Cob Jockey

Connor and I had a fun week last week!  Let's start with hauling.

Glamour shot of the rig after my first successful roundtrip haul

I hauled my own horse and no bad things happened!  I first took the trailer out empty on Tuesday night to get used to hauling it and tune the brake box.  It just didn't feel...right...and I was really starting to get nervous about Friday.  Especially when I realized my hitch was only rated for 5,000lbs dead weight, which was doable with just one pony in it, but a little close for comfort.

Turns out the ball on my hitch was just a tad loose, which caused the bad feelings on Tuesday.  When I took it out on Friday after tightening the ball, it hauled amaaaaaaaaaaaaaazingly well.  The truck handled it easily, it didn't sway, it braked easily.  (That said, still planning on getting a weight distribution kit added to bring my hitch rating up to 12,000 lbs, aka way higher than my truck's GVWR - overkill, I like it.)

I will say that I am still pretty good at backing a bumper pull, both to align it for hitching and actually backing the trailer.  First try, by myself:


In college, I had to back the 20ft feed wagon 100 feet down half the barn aisle with 1.5 feet of clearance on each side with the tractor after every feeding I did as a barn worker.  We also had a final exam in which we had to back said tractor and wagon in reverse around a cones course up a hill (my only mistake was killing it in the middle of the course because I went to put the clutch in and didn't have enough weight on the seat so it triggered the safety kill), and back a 2H bumper pull trailer 90 degrees around a corner with a truck.  That was six years ago, but I still got it.

It's nice to have that skill - makes hauling a lot more stressful when you're not worried about getting into a spot where you're concerned you'll have to back (which I did a couple of times...)

Go Cards!

It felt really good to take my own horse off the property for my own trip, rather than having to wait on everyone else.  Nothing compares to hitting the open road with your horse in the back.

About our only "issue" is that Connor hasn't ridden in anything other than the six horse in four years, and always rear-facing and going forward down the side ramp to get out.  I asked him to back out this trailer (which has a ramp) and he first tried to turn around in the stall, and then when he did back off, he fell off the side of the ramp.  Oh well.  He'll get lots of practice at that.


So happy - still can't believe that everything has come together to make this happen.  Thanks, JenJ!