Chelsea Luedke DVM, MS
While I’m certainly not a trailer expert, I have learned- possibly more than I ever wanted to know- about hauling horses safely across the country after 27 years of trailering experience.
I started out in high school and college hauling my single horse around the country in a two-horse bumper pull. With annual trips between Colorado and the East Coast, I had my fair share of shredded tires, roadside mishaps, and lessons learned the hard way.
These days, I’ve upgraded to a much bigger rig: a one-ton pickup and three-horse gooseneck with living quarters. Unfortunately, a bigger and better rig doesn’t mean everything is always smooth sailing!
For horse shows, an 8-12-hour haul is pretty routine for me, and our winter trips to Florida can mean approximately 30 hours on the road, usually divided over two or three days. Over the years, I’ve developed a checklist of things I inspect, pack, and plan before any major trip. Remember your health papers (digital or print); Coggins and Health Certificate if you’re traveling out of state. Coggins are valid for 12 months and most Health Certificates are good for 30 days unless a disease outbreak is ongoing.
Trailer Maintenance & Pre-Trip Inspection
Before a long haul, I want to know that both my truck and trailer are ready for the trip. Tires, brakes, bearings, lights, electrical connections, hitch components, breakaway system, and spare tires are all worth checking before you leave—not when you're sitting on the shoulder of the interstate with horses in the trailer.
Pay particular attention to your tires. Check pressure when the tires are cold, inspect tread and sidewalls, and don't forget to inspect the spare. Tire age matters too; trailer tires can age out before they wear out, particularly on trailers that spend long periods sitting.
Equipment I Always Carry
Tire iron: Make sure you actually have the correct size for both your truck and trailer. They're frequently different sizes, and trailers don't necessarily come equipped with a tire iron.
Impact wrench: This has become one of my favorite upgrades. A cordless impact wrench can make a roadside tire change dramatically faster and easier, although I still carry the appropriate tire iron and use a torque wrench when properly torquing lug nuts.
A properly rated jack or Trailer-Aid: Hydraulic bottle jacks work well, but make sure yours is rated for the weight you're asking it to lift. Trailer-Aid-style ramps are wonderfully simple for tandem-axle trailers, but remember that they can sink into soft ground or mud. I like having another jack available as a backup and something solid that can be placed underneath it when necessary.
Reflective warning triangles: Tires rarely seem to blow in convenient locations! If you have to stop along a highway, visibility is critical. I keep reflective triangles readily accessible rather than buried underneath all my other equipment.
Tire-pressure monitoring system (TPMS): This was a newer addition to my setup, and I wish I had added one years ago. Aftermarket systems are relatively inexpensive and allow you to monitor both tire pressure and temperature while driving. More importantly, they can alert you when one tire starts behaving differently from the others-potentially giving you warning before a catastrophic failure.
Basic veterinary kit: As a veterinarian, mine is probably more extensive than most! At an absolute minimum, I carry bandaging materials and commonly needed medications. My personal kit generally includes flunixin meglumine (Banamine), sedation medications such as acepromazine, needles, syringes, and additional emergency supplies.
Horse owners should talk with their own veterinarian about what medications are appropriate to carry and, equally importantly, when and how they should be used. I consider myself lucky when I go through my travel kit at the end of the year and discover that everything has expired without ever being needed!
Preparing the Horse for a Long Haul
The trailer itself is only half of the equation. Long-distance transportation places real physiologic demands on horses.
One small study comparing horses at rest, walking, and traveling found that heart rate and energy expenditure during transportation were significantly greater than at rest and surprisingly similar to the energy expenditure associated with walking.¹ Horses constantly make small postural adjustments to maintain their balance as the trailer accelerates, brakes, turns, and moves beneath them. This is one reason I think of a long trailer ride as physical work rather than simply "standing in a box."
That becomes especially important when transporting horses with orthopedic problems or horses recovering from an injury. I recently needed to send a horse recovering from laminitis several states away. We deliberately divided her trip over three days so that she traveled no more than about four hours per day. She handled the trip beautifully.
For healthy horses, I generally stop approximately every 200 miles. At each stop, I check the horses, offer water, assess the temperature inside the trailer, and refill hay as needed.
There isn't one scientifically established "every 200 miles" rule, but research does support regular access to water and rest during prolonged transportation. Horses can develop measurable dehydration during transport, particularly when they don't drink well on the trailer. In one study, horses transported for eight hours despite having water available lost approximately 3% of their body weight and did not drink during transit.² Longer journeys without adequate water can result in substantially more severe dehydration.³
For horses that don't drink particularly well while traveling, I prefer shorter travel periods and frequent opportunities to drink.
Water, Electrolytes & Temperature
If you have a picky drinker, bringing familiar water from home can be worthwhile. I carry water tanks whenever possible, although water can often be obtained along the route as well.
During hot-weather travel, I commonly supplement electrolytes beginning several days before departure and continue them throughout the trip, particularly in horses that will also be exercising or competing. The important part is that electrolytes should accompany adequate access to water-they aren't a substitute for hydration.
I also recently added a Bluetooth temperature sensor inside my trailer. It's an inexpensive gadget that lets me monitor the ambient trailer temperature from the truck and adjust windows, roof vents, and blankets as necessary.
Ventilation is incredibly important during transportation. Long-distance transport is associated with respiratory disease ("shipping fever"), and risk factors include prolonged travel, airborne dust and irritants, dehydration, and restricting the horse's ability to lower its head.⁴
On long trips, I do use my drop-down windows along with open roof vents when conditions are appropriate, but I cover the window grates with mesh screens. This still allows airflow while reducing the amount of road debris entering the trailer. There are even anecdotal reports of lit cigarette butts and other debris entering open trailers, which is one more reason I prefer a physical barrier between my horses and the highway.
A Trailer Camera Is Worth Every Penny
Another relatively inexpensive upgrade is a camera system. There are many options available for less than a few hundred dollars, and I prefer a hard-wired system so I don't have to worry about keeping batteries charged.
If you're uncomfortable wiring one yourself, most trailer-service shops can install one fairly easily.
It is amazing what you learn once you can actually see your horses while you're driving. You can identify a horse that's scrambling, monitor hay consumption, see whether someone is coughing or behaving abnormally, and recognize problems before they become emergencies.
Gastric Ulcers & Long-Distance Travel
Transportation also affects the gastrointestinal tract.
A controlled study of horses transported for 12 hours found that transportation was associated with increased squamous gastric ulcer scores. The changes were particularly pronounced in horses that had been fasted before transportation, and the researchers suggested that horses should have access to forage until departure and potentially during transportation.⁵
This is another reason I like my horses to have appropriate access to hay during long trips whenever it is safe to do so.
For healthy adult horses at risk of gastric ulcers during stressful events, I also commonly use UlcerGard® (omeprazole) preventively. UlcerGard is FDA-approved for prevention of gastric ulcers during stressful situations including travel, showing, competition, training, and stall confinement. The labeled preventive dosage is 1 mg/kg once daily, which corresponds to one dose marking or ¼ of a syringe—for a 600–1,200 lb horse.⁶
One important distinction: while we have evidence that transportation can contribute to gastric ulceration, the transportation study itself did not demonstrate that omeprazole specifically prevents transportation-induced ulcers. In fact, the authors suggested that mechanisms other than gastric acidity may contribute to the acute ulceration they observed.⁵ So while omeprazole is an FDA-approved preventive option during travel-related stress, maintaining forage intake and minimizing unnecessary fasting are also important components of gastric management.
As always, horses with known gastric disease or clinical signs suggestive of ulcers should have an individualized treatment and prevention plan developed with their veterinarian.
How Long Is Too Long?
This is probably one of the questions I get asked most often, and unfortunately there isn't one magic number that applies to every horse and every trip.
For my own healthy horses, I generally try to cap a travel day at around 14-15 hours, followed by a substantial overnight rest period at a horse hotel. For a 30-hour trip to Florida, that typically means dividing the trip over two or three days.
Could a healthy horse physically remain on a trailer longer? Yes. But longer isn't necessarily better.
Transport requires continuous postural adjustments and can contribute to fatigue, dehydration, respiratory inflammation, gastrointestinal changes, and stress. Reviews of equine transportation research conclude that these effects generally become more significant as journey duration increases.⁴
Personally, I don't like planning an 18-hour day unless circumstances absolutely require it. I would much rather arrive a day later with a horse that is hydrated, eating, rested, and ready to perform.
Planning Overnight Stops
For multi-day trips, I plan my horse hotels before leaving home rather than trying to find somewhere at the end of an already-long driving day.
One resource I've used for locating overnight horse accommodations is BestHorseHotels.com. I still recommend contacting the facility directly and asking about stall size, bedding, water, trailer access, biosecurity, and whether someone will be available when you expect to arrive.
Most importantly, build some flexibility into your itinerary. Weather, traffic, mechanical problems, and horses themselves can all change your plans. I'd rather stop earlier than planned than feel obligated to keep driving because the itinerary says I have another four hours to go.
References
- Doherty O, Booth M, Waran N, Salthouse C, Cuddeford D. Study of the heart rate and energy expenditure of ponies during transport. Veterinary Record. 1997;141(23):589–592.
- van den Berg JS, Guthrie AJ, Meintjes RA, et al. Water and electrolyte intake and output in conditioned Thoroughbred horses transported by road. Equine Veterinary Journal. 1998. Horses transported for eight hours lost approximately 3% of body weight despite having water available during transport.
- Friend TH. Dehydration, stress, and water consumption of horses during long-distance commercial transport. Journal of Animal Science. 2000.
- Nielsen SS, Alvarez J, Bicout DJ, et al. Welfare of equidae during transport. EFSA Journal. 2022. This comprehensive scientific review identifies dehydration, fatigue/resting problems, respiratory disease, heat stress, gastrointestinal disorders and injuries among the important welfare consequences associated with equine transportation.
- Padalino B, Raidal SL, Carter N, et al. Effects of transportation on gastric pH and gastric ulceration in mares. Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. 2020;34:922–932. Twelve hours of transportation was associated with increased squamous gastric ulcer scores, particularly in horses fasted before departure.
- UlcerGard® (omeprazole) Oral Paste prescribing/label information. FDA-approved NADA 141-227. The labeled preventive dose is 1 mg/kg once daily during stressful conditions, including traveling, showing and competition.
