The Barn Vehicle


In my experience most horse people are also dog people – at the very least we typically like other animals even if we don’t have any others. Horses are certainly more than enough of a hole in the wallet for most!

I fall into the loving all animals category (I would save them all and be a hoarder if I had no job and more room…). When Kyle married me he knew that he was not only getting into life with at least two dogs but also possibly a horse and any other creature that makes its way into our life. He is incredibly supportive and tolerant. Probably more of a softie than me even! 

As Kyle’s car gained more mileage and we thought about trading it in I hinted strongly suggested that a truck would be a great vehicle for our lifestyle… His sedan was not really practical for transporting the dogs… And while I have an SUV its too small to haul anything should we need to… I have some amazing friends/ professionals to fall back on but it’s much more convenient to have your own wheels! Not to mention it would add a lot to my piece of mind.

Thor (K’s F350) vs Little Truck (Our F150)

Bottomline we decided that a larger vehicle would be a good fit. Next came determining what size truck.Prior to really starting to research hauling and building my own rig I really had no idea about trucks. As I started hauling more and gained experience I was primarily pulling gooseneck trailers with at least 3/4 ton trucks…  

A truck that size is unfortunately not very practical for people that will have to use the truck as a daily driver. This killed my dreams of a gooseneck trailer because it’s typically not a good idea to try to pull a gooseneck with a smaller truck. I am sure that there are ways that one can make it work but for me a 250/2500 would be required for me to feel comfortable.

We ended up finding a great deal on a really low mileage 2013 F150 with great features to make it a really comfortable daily driver as well as potential hauler. I love driving the truck and can’t wait until I can complete the rig at some point by added a light weight BP!

Anyone else in blogger land haul with a 150/1500 truck or large SUV? What trailer did you all end up with?

24 comments

  1. Katie says:

    I have an F150 Lariat and currently a BrenderUp Solo (a 1 horse trailer) … the F150 pulls it like it is nothing (since it really isn’t!) but I’m in the process of looking to upgrade to a 2 horse + dressing room bumper pull. I really like the way the truck tows and am sure it will do a great job with a 2 horse as well. I would love to get another BrenderUp, but even if that doesn’t happen, I have no concerns about it pulling an aluminium instead. Good luck! Sounds like a horse isn’t too far off 🙂

  2. Austen says:

    We have an ooooold (2000) F150 w/ v8, and it hauls like a champ. We had a two horse steel partial stock horse trailer, and have also pulled a brenderup. We are looking to get a smaller aluminum straight load with a small dressing room… future wish list right here!

    The truck is my husband’s daily driver. It’s had its share of old truck issues, and we replaced the engine with a rebuilt one at 160,000 miles (pretty average). We’ll probably need a new tranny in another 50,000, but she’s still hauling strong and just made the cross country trip from the Midwest to the east coast. Proud of Albert Q Truck!

  3. Hannah says:

    I have an F150 Lariat, and it pulls my warmblood-sized Exiss BP (2 horse) just fine. I’ve never actually had two horses in there though, it has always just been my Fjord mare. It is a great truck – super comfortable, lots of leg room, and nice features for daily driving.

  4. Holly says:

    We pull our three-horse gooseneck Sundowner Sunlite 727 with a Chevy Silverado 1500 and have never had a problem – and it’s done NM to OK five or six times, NM to CO probably a dozen, all over Texas/Arizona/etc. There were times going through the mountains in Colorado with three horses in the back + full tack room + full hay rack you wish you had something a little bigger, but that was definitely the exception, not the rule. I wouldn’t write off a gooseneck! I HATE driving bumper pulls and they scare me so much more to drive. We rarely hauled three horses, but loved having the extra space for hay, trunks or whatever else you need.

    • Equestrian At Hart says:

      Thanks for the comment Holly. I guess my concern lies with the fact that we have a 2013 3.5L EcoBoost F150 Super Crew with the 3.55 axle with the short bed that doesnt have the totally maxed out payload and towing capacity packages… I too much prefer GN hauling but I want to make sure we aren’t overdoing it with the truck which could be a really expensive mistake.

      • Holly says:

        Yeah, that would definitely raise questions. I’m pretty sure ours has the top towing package for its size and that helped. It might be worth talking to some of the trailer dealers and seeing their opinion. Especially if you think you’ll mostly only haul one horse at a time, even in a bigger trailer. We’ve also only ever had slant loads and it sounds like you’re more interested in a straight load and I’m not sure how that affects layouts and therefore, capacity? I know Sundowner makes some 2 horse straight load goosenecks and that might help your weight out some.
        We love our Sundowner 🙂

  5. emma says:

    i use a chevy 1500 to tow my 2-horse bumper pull and it works out pretty well. eventually i’ll want something bigger but for now we have zero issues

  6. Carly says:

    So glad you finally got a truck! Hopefully trailer shopping goes easy for you when you finally get to it.

    My Ram 1500 hauls my 2 horse BP with a dressing room without any issues. I rarely even notice it’s back there when hauling with one horse. It handles two horses comfortably, but I don’t know that I’d want to go anywhere long distance with hills with two horses just because it’s a little bit older and I don’t want to stress it any more than I have to.

    • Equestrian At Hart says:

      Me too! I can’t wait to find the right trailer. I think we’ll end up going new but there are about a billion options to consider. Thanks for the comment! I think we’ll normally only have 1 horse and stuff but I should be able to safely haul 2 with the truck. 🙂

  7. Tracy says:

    So exciting! I’ll definitely be interested in hearing how you like the 150 for towing, since we are thinking about getting a truck for our next vehicle too.

    • Equestrian At Hart says:

      I am guessing I will still want a bigger truck and gooseneck down the road but considering I won’t be hauling more than 2 hours most of the time I am betting the truck will fit our needs for now. If we got a bigger truck we wouldn’t even have anywhere to park it really with how our current house is set up so that kinda played into our decision as well.

  8. Karley says:

    We have a GMC 2500 with the tow package and I haul a 2 horse with tack room… hubby used to me a mechanic so he wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to put to much strain on the truck when hauling. You can haul one horse with a 150/1500 but he said it isn’t good in the long run (if that makes sense).

    Eventually I want a good neck but we will def have to get a different truck when the time comes 🙂

    • Equestrian At Hart says:

      Interesting. I know a bunch of people that haul with smaller trucks and SUVs all of the time. I’m assuming when equipped right they can do the job just fine. Obviously wouldn’t want to haul cross country with it if I didn’t have to but for primarily local and shorter distance hauling I am thinking it’ll be fine.

      I would have loved a bigger truck – I would think a 250/2500 could handle most goosenecks fine (I have driven quite a few set ups with a 250) so it’s interesting your husband seems to think that’s not enough truck.

  9. Sarah says:

    We had a really old Dodge Ran 1500 and just traded it in for a (n also) used Toyota Tundra. I primarily plan to haul locally (max 50 miles) with a 2 horse stock mostly just with 1 horse so it should be good for our purposes.

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