What combination of 4x4 and trailer or horse box should I think about?

[SmallWhiteWine]

Both my children have ponies - a gentle giant of a 14.2 for my eldest and a teeny weeny little section A I always forget the height of, but really diddy for my teeny girl. They are normally stabled with family who drive them to and fro the monthly pony club rallies and the very occasional show. But moving forwards, I need to get them places on my own I think!

I passed my test in 1998 and so I have a feeling I have to pass something else before I can drive a horse box.

We also don't have a larger car at the moment, but probably do need a second car - which we'd get in the next 12 months. We are managing with a little run around right now.

I have been surfing online and now feel even more confused about what would be best...! A horse box or a 4x4 and a trailer?

Any thoughts very welcome :-)

4x4s are more expensive to run than an ordinary car, but by having a lorry you would have to pay 2 lots of tax, insurance and MOT. I have an Ifor Williams trailer pulled by a Mitsubishi Shogun - seems to be the standard ket around here! I've towed everything from a 8hh foal up to a 17.3hh hunter in the Ifor Williams - I love mine!

Wow, thank you. I was looking at the ifor Williams

I have found a perfect second hand one - but surely they come up all the time??

I will google mitsubishis now. It would make sense to have a 4x4 as a second car regardless, which sort of answers my own question I think. In bad weather, it would be used to take the kids to school. I had a little squint at the Toyota rav4 while I was in a garage earlier as the salesman said they were great for towing.

Still not sure what my license allows me to do though - so much more googling needed.

Thank you

diashu 4 track and ifor williams for us .Try to get the paper s with the trailer if via private seller- we were told to do so as trailers are highly nickable and if you take one to be serviced and its a stolen one it can be empounded.

I bought an 20 year old Ifor at a horse sale and tow it with a KIA Sorento.The Sorento is a great workhorse and towed 2 ponies,4 passengers and all the associated kit out of a muddy field when the lorries were having to be towed out by tractors at the last show we went to.I took it over our flooded fields shepherding last week-I love it.

If you go onto the Horse and Hound forum,there are whole threads about towing on there and a very helpful poster called ROG who will be able to tell you what you need to do to take your towing test,if need be.

With regards to towing, you only get the towing entitlement on your licence if you passed before 1st January 1997 so you will need to do a towing test. I know my local agricultural college do towing courses so it's worth just googling what's available in your local area.

With trailers, when I had my horses (can't afford horses anymore... sob :() I usd to have an Ifor Williams which I towed with a Mitsubishi Pajero. Didn't have any problems moving my 15.2hh TB and 17.3HH IDx

Check the weight the car can pull as well!! Rav 4s don't have a huge towing capacity :( I've got a Hyundai and a Bateson. Had to do my test but it was ok!!

Key question is weights & tow limits, a Rav 4 is fine for a caravan, not a horse trailer.

Trailer is prob roundabout a ton, a 14.2 over 1/2 ton, welsh a under 1/2 ton... Then saddes, tack, kids, water etc.... You need something to tow 2 1/2 ton.

...and learn to reverse a trailer!

I have an l200.... And it's fab! Discovery, shogun, hilux are most common vehicles I see towing.

With regards to horseboxes you will be able to drive a 3.5 tonne on your current license but anything over you will need to take another test.

3.5 tonne lories are usually easy to drive and very popular, although the biggest problem is the payload, i.e. how much weight is left over after the conversion. They usually have about 1 tonne to 1.2 tonnes payload but don't take anyone's word for it, ask to take the lorry to a public weighbridge to check for yourself. An overloaded lorry is a safety risk and you may well be stopped and fined by VOSA. To decide how much payload you need you need to find out the weight of your ponies (you will also need to know this for trailer towing questions) and add everything else you will be taking with you, e.g. driver, passengers, tack, hay, water, fuel, rugs, etc. It soon adds up and 1.2 tonnes isn't that much. Having said that it's probably enough for two ponies or one horse.

We've towed our Ifor Williams (20 years service and still as good as new - although we've had a new floor put in....).

Pulled by our Hyundai Sante Fe which does a better job than our previous Freelander.

However we've just been having a 2 box, with living, built for us and we taxed it yesterday and should be ready in 3 weeks. Will let you know then how we get on with it!

Following on from BooBoo our new box is on a 6.5 chassis. I agree that on a 3.5 lorry, with normal kit, you can probably only take one horse on a "two box".

I have dithered over this for about 6 months - think I am going to go for an old Jeep Cherokee - will pull most things and not too expensive (diesel auto about 6k with 90k on the clock). Was thinking of a Kia but have since heard horror stories about the drive shaft. No car is perfect except perhaps a toyota landcruiser which i cant afford

I have an Ifor Williams trailer. Bought one second hand which was knicked 5 years later and I got back what I had paid for it, as they really hold their value. I then bought a new one.

I pull it with my Land cruiser which is, as Good says, just perfect for towing.

I did look at horseboxes as I simply cannot, cannot, cannot reverse a trailer but for what I could afford I found the clutches really hard and made my dodgy knees scream in pain. Plus they need plating and taxing and insuring and all that malarkey, whereas a trailer you can park up and forget about it (as long as you have loads of security on it).

Wow. Thank you do much My head is spinning with weights but I am doing some very happy googling

Kia Sorento and Ifor Williams 510 here (my last horse was 17.2 and would often take a friends 16.3 out to shows too) - like Mirage find the Kia easy to tow with - have heard about the drive shaft issues, but couldn't find any associated with the 2007 model we have.

Again, if you can, the LandCruiser is one of the best, but reviews (well anecdotally among my acquaintance) are unanimously positive up to the 2008 model and mixed after that.

I towed my Rice trailer with my Discovery for years and it was a fabulous car Land Rover enthusiast so possibly biased it was a very old trailer so heavier than the nice newer Ifors but my trusty Disco never let me down and you barely noticed the weight.

As some others have said be careful of the weight and payload ratios, in order to be legal to tow the trailer your car needs to have a towing capacity equal to the maximum allowable weight of the trailer (I.e weight of trailer itself plus maximum weight it can contain) as opposed to just what you carry in it which could be much less. There are very few cars other than the already mentioned Discos/Landcruisers/Mitsubishis that have a high enough capacity to tow a two horse trailer safely and legally.

Good luck if you decide to take the B+E test, get lots of practice in!