Cob Jockey

While at Connor's breeder's, we also went out to see the boys, all stallions.

Boys being boys, lol.  All photos taken by Connor's breeder.

Three year old Castleberrys Ffafr on the left (Gwynfaes Culhwch x Castleberrys Fflying Duchess by Castleberrys Last Emperor), yearling Castleberrys Reno in the middle (Castleberrys ReFflection x Castleberrys Rosalee by *Tuscani Dundee), and two year old Connor nephew Castleberrys Echo on the right (Castleberrys Cadence x *Rhosyr Ebony by Gwenllan Brenin Mon).

He actually got his elbow stuck over Echo's withers and stayed there until he figured it out, haha.

These boys are so lucky.  They get to live together and grow up playing together because they're miles from the nearest mare at Connor's breeder's second property.  It's like a baby stallion paradise out there.


They play rough, but not too rough. 

Some of you may remember Echo as the baby that has the Dr. Seuss character on his face.  Missed opportunity to name him Castleberrys Sneetch, haha.

Zoom in and look at his face, it cracks me up every time I see it.

Everyone's got their favorites, but mine is still Ffafr (pronounced Favor).  This horse (he's going to be over 15hh) has incredible movement as well as a ton of presence and intelligence.  When the other boys were running around like maniacs, he almost looked like he was above those sort of shenanigans, although he did a big lofty canter after the other two, in no hurry.  He just has that X factor.  I want so badly to see this horse end up in the Dressage ring, he'd be amazing.

Connor's getting a bit of a break right now as both my trainer and I are out of town for two weeks.  But in the meantime, I have the best content: baby ponies!

It takes two people to get baby pony photographs (or three would be better).  One person shakes a plastic bag at them and takes stills, and one person videos.  Two weekends ago, Connor and I took a field trip over there to help with that and hopefully to trail ride, although we ended up running out of  time for that.

Enjoy some baby pictures, and head over to his breeder's Facebook page to see the whole albums!

Castleberrys Electra (Castleberrys Ffafr ap Culhwch x *Rhosyr Ebony by Gwenllan Brenin Mon)

Castleberrys Dirty Harry (Castleberrys Ffafr ap Culhwch x Castleberrys Dyma Hi by *Tuscani Dundee) This little guy is out of Connor's full sister, and he definitely inherited his Uncle Connor's personality.  It's almost uncanny how alike they are!  Especially since his sister is nothing like Connor in terms of personality.

Castleberrys Ffirst Class (Castleberrys Ffafr ap Culhwch x *Nebo Ffion by Nebo Daniel) who is such a sweetheart...

...she kept coming up to say hi even though Lisa was shaking the bag at her and I was shooing her off!  Pocket pony!

And Castleberrys Rolex (Castleberrys Ffafr ap Culhwch x North Star Rebecca by Jireh Justice), who has been sold already to a Dressage home.

There's nothing better than a weekend playing with babies!

I promise I'll be off this trailer post kick, like, tomorrow.  When you'll get lots of gorgeous pony baby photos.  But that day is not today!

Now that I've hauled with the Shadow, I am learning what I like and what I don't like about it.  Truly, there's very little I don't like about it, but I thought I'd be honest about its shortcomings online since I've been getting a lot of questions about it from people who never thought they'd like a one horse trailer.

First, it doesn't have running lights on the fenders like the KB did.  These aren't totally essential, but it was really nice to be able to see where the edge of the trailer was at night.

No fender lights, although the fenders are so shiny the reflection of the truck's running lights off them showed me where the trailer was.

Second, and most perplexingly, Shadow mounted the horse area light over the horse's butt.

WTF, mate?

So I turned it on to load him in the dark, and then had to leave it on to travel, because I couldn't reach it over him and I sure as hell wasn't getting behind him.  Why they wouldn't have mounted that on the opposite side of the trailer, where there is a ton of open space for humans to safely stand, is beyond me.

Look at all that real estate where they could've safely mounted a light...

No good pictures of that one, but this is the "latched open" position for the door.

Onto the minor annoyances; the wheel on the tongue jack, which I think I'm just uneducated about since so many trailers have one, so educate me.  What is this for?  Is that wheel really designed to roll, ever?  Under what circumstances?  Why not have a flat bottomed jack? 

It's super annoying to have to take it off and put it on every time I hitch and unhitch - you have to wheel the jack up high enough to get the wheel off the pipe, but not all the way up, or else the pin won't come out. 

And of course there's the fact that I need to keep track of a critical trailer component that is not always attached to my trailer.  Have you SEEN my tack room or truck backseat during a show weekend?  Good lord, do not entrust me with that kind of responsibility, people!  Leave the trailer in one piece, please!

Don't worry, it's chocked.

The second minor annoyance is the fact that the divider swings and allows dust and sawdust into the tack area.  I would have been thrilled if the divider didn't swing, but on the plus side, it will definitely make it easier to clean out.  I have a plan for this, just haven't put it in place yet.

You can just see the bottom of the divider in this sneak peek of my half-finished tack room organization that I really didn't intend to show off yet but hey!

Anyone else's trailer manufacturers make some genuinely head scratching decisions?

Connor and I took our first trip with the new trailer last weekend, to a lesson with NK and then to his breeder's for a couple days of fun.  We are both so in love with this trailer, it's completely changed the way I feel about hauling.


On paper, my old trailer with one pony in it was fine for my truck, a 2005 GMC Sierra Denali with a 6.0L V8 and every available option.  And I did haul with it for two years without feeling unsafe. I know there are others out there towing more trailer with less truck.


But I cannot overstate how much safer it is, how much easier to handle, and how much better for Connor it is that I now have 1,400 fewer pounds behind me.  If I was adequately trucked before, I'm overtrucked now, and guys, it is SO much safer.

It was a beautiful morning as I was leaving the farm on Friday, but also, I can practically see the back door of my trailer with non-towing mirrors now.

With the KB, I had to plan ahead for stoplights especially on the 55mph state highway we travel regularly, because I needed more time than the yellow light afforded me to stop gracefully enough not to jostle Connor.  I was very much reliant on the trailer's brakes to stop it, and Connor felt that.

With the Shadow, I can brake normally, (even loaded it feels like I'm just driving the truck without the trailer), and stop gently within a yellow light from 55mph, no problem for either me or the horse. 


The Shadow exerts a lot less tongue pressure on the truck (you can see how much less the truck squats with the Shadow in the photos above), is shorter, and is lighter, all of which make day to day towing easier, but also could be the difference between a wreck and avoiding a wreck if I ever find myself in a less-than-ideal towing situation.


Most importantly, Connor is the happiest in the trailer I've seen him in years.  He actually ate hay on every leg of our trip, something he never once did in the KB. 

Further proof he's happy: In the KB I had to unload him with a Dressage whip because he'd shoot backwards the second I opened a door.  When I open the Shadow's door, he stands there contentedly staring at me with a leg cocked, in no hurry to get off.

It's so shiny, I kept finding myself getting freaked out by the reflections off the nose during my first nighttime haul.

I'm not trying to call out anyone hauling a bigger trailer with a half ton like I was before.  It WAS adequate in normal driving conditions.  Getting a rig at all is expensive and hard, and getting the kind of truck to trailer ratio you get with a half ton/1H trailer either requires downsizing the trailer or buying a bigger truck - and trucks are so stupidly expensive!

But I hope everyone can get to a point where they're overtrucked when they haul someday.  It's hard to get a frame of reference for hauling when most of us ammies haven't gotten the chance to drive many different rigs, but now that I know how hauling this one feels, I think if I had the KB back I'd get a 3/4 ton. 

Any other haulers have a "heavens opened up and angels sang" revelation like this?

So, ya'll are doing 2pointober, and meanwhile, I'm over here doing "Canteringandturninglefttober". 


The Equisense has continued to be illuminating in the most shameful ways.  Like, you hope you'd recognize the fact that the canter is his weakest gait because you literally never do it or that turning left is uncomfortable for you both because you go right a lot more, but there's a difference between casually thinking that and seeing cold, hard numbers that you cannot ignore.


The above rides were from earlier this month.  I've since set some casual goals to increase the amount of cantering and going left that we do every ride. 

There's already been improvement.  Each ride between the one above and the one below has been progressively longer in terms of cantering.  The left rein comes and goes, but is generally trending upward too.


The reason I'm not cantering enough is largely because until he's really on my aids, his canter is not fun to ride.  So I spend most of the ride getting him perfect in the trot before deciding to canter. 

But, often the canter helps the trot, so it's a catch 22 that I need to recognize and power through.  My last ride showed some definite improvement in that, with cantering early and often (for me):


It's still such a "nice to have" that I'm almost guilty owning it, because it's really not essential, but it's also shedding light on some really important things we need to fix, and there's a lot of value in that.

Since I bought some this week, let's talk about trailer insurance!

There are three things to have coverage for on a horse trailer: liability, contents and theft or damage.

Outtake from yesterday

Liability is easy.  It makes sure I'm covered in the event my trailer damages someone else's property.  It's covered by the tow vehicle's policy.

(In researching this blog post, I discovered that's true for all auto policies, as long as the truck's registered/insured owner is the same as the trailer's registered/insured owner.  The insurance industry says you can't insure what you don't own, so if your friend borrows your trailer, her tow vehicle's policy doesn't extend to your trailer.)


Second, I need to cover the contents of the trailer (minus the horse) in case my tack is stolen out of my tack room.  For me, my homeowner's policy covers this.  I called my insurance agent and checked on this when I got the CWD.

Unlike tow vehicle liability insurance, this is a major your-mileage-may-vary area, so definitely call your insurance agent and double check this one.  Even non-trailer owners should check on this, since it applies to your tack sitting in the barn's tack room same as it does the trailer.

Still the absolute love of my life even though we don't jump much right now.

That leaves some major gaps, though.  If the trailer itself gets stolen, or pummeled in a hailstorm while sitting at the barn or blown into the hayfield by a tornado, none of that damage is covered.

For that, you can buy a separate comprehensive trailer policy with a deductible for a trailer just like you can for cars.  And for my tiny bumper pull on my multi-line policy, it's insanely cheap: $5/month or $30/six months for a $1,000 deductible or $6/month or $36/six months for a $500 deductible.  $6 a month for that much peace of mind?  Sign me up!

Anyone else shopped for trailer insurance recently?

Connor has been in a step up before, his breeder has one, but it's been at least six or seven years since he'd been in one.  With a couple of trips coming up later this week, I wanted to make sure he was cool with the new trailer.

I needn't have worried...

"Wow this is pretty great!"

One thing I learned with the KieferBuilt is that this chicken of a horse takes his cues from me.  If I walked into the KB like I meant it, so did he - and he went right in.  If I walked up to it tentatively, so did he - and he wouldn't go in.

"Well played, horse, well played."

With the Shadow, we walked up to it casually to check it out and sniff it all over, then I hopped into it like I meant it, and he hopped right in with me.

I'm not one to haul with the windows down, but for getting him comfortable with the trailer, it was great.

When he got in the first time, he learned the trailer is an amazing place where the cookies never end, and we repeated that a whole bunch of times (although maybe with fewer cookies).  He never even hesitated even though it's a decent sized step for his stubby legs.


Slant loads, especially one horse slants with big doors that latch open on the outside, require a whole different safety protocol than the two horse straight with escape doors did.  When I have two people later this week, we're going to work on self loading, which is pretty much a necessity now.  But for just getting him comfortable in it tonight, I didn't mind getting in with him.

By myself, I worked on teaching him we only go off of it head first, since he can so easily turn around in this, and reinforcing our already-installed "stay where I put you" command ("Wait") and our "you're good to get off the trailer now" command ("Okay!").

Which we did...
...over...

...and over...

...and over...

.
..until he was incredibly bored.

Fit-wise, I could not be happier.  He had so much room back there, much more than I thought he would from visualizing it in my head. 

So much room for activities!

All in all, super happy with how he handled it and how he fits in it, and I can't wait for our first real haul on Friday!

Say hello to Connor's new ride!

Husband says it looks like half a horse trailer.

There are going to be a lot of people out there that think I'm crazy for this, and I don't blame you one bit.  My new trailer is a 2017 Shadow Stablemate 1H slant with dressing room.  You did read that right: that's a one horse.


I've been looking at this trailer for over a year now, so this is definitely not a snap decision.  My justifications:

- I refuse to haul two horses with a half ton pickup.
- I don't want to own more than one horse at once, ever, unless one is totally retired.
- I couldn't use the KB's second stall for storage because it wasn't a stud divider.
- Connor is tiny.
- I want to simplify my life, and the amount of maintenance the things in my life require.
- Resale value is overrated (says the owner of the 1H slant and the 16" Dressage saddle)

Warmblood height, because what trailer isn't 7'6 these days?

Once I settled on a 1H, I started shopping.  There are more options than you'd think.  Some were too expensive (Double D and Equispirit), some were so narrow they made me nervous about stability (4 Star) and some didn't have enough of a dressing room (Brenderup Baron One).

The divider locks all the way to the left in case you want to use it to transport...a four wheeler?  IDK.

The Shadow ticked all the boxes. It has a proper dressing room.  It's built on the chassis of a two horse trailer, so stability is fantastic (and I got to test that out on the 2 hour drive home in 30mph crosswinds and driving rain - it never moved).  The horse's weight is positioned right over the axles, and I actually think it's slightly wider than my KB was.

Technically it's an 18" short wall.  Hahaha.

Most importantly, it's 1,400lbs less than my KB was, at 2,100 lbs empty.  I never really felt undertrucked with the KB behind me, but stopping definitely required some brainpower, planning and finesse.  I was immediately much more comfortable with the Shadow behind me - braking with it felt like I was just braking the truck.  1,400 fewer pounds also means less wear and tear on my 12 year old truck and slightly better gas mileage, too.

Grate dropped.

I had planned to buy one brand new from the dealership because they're extremely cheap as far as new trailers go, but then the local Shadow dealer raffled one off at a backyard Western show in my area earlier this summer.  I figured the raffle trailer would turn up for sale sooner or later because I think I'm the only person on the planet that wants a one horse trailer.

Brrrrrrand new.

The raffle trailer did show up for sale, and I was the only person who called about it (told ya!).  I ended up getting it for $2,000 less than I was going to pay the dealer.  Brand new with every option I wanted, and a seven year warranty plus a two year tire warranty.

Factory insulated roof!  I was going to DIY this, very glad I don't have to!

The dressing room has slightly less square footage than my old one, so I need to maximize available space by mounting everything I can on the walls, which sounds like a party to my organization-obsessed self.  But that's a subject for another post!

Boot for scale.  I can stand comfortably underneath that saddle rack, I have no idea why it was mounted so high.  Good thing I don't ride Western.

So there you go.  It's not the trailer for everyone, and I don't blame you if you think I'm crazy, but I'm in love with it.  I can't wait to use it the next two weekends!

Anyone else ever considered or known someone with a one horse trailer?