight through on one side and the backdoors were tied shut with a lead rope.
I would have been embarrassed if I were him, to ask money for hauling someones horse in such a crappy trailer.
Our schedule wasn't flexible for the time frame or we would have hauled the horse for them. As it was, it wasn't our horse and they had paid this hauler for the trip...
Thankfully the horse made it all right.
Heh. We bought our trailer used from a family friend, with another 4H family (and still one of my best friends).
ReplyDeleteHer dad put in a new oak plank floor, we had it sandblasted, and my dad painted it to coordinate with our motorhome at the time - beige & royal blue.
My friend's 14.3 hand 3/4 Arab fit just fine, but my 15.2 or 3 AQHA mare was a close fit. Never wedged, and always willing to hop right in, but wow. I don't think they make 'em that small anymore!
Does anyone have experience with Brenderup trailers? I've always been intrigued...
I knew a lady who hauled a 2-horse trailer with her Oldsmobile Toronado for YEARS.
We've taken the tack area divider out of a 4 horse stock trailer, and hauled 6 ponies in it, but it wasn't really a problem. I think it was 2 minis, 3 shetlands and a 12hh quarter pony, so total it was less weight, and it was spread out better then if there had been 4 full-sized horses.
ReplyDeleteI was talking to someone I met on a trail ride once, they had an older 2 horse stock trailer where the horses are loaded straight in, head to tail with a dividing wall in the middle beween them. It looked like your normal stock trailer, but wasn't nearly as wide, only about 4 feet I think, plus the wheels. I had never seen a trailer like that. She said it was a sturdy old thing and that they'd fit 5 horses in it before! Two in the front stall and three in the back!
That is hideous! Poor horses.
ReplyDeleteOk, so curious if you have seen this site? Tackiness is just the beginning.
http://s1.webstarts.com/RicosBreeding/
Wasn't there a post a while back on FHoTD about a trailering accident? Well, I read somewhere that this horse fell through the floor when the trailer was going about 70mph, and its legs were literally sheared off and ground down to its knees... and this trailer was supposedly just a year old.
ReplyDeleteI read somewhere else that a guy brought his horse to a vet clinic, and when he opened the door to the trailer, the vet techs saw there was a huge hole in the floor, but enough room for the horse to stand. Obviously accustomed to dealing with the hole, the horse stepped down into the hole, back up onto the floor of the trailer, and unloaded itself. Srsly.