“Give Your Horse The Ride Of Their Life”

Many of us spend hours:

caring for, planning for and worrying about our precious equine friends, hooves, legs, back, muscles, tack fit, and stable or not to stable, track or traditional paddock system but one often overlooked area is the effect of travelling. We often spend months finding the correct saddle bridal and equipment, travel the horse for physio, try our best to look after hooves (even when the UK weather seems to be doing all it can to sabotage us!), worry about the effects of hard ground putting strain on our horses as we ride or they choose to play in the field but….

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Have you ever considered the effects of bouncing your horse up and down while travelling?

Wondered why they get so hot while travelling, sometimes even on a cool day with all the windows open and the extractor fan running.

Taken the horse for physio and then travelled him home and thought on arrival back home he does not look as “free’ as when he was loaded.

Ridden at an event, put your horse onboard and you get into your lovely comfy seat, but looked at your horse being bounced about and thought that looks hard work.

Wondered about the effect of suspension not designed purely for equine transport, is having on your horse (the horse has become the SHOCK ABSORBERS).

Taken a horse for surgery and the surgeon ask you to drive slowly and put a lot of shavings on the floor to try to absorb some of the SHOCKS

Cringe at every unavoidable pothole on the Uk roads and find yourself saying sorry to your horse….

 

THIS IS THE SITUATION WE FOUND OURSELVES IN IN 2015

So off we went to find a new trailer, this almost became a horsebox!……

A little about us, we are a husband and wife team with a yard in Shropshire specializing in Rehab and Retirement Livery. Both have ridden since we were children, Wendy is a BHS AI & Paul a former engineering Director and BS Official.

So we thought we would start by writing down what we wanted from a new Trailer (it was a very long list all focused on horse welfare) but in short:

We wanted our horses to travel in the safest possible environment, experiencing the least physical and mental stress possible. The driver to feel confident that the trailer being towed will remain as stable as possible and cope with the infamous UK Pot Holes and Negative Cambers.

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Our Hunt began….          

At this point we already had a well-known UK brand (it was a virtually brand new trailer only a few months old) but having watched the internal camera and seen how much our horses were being bounced about we were concerned.

We remember saying “It can’t really be that bad can it, mmm bright idea why don’t you travel in the back with no horses in and see what it’s like” For some reason this was a job for the husband…

I can tell you it really was that bad and so noisy, I found myself sweating just due to the effort of trying to keep my balance. Ok horses we are going to find you something better!

Rather than just going out to look at different makes, we started to get technical, and read some of the many university studies carried out on horse trailers, and had the first shock…

Horse trailers and horseboxes do not have to be approved to carry horses (unless used by a professional horse Transportation Company), the approval done is that the lights and brakes comply with the requirements for road use and generally don’t look at anything to do with horse well-being and safety!

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BUT…..

Studies have shown that reducing the shock absorbed by the horse’s limbs and muscles while travelling in a trailer are greatly beneficial, the amount of shock in a trailer not designed specifically to reduce this will result in stress and fatigue.  

Link to abstract form Journal of Equine Veterinary Science

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0737080621000381?via%3Dihub

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At this point our heads started to spin……

But armed with a little knowledge (and a long list of requirements) off we went to look at the choices available for our new trailer.

List made of every Brand we knew of available in uk, bookings made to view, bank manager spoken too, picnic packed dogs loaded off we go !

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Four weeks Later:

“Give in” maybe we should look at a lorry instead! 

At this point Paul escaped to Germany to do some engineering consultancy and just sometimes fate smiles on you!

While travelling on the Autobahn with a friend they came up behind a very nice looking horse trailer, Paul asked what make is that and the reply came back “It’s a Bockmann of course have you never heard of them they have been making trailers since the 1950’s and are the biggest manufacture in the world” Errr.. no not heard of them, so a quick diversion to a Bockmann Partner in Germany …

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Oh Wow

• A Trailer designed from the ground up to be a horse trailer

• Built and designed by a family who own a huge stud in Germany so actually use the products

• Used by some of Germany’s top riders

• So quiet (not loud rattles)

• Car like suspension on all four wheels

• Low angle ramp

• Windows designed to deflect bright light from horse’s eyes

• Models designed for claustrophobic horses

• So many models and options

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We had found the manufacture of our next trailer the next problem was deciding which model to purchase (but that’s another story).

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We had our First Bockmann and our horses loved it as did many people who saw it, and found ourselves being asked if there was anywhere local to buy one. Well at that point we decided to for Riverside Trailers And HorseBoxes Ltd, conveniently located for those living in Central and North West England and Central and North Wales.