Three Things You Should Be Doing To Maintain Your Horse Trailer





Horse trailer maintenance may not be the first thing on your mind when it comes to your horse. But, I ask you, what if your horse colics and needs emergency transport to the veterinary hospital. Now, suddenly, your trailer becomes very important.


However, this is also when trailer maintenance becomes very important. After all, when you need to get your horse to the vet ASAP is not when you want to discover a broken door, flat tire, or suspicious water leak on your trailer.


So what should you be doing to maintain your trailer? Here are three things:


Have your bearings repacked every 12,000 miles or 12 months. Bearings are probably the most overlooked part of trailer maintenance, likely because we don’t see them. However, bearings are also the most insidious because once they go, you are stuck. (Changing the tire will do nothing to help you.) To prevent this and keep your bearings in optimal operating condition, the best recommendation is to have them repacked every 12,000 miles or 12 months.


Have your trailer’s floor inspected yearly. Sure you clean your trailer out after every use, but years could go by before you lift the mats to see what the floor really looks like. And unless you have an aluminum floor – these are much more durable and don’t rust, mold, or mildew like wood and steel – your floor has probably seen some damage. Why? Well, for one thing urine wreaks havoc on a trailer floor, and when trapped under the mats doesn’t dissipate easily. Also, any moisture, and I mean any, can start a mold, mildew, or rust problem on your trailer’s floor. For these reasons, a trailer floor replacement is probably the most common repair in aging trailers – all the more reason to have yours inspected.


Have all doors, latches, fasteners, and the hitch inspected yearly. Do you want to find out that your trailer’s back door doesn’t latch correctly after you finally got Mr. Never Loads Well into the trailer? Yea, me neither. But when they need their trailer to work is usually exactly when people discover it doesn’t. And guess what, there is usually nothing we can do. (I don’t know about you, but I am not a trailer repairman). Not just does this situation leave us in an unfortunate bind, it also reminds us that it could’ve been prevented if we had only had the trailer checked out before we realized it was broken.

For more information on keeping your trailer operating correctly or to ask a question about trailer repair, just visit us on Facebook.

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