I have a little experiance with this as I just towed back a 16.2HH hanoverian in a 3 horse angle load trailer w. dressing room. First off MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A WEIGHT DISTRIBUTING HITCH! I saw a guy towing with a pull type hitch and he was all over the road....scary.

I had the proper weight distributing setup, and while the horse was alittle rambuncious back there( being only 3 years old) I had no real issues. I can see towing two horses, but you wouldn't want to be towing any more than that. Make sure you have the brake controller, and just take it easy.

 

Was in the hitch and accessories biz for almost 15 years. Your truck is within towing capacity if your calculated weight is correct. Some other equipment that may be helpful that I have installed could include, but may not be needed in your case....Weight distributing hitch system. Have a professional installer guide you to the proper bars and set your head angle. In most cases this helped alot of people with the fore and aft load shifting problem. If your trailer is equipped with electric brakes, which I highly suggest, purchase an digital electronic controller. I used Drawtite brand products and found them to be very reliable and easy to adjust on-the-fly. They can also be mounted in almost any position and contain no moving internal parts which in time become damaged due to vibration. One other part to consider may be a sway control. Sway controls use an adjustable friction bar and can be very useful in windy conditions or when caught in the windage of a semi. Hope this helps.

 

I am new to this forum, and have only been towing horses a few years. Much of the online advice I have gotten about horse towing has been useful and conservative but overkill. I became convinced that I needed an F250 Diesel long bed to haul horses because of the "live load" factor.

I bought an older used F250 a few years back and I have to tell you, it pulls the trailer like there is nothing back there. The problem is that it is a ridiculous vehicle for me to own. I tow probably 12-15 times a year, normally under 30 miles round trip. The longest trip I make (annual voyage) is about 200 miles round trip and all flat highway. I am in WA state and we do have some hilly terrain, but I stay pretty close to home most of the time. That truck is so huge that I hate to drive and park it and it just sits in my suburban neighborhood driveway looking kind of ugly, if truth be told.

I have a stock trailer, with no dressing room. I do need to weigh it, but according to the tag it is about 2,100# empty. Okay, here is the silly part. Right now, I haul a driving pony! Pony and cart combined weigh about 500 pounds. I have friends that haul their pony in the back of their mini van, and here I am hauling around with a huge oversized truck that I hate to drive and park.

I would like the flexibility to haul a single fullsize horse - but that still puts me at around 1,200-1,300# (includes horse + saddle and other gear). That means that my fully loaded trailer would not exceed 4,000.

I ran that little excel calculator found on the rvtowingtips site and I have an adequate safety margin with an F150, 5.4 with the 3.73 gear ratio, even with my single riding horse. What does sound right is that when hauling horses, you should probably keep the weight to about 2/3 or so of your capacity. I calculate out that I am well under that with one big horse. Yes, I am going to get the weight distributing hitch even though I am under 5,000 towing because I am basically paranoid. I do have some concerns about losing power on steep uphills so my first few times out with the truck/trailer, I am going to check that out on a low traffic long grade hill nearby to see. I always drive slow and carefully with horses, remember that the poor beasts can't hang on when you go around corners or accelerate or stop fast... easy does it makes for a better ride for them anyway.

In the meantime, my new truck needs to get a brake controller added and I need to get the WDH figured out and then I think I am okay hauling my 4,000 pounds worth of trailer and horse around.

I personally think that if you haul a lot, have a big/heavy trailer or haul 2-3 horses regularly, you might want to go up to a 3/4 ton although I rode with someone hauling 2 horses with her F150 and we did just fine.

BTW, in general you should expect fullsize riding horses to weigh in the 900-1,200 range. A petite Arab might be 800-900. A big beefy quarter horse/paint type might be 1,100-1,200. A warmblood is probably more like 1,200-1,400. Drafts, well that is even heavier. I used 1,200 as my estimate for a medium riding horse, and that includes the bridle and saddle too.

edited to make a correction: The tag on my trailer says it weighs 2,100 empty - it is a small stock trailer with no tack room.

 

Bottom line - a 250 or 350 PSD is a great tow vehicle but a rough daily driver.

 

Not to mention when they decide to shift their weight around when you are doing 60 on the interstate.