Cob Jockey

Since I was not getting a new truck, since I paid my old one off, and since I was getting my deposit back from the dealer, the only logical thing to do with that money was go on a shopping spree for some stuff I've wanted for a very long time but couldn't pull the trigger on.

Up first, the Shocker Hitch. Oh man, I have wanted this for years.

There are two ways force is transmitted to the trailer and the horse while towing: from the ground and from the truck. The trailer's suspension dampens the ground transfer, but there's nothing to dampen the force transmitted from the truck via the relatively fixed all-metal hitch, so all that force gets sent straight back to the trailer and to your horse. And we haven't even discussed the effect that force has going the opposite direction, with the trailer creating forces that are sent back to your truck's frame and to the driver.

Note that the right arrow is bi-directional - I mostly talk about the effect the truck has on the trailer in this post because I'm mostly doing this for Connor's comfort, but in reality both vehicles are transmitting force between each other. The Shocker Hitch neutralizes most of the bi-directional arrow forces.

The Shocker Hitch has an airbag in it to dampen the force coming from the truck to the trailer and vice versa. It's been out for a long time, and RV'ers report being able to leave things out on their counters while towing after getting a Shocker Hitch and finding that it hasn't moved at all when they get to their destination, it smooths out the ride that much.

First, I had to get my current hitch cut off of my truck, because the dealer sold it to me a year ago with a locking hitch pin on it and didn't have the key. Sigh.

Barn husbands with complete metalworking shops in their garage are the best

Initial thoughts? This thing is HEAVY. And big. I'm one of those that leaves my hitch on all the time, but that won't be possible with this. It weighs over 40lbs!

I took the ball and its platform off to put it on the truck to save some weight, and that made it manageable.

My next thoughts were OMG this doesn't work with my truck, because the metal platform above the air bag was touching my safety chain attachment area. So I emailed pictures to Shockerhitch, and THREE MINUTES LATER a nice North Dakot'n gentleman called me and told me it looked just fine, and also answered my other questions. Great customer service!

This is not in the instructions, but even after deflating the airbag, I had to clamp the airbag down to get it all the way in.

You put it on with the airbag completely deflated, and then you hitch up (ideally loaded, although I did not make Connor stand on the trailer while I aired it up) and inflate it until this green thing is just baaaaaaaaaarely smushed. Like 1/8".

 

You have to adjust the airbag for each trailer/load weight that you carry. Since this process is kind of a pain in the ass, I asked the nice North Dakot'n (hopefully you're reading that in a ND accent) gentleman if I could just leave the red thing on my truck the whole show season, and he said yes, but I need to buy a grease gun (that's an actual thing, TIL) and keep it lubricated and ideally dry. But I got the impression he'd rather I take it off the truck between uses.

I chose a drop hitch because I have a pretty tall truck, but they have a lot of different styles of couplers

But onto the fun stuff: how was it to haul with? In a word, absolutely freaking amazing. I have a newer half ton and the World's Tiniest Horse Trailer. I am not even close to undertrucked, and the fact that the trailer has a shorter wheelbase than the truck means it's stable as can be and tows like a dream. But there are always shakes and shimmies from the trailer, and all of that was neutralized with this hitch.

Picture going over a short bridge on a country road, where the truck first goes over one joint, then the trailer, then they immediately go over the second joint which causes like a whip crack effect on the driver (and the horse, I would assume). All of that was smoothed out. Wavy country roads: smooth. Concrete roads with expansion joint cracks: smooth. 

 

The truck rode better with the trailer and the airbag than it does without the trailer, and I have a top trim truck with a magnetic suspension, so it's no slouch when it comes to ride quality! The trailer weighted down my back end just enough to take the stiffness out of the truck suspension without any of the jerking, which made the ride quality fantastic for the driver. And presumably better for the horse as well.

While I'm bummed I'm not getting a bigger truck, I do have to admit I love this rig

And the most unexpected thing? Not only did it neutralize forces from the truck to the trailer, it also neutralized forces the opposite direction, like Connor spinning around in the trailer and pawing at stop signs. I felt absolutely nothing. Which was a bit unnerving and will make me feel better about having a trailer camera, but it also has to mean the ride is SO much smoother for the horse, so I'll take it.

Oh, since I now actually care if this hitch gets stolen, I replaced the locking hitch pin with a locking hitch pin that also has a backup cotter pin, so if one or the other fails, the hitch pin has backup. Two thumbs up!

Since Connor will be spending more hours on the trailer this summer than ever before, I hope he appreciates this ride upgrade! If it made his ride even half as nice as it made mine, he sure will.

Bottom line: It's expensive, but reduces wear on your tow vehicle and gives your horse a smoother ride, so what's not to love?

What: Shocker Air Receiver Hitch

Sizes: 12k capacity or 16k capacity. Also available for gooseneck and in a WD hitch configuration

Price: I paid $459.99 for my configuration

Where: shockerhitch.com

I've spent much of the last four months trying to sell my current truck and buy a bigger one.

Through a coworker's spouse, I have the ultimate hookup for discount codes on new GMCs (you know it's good when the dealer looks at your code, looks at you, raises an eyebrow and asks who you know in order to get that code), so with the used market being nuts right now (one year old 3/4 tons with 3,000 miles on them are going for $10-15k MORE than new here!), I placed an order for a new 3/4 ton in early April. And waited. And waited.

What I ordered

 

All the while, I was dreaming of the 2H LQ trailer I would buy, or the truck bed camper I'd get to pair with my 1H slant. During the pandemic and now that I'm traveling more places to show with my GP trainer, staying on-site at shows started to sound really good.

Unfortunately, due to the chip shortage, they were unable to place my order before the deadline for ordering 2021s came and went, and my discount code is not valid on 2022s. GM can't even sell enough full price trucks to meet demand right now because of the chip shortage, discounts are going to be hard to come by for a while.

I sorta stopped washing the half ton assuming I was getting rid of it and Mary noticed. I still hate black vehicles but beggars can't be choosers

As disappointed as I was to let my LQ dreams go, I was also relieved when I got my deposit back, because some things have changed since I placed that order. 

First, virtual lessons are working out so well, I'm not sure it makes financial sense to go to Wellington with GP trainer next winter.

Second, if I do decide I want to be warm next winter, my eventer aunt just bought a 10 acre farm in an equestrian community in Ocala and has already extended an invitation for me and Connor to stay with her.

My aunt's backyard. Excuse me while I pick my jaw off the ground.

Third, GP trainer is willing to do virtual warmups with me at shows she doesn't attend, so I could conceivably show closer to home and still have her warm me up.

And fourth, I'm now fully vaccinated and willing to stay in hotels or with the friends and family I have conveniently located near a surprising number of show facilities.

So while I'm a little disappointed, I have to admit that even if I have to replace the entire front differential on my truck at some point in the future out of pocket (not likely, since I'll just make GM keep fixing it if it keeps happening, but still), that's still cheaper than buying a new truck and trailer would've been. This used truck market is NUTS, y'all. My current truck has APPRECIATED by $7,000 since I bought it and put 20,000 miles on it!

Disco hanging out with his whip

 

As a consolation prize, I used my tax return money to pay off what little was left on this truck's loan, and then took my deposit money from the 3/4 ton and went on a, uh, small shopping spree lol. I'm going to have some interesting review posts coming up in the next few weeks!

Last weekend, I went back to my hometown to ferry a very special passenger to his new home.

Getting those ears into a selfie is no joke

Festus is my mom's 28 year old donkey, who we've owned since the spring of 1996 when we bought him as a companion animal for Little Red. He has a long and storied history as a no-way-no-how trailer loader - when we bought him, we ended up walking him the two miles home with 8 year old me on his back, and then when my parents moved around the block 10 years ago, they again walked him over. So as my parents prepared to move from southern Illinois to their forever home in Tennessee, my mom's biggest worry was how we'd move Festus.

Me and Festus, a long time ago

So I hauled my trailer over Thursday night, and first thing Friday morning, we got Jeannie and Blanche (lol) loaded into my parents' stock trailer. They're my parents' semi-tame no-shear sheep that basically serve as fuzzy lawn mowers.

Jeannie and Blanche like "WTF, this was not on our agenda for today"

Then it was Festus' turn. My mom's farrier of 25 years, who has actually known Festus since before we owned him, came out to help. My mom was a very novice horse owner when she brought Red and Festus home, and George has helped her through SO much. It was a poetic conclusion to their farrier-client relationship that he'd be the one to get him on the trailer.

We briefly tried convincing a hungry Festus to walk on for breakfast, but we all knew that wouldn't work, even though he had been braying his head off a few minutes before at the indignation of missing breakfast.

"I know this game"

In the end, getting him on only took about 15 minutes, with alternating bouts of muscling him forward and stopping to "let him pout", as George said. George looped a lariat through the interior tie rings of my trailer, and with me putting all my bodyweight onto the line and George and my dad's hands locked behind his butt, Festus didn't have much of a choice.

This is a sulking donkey

He actually hauled really well. If you've ever spent time around a donkey, you know they are just immeasurably smarter than horses, and I wasn't surprised when I stopped at a gas station to find Festus with his butt firmly wedged into the small angle of my slant, riding rear facing, and no indications in the shavings that he'd moved a muscle the entire journey. He found the easiest way to absorb the trailer's motion and stayed there the entire time.

Stopped for gas

Unsurprisingly, when we got him to my parents' new home, he leaped off the trailer without touching the ramp. Donkeys HATE it when the ground looks different, and I've survived more than one leap across a ditch on his back (which is no joke since he's built downhill with absolutely no withers!) But once that little bit of excitement was over with, he settled into his new digs.

Her most stressful part of the move over, my mom and I grabbed adult beverages and just hung out with him for a while.

One of my favorite ever pictures of the two of them!

The only remaining wildcard from that point forward was how Festus would do with the sheep. At the old house, he shared a fenceline but not a paddock with them, but here, he'd have to learn how to live with them, which theoretically shouldn't be an issue since donkeys are often used as livestock guardians, but you never know. 

Jeannie and Blanche napping in their new home

He spent a fair bit of time politely but firmly letting Jeanie and Blanche know he was the boss by running them off if they looked at him funny, but by the next morning, after it poured rain from 3am on, we found them sharing the run-in shed together like a weird new happy family.

The face of a donkey that hates being wet, and Blanche right behind him

With that, all of my mom's biggest fears were relieved. Festus' trip to Tennessee went fine, he integrated well with the sheep, and he did great in his new paddock even with his limited vision due to cataracts.

Drier times at the new place, still a work in progress!

For me, I was so grateful I could do this for my mom. She's given me so much, obviously the standard parent stuff but also the love of horses that has led me to pretty much arrange my whole life around them, so the fact that I could use my toys and my trailering skills to make this a safe and easy experience for her meant a lot.

My dad said Friday (after he saw me back a 20ft rented tow-behind camper down a hill around a turn between some trees last summer) when his retired buddies are bragging about their boat backing skills, he says he's got a daughter that can back a trailer better than any of them. I joked that he paid for my backing skills so he's earned the right to brag about them, since I had final exams in both backing a truck and trailer and backing a tractor and trailer in school for Equine Studies

And now, Festus gets to live the quiet retired life on an idyllic hill in Tennessee, and he never has to get on a trailer again as long as he lives. Enjoy retirement, little buddy!

I can't say I went into this week expecting I would come home with a new truck, but when life hands you a great deal and your savings account is ready, you jump!  And I thought I'd share my decision-making process in case it helps out future horsey truck shoppers.

No filter - it was a gorgeous evening with big rainbows over the truck when I test drove!

After I paid my last truck off three years ago, I kept on paying that car payment every month, only I paid it to myself instead of a bank, into a high yield savings account I opened specifically for vehicle-related finances.  If my current truck needed a major repair, I pulled from that fund, but otherwise, money was slowly accumulating in preparation for buying my next truck, even though I was in no hurry to replace my 2005 GMC Sierra Denali.

Old truck next to new truck

Since I wasn't in a hurry, I could afford to be picky (and I was - I've been casually keeping tabs on the truck segment I've been interested in for a couple of years).  I knew what I wanted: a 2015+ Sierra with low miles, one owner, the tow package, the 5.3L V8 engine, heated seats (duh) and the upgraded 3.42 rear axle (which will give me slightly worse fuel economy, but more towing power).  

Old truck had fold flat seats.  New truck has fold up seats.  Keys for scale.

There's a bigger engine available, the 6.2L V8, but it requires premium gasoline, which is no small expense for a truck!  Plus engines have advanced so much in the last 15 years since my 2005 was made - the 2018 5.3L V8 puts out 50 more HP than my 2005 6.0L V8.  PLUS I tow the world's tiniest horse trailer and I only tow east of the Rockies, I want a big heavy truck but I don't necessarily need an overkill engine.  So I decided early on to rule out the 6.2, but if you're towing a 2H with dressing room or bigger, and/or you live in hilly terrain, you're gonna want as much engine as you can get.

Testing out that Bose system with Your Ex-Lover is Dead by Stars

Everything I'd seen in my price range had 50-75k miles on it, but then something totally surprising showed up in my saved searches.  A 2018 GMC Sierra Denali 5.3 with 29,000 miles and the 3.42 real axle, off a one-owner lease, with all service records.  And it'd sat in the dealer's lot for a few months, giving me some delightful leverage.

Have I mentioned I enjoy the negotiating game?

TWENTY NINE THOUSAND MILES AT THIS PRICE \ARE YOU KIDDING ME

When it was all said and done, I'd gotten the truck for almost $5k under the KBB value, almost half of its new price, plus they'd given me $1800 more for my trade than I thought I'd get based on KBB. 


Now to see about getting that GMC multi-camera trailering package added...

My next truck (same truck I have now, just 15 years newer) is going to come with a factory-installed trailer tire pressure monitoring system, which I'm going to refer to as T-TPMS. 

Someday, someday.

But I'm still 2-4 years away from that truck being in my price range used, so I started looking into aftermarket T-TPMS systems.  Why would you want a T-TPMS system? 

1. It does real-time tire pressure alerting, so no more walking around the trailer with a tire gauge checking them all before you leave (although you should still double-check the accuracy of the T-TPMS every once in a while)
2. It does real-time temperature alerting.  Because tires tend to heat up before they blow, in theory you should be able to pull over before it blows your fender off (not that I have any experience with that...)
3. You can catch a slow leak early by watching it as you drive down the road.

I ended up buying this from Amazon, which comes with the main unit, four valve stem sensors, and two extra button batteries for those sensors, for $40. 


Installation was stupid easy.  Turn off the main unit.  Unscrew and remove your valve stem caps, screw the sensor caps on (paying attention to the front/rear left/right markings on them).  Turn on main unit.  Done.


If you're worried about theft they include four locking rings, but if you use those you have to have a specialized wrench with you at all times (to get the sensors off to air up your tires), and that seemed more risky than someone stealing sensors that are useless without the main unit so...I didn't.

It also says to check for leaks by spraying soapy water over the valve stems after installation.  I didn't.  Living on the edge.  No leaks so far.

The main unit is both solar powered and also charges via micro USB.  They include adhesive because it's designed to be mounted to your dashboard where the sun can charge it.  Because my truck already has a TPMS and I'm only going to use this when the trailer is hooked up, I chose to stash it in a storage compartment and not mount it.


The screen is customizable, and when I said this thing alerts you to low temp/high pressure, it ALERTS you.  It is LOUD.  Even if you're jamming out in the truck cab, you won't miss it if there's a problem with the trailer's tires.

Blue is PSI, green is temperature.  For those of you in metric countries, both are customizable.

Bottom line: $40 for mitigating tire problems while hauling?  Everyone should have one of these things!  There's no excuse not to.

Since I'm traveling this week and won't have much content, a fluff post.

When Karen and I visited her trainer's last week, I met her at my old farm and we transferred Connor over to her trailer for the rest of the trip.

I still love this place and find it drop dead gorgeous, but oh man I do not miss that drive!

Connor's head was probably spinning.  "I was at my old home...for 10 seconds...and then I get shoved onto this trailer I've never been on before with this weird red guy...what the heck?" but he was a good boy and walked right on.

The trip was uneventful until the way home.  I didn't have Google Maps turned on because we were literally heading straight down the interstate for hours, and I lived to regret that decision.

What.  Why.  At least it was cold.

50 minute traffic jam in the middle of nowhere!  With two thirsty ponies on the trailer.  Grrrrrrr. 

There wasn't anything we could do for the ponies, but the humans were saved by the moderately definitely irresponsible amounts of junk food we had just purchased at the gas station.  What's a road trip without Sour Patch Kids and fountain sodas, am I right?

Saved by red creme soda, mmmmm.

He wasn't happy about it, but when we finally got home three hours later I locked him in his stall with nothing but water until he took a big drink before I would give him his grain and hay.

He was none the worse for it, but it was a good reminder that even a short, easy trip can turn into a long trip unexpectedly, and I should definitely not be lazy and fill the water bladders in my trailer every time I haul more than 30 minutes.

On Friday, Connor and I hit the road with Karen and Royale to visit her GP trainer a couple of hours north.  I'm going to refer to her as KGP.

And it was awesome!  Look how far his foot is in front of his nose!

This isn't a trainer I've ridden with before, but I've seen her at every show.  She's shown GP herself and has had several students earn their golds.  I'm happy with the trainers I already work with, but I'm always interested in new perspectives, and Karen spoke highly of her lessons, and especially of her coaching at show warm-ups.

So, we went!

ROAD TRIP!

There was a moment in the beginning of the lesson when I wondered if I'd made a mistake, if she was not the right type of trainer for a Welsh Cob.  She is intense, in a good way, but in a way that flustered Connor, and I had to subtly and quietly manage that pressure for him.  One of the first things we did was rest/bounce my whip on his croup at the trot to get a "sit" reaction out of him.  If you know Connor, you know he hated this:

Get that whip off my butt lady!  Thank you Karen for taking video.

But after I reassured him he was a good boy when he gave me the right answer, it was so effective at getting the message across to a horse that really struggles with this concept. 


I've always heard Welsh Cobs need to learn piaffe and passage before they really get the "sit and lower your croup" message, and what did this trainer say?  Exactly that, only in the context of what she thought Connor needed and not in the larger breed context.

Just like my regular trainer, KGP identified that he likes to carry his hindquarters to the left all the time, and she had me do 10m trot circles in haunches in on the right (but not the left), which was SO hard but SO effective.

A few steps after we rejoined the rail in this GIF, she yelled out "THERE IT IS!  There's your fancier horse!"

At canter, here too she echoed what my own regular trainer has been saying lately, which is that "I understand it's probably taken a lot of work to get quickness in his hind legs, but you've done that and now it's time to work on collection."  She said my default canter looks like we're taking off on an XC course, and I need to "recycle, rebalance, recycle, rebalance" constantly.

So Kate, I am definitely not following the motion of the canter with my hands enough here, I promise I've been working on this, honest 😂

I got so much out of this lesson - even just things like "THAT'S your Second Level bordering on Third Level trot" and overhearing her say to the woman next to her "I want to see this horse again".  We learned so much but we also got a dose of validation that I needed after a confidence-shaking 2018.

So consistent even with a super awkward whip change