Trailers! (Round 2) (and more video)

As I continue to stretch my (still) sore muscles (seriously), it's time to move on to more entertaining topics, such as TRAILERS.

As you may (or may not) remember, I had a rather impulsive purchase of our current trailer a couple years ago which ended up serving us well.

 It's a great little Silver-Lite Freedom, 3 horse slant, all aluminum, 7' high, 7' wide, blah blah blah.  P is a bit squished in (ergo she earned the right to take up two of the slots), but she could squish if necessary, and it was easy to haul a second horse.

Enter Prairie - while not "stocky" she is rather "long lined" (read: MASSIVE).  She fills out an 84" blanket without trying and her giraffe/llama/loch ness monster neck means that there's no way I'm shoving her into a 7' wide slant unless she also gets two spots.

This is where good 'ol arithmetic never fails:

2 spots + 2 spots = 4 spots needed for mares and only 3 available.

Frankly, this is more of an excuse to go trailer shopping than I've ever had, so I'm TAKING IT.  I'm taking it all the way to the dealerships and I'm bringing my checkbook with me!

While the boy is ooh-ing and aaah-ing over having a big fancy gooseneck with living quarters, I think it might be prudent to find a good bumperpull that's our little daily driver if you will, while we keep an eye out for the perfect used option for the "big beast."

The Boy has found his "dream rig" and let me assure you, it is - in fact just that.  a total dream.  Unless he wins the lotto, I don't think he'll ever have the pleasure of hauling my mares down the road in this much style.  But it is drool worthy (until I consider the diesel bill to haul such a thing..).

Meet Featherlite's "Country Estate Villa."  It's a 53' three horse slant.  Yes, you read that correctly, this thing only hauls 3 horses.  BUT it does it with a full basement, several tack compartments, and potentially more square footage of living quarters than my house.

The horse had everything you'd expect, drop downs, pads, good matting...

But more importantly, the living quarters have more than everything I would expect...

Hello living room... with fireplace.  Naturally

And the Bedroom

Complete with home office?

and the bathroom... (because I really like lovely bathrooms)

This thing also has a full "storage basement" under the horses, and just about every other actual feature that would be useful (not that a fireplace isn't...)

If you feel like oogling the rest of the pics and specs, I highly suggest that you do at Featherlite's full page.  There is also a "ranch" version that hauls more horses and has a "simple" bunk room up front that makes more sense to me from a sales perspective.  However, the notion of the Country Estate Villa is just dreamy.

We thought about the CEV, but ultimately I think a two horse straight load is more our style..

And right now we're considering two primary models.

Sundowner's Charter SE and The Exiss 720 ST

Both have nearly identical stats in terms of size (and a 7'6" height), both have two escape doors in the manger area, and a full sized dressing room up front.  The differences are really in the styling and details.

The Sundowner:

And the Exiss

The boy likes the simplicity of the Exiss (and their additional LED running lights on the fenders) and I tend toward the Sundowner.  Just cause I really like Sundowners.

Thoughts? There are some really good deals on 2012 models of both of these near me right now, although I would LOVE to find a used 2005 version somewhere.  Realistically, selling my current trailer means I have a bit of cash to play with for our upgrade, but I'd still like to find the best deal possible.

I was thinking I'd have more time to expound on my current musings back and forth between the two, but now I'm late to a meeting, so I'll leave that for another day.

What say you readers? thoughts? opinions? love? hate? Think I should just sell the house and go for the Country Estate Villa? (I kinda do..)

Also, For those who never saw the sale video.. this is how Prairie is supposed to move when I'm not clenching/clamping/shutting her down completely.  (oops).  You'll notice her withers are elevated and she's much, much more fluid.  Even though this is a 3 month old video now and she's much, much stronger now, she still looks much more balanced and relaxed in this clip.  (the biggest change has been that her canter has strengthened and she jumps 'through' more these days...).  Enjoy!