Time for a Change… an RV instead of a Horse Trailer with Living Quarters

We have had our Horse Trailer with Living Quarters for 6 years now and it’s time for a review. We trailered our horses a total of 4 times to different horse back riding vacations and pulled the trailer to many more vacations without the horses. Why, you ask? Things have changed.

We lost our horse, Bandit, first. After trailering him and Nugget down to Texas when we moved in 2013–he did fantastic the first year. (Texas was in a drought). Then the rains came and he started coughing again. But we were able to keep him healthy for a couple more years. But the meds he was on were discontinued in 2015 because they were loaded with an ingredient that the underground labs use to make Meth, and it was downhill from there. He wound up with full-blown Heaves (similar to COPD–can’t get the air out of the lungs to breath in) It was awful to watch–to this day Mike and I cringe when we hear a horse cough. Feb 6, 2016 we had to put him to sleep–he literally could not breathe.

We bought another horse at the end of February, Triton, and promptly took him and Nugget with us 2 weeks later to an RV/Horse camp outside of San Antonio. He did great though he was nervous. It helped that Nugget was calm and relaxed–always a plus. Then a few weeks later, Triton freaked out over a gate where we board the horses and threw Mike, fracturing his wrist badly. So we were out of commission with riding. But we had a wedding in Los Vegas to attend so we decided to take the horse trailer. It turns out the RV park we stayed in were used to horse trailers w/LQ (of course we called first https://www.oasislasvegasrvresort.com/) –in December during The National Rodeo Finals–that’s the majority that park there. It was a gorgeous place too. 2 swimming pools, a bar, a restaurant and a RV store. Plus it was beautifully landscaped. We were surrounded by Class As who were fascinated by our horse trailer. Ha.

We use our horse trailer w/LQ every weekend when we go see the horses out in Cat Spring, because it’s a good hour drive from our home and it’s right on the edge of the Hill Country (think gorgeous!). The horses are well cared for and this place has water and electric hookups which is fantastic–especially in the summer when everyone needs to run their AC.

Then in August 2017 we had a Purium conference up in Dallas we wanted to go to so we took the horse trailer w/LQ there too. Found a nice KOA campground which would take our horse trailer (quite a few we called would not) and so off we went. We got one of their Deluxe sites with the concrete patio, chairs & table with BBQ. We got to meet a lot of the other campers because everyone wanted to know what our trailer looked like on the inside!

At this time Nugget was having more issues with her stifle and was often stiff. She was always a trooper though and with the monthly doses of Adequan she was still ridable–trust me, she loved getting out of her pasture and go exploring.

At the end of September 2017 we had another family wedding to attend in Texas so of course we took the horse trailer to that. Being in a rural area we had no issues finding a RV park to stay in. The every next weekend we flew to NJ for another family wedding–we had decided that was just too far to tow the trailer, it would have added 4 days onto our trip–and the fuel cost was more than the airfare!

Seems there’s a theme here—weddings with vacations. We had another wedding to attend out in Marfa, Texas in June of 2018. We had weighed whether we should tow the horse trailer out there or stay in a hotel. When we discovered most of my family from NJ were flying out to stay in the hotel, we opted for the hotel. The 8 hour trip out towing the trailer and the fact there was no real place to stay in the trailer once there, helped us make the easy decision. Then, one of my cousins died right before the wedding so we had a memorial service for him. Ironically, his wife drove their RV down from NM and we wound up helping her with the electric once they got to the sad, little RV park on the edge of town. (And yet, when I called, they wouldn’t let us take our horse trailer there). Really?

At this point Nugget was not rideable and seem to be hurting all the time. She was on Adequan and a daily dose of Bute (think aspirin for horses). But she was my beloved horse–we went up to the Ranch every weekend to hang out and love her. We let her eat Cool Ranch Doritos and she stayed close to us when we sat outside in our chairs. We also bought a ‘project’ horse, Strawberry, in October of 2018. By December of that same year, Nugget was hurting all the time and didn’t want to socialize with any of her pasture mates. (She used to love to socialize!) You could see it in her eyes–it was time to make the decision no one ever wants to make.

In 2019 we went to Padre Island National Seashore for 5 days for our wedding anniversary and of course we took the horse trailer w/LQ. We had a fantastic time and thought at that point it would be more fun to have a class A rather than a trailer—especially one where half the space is a huge closet–cause without the horses it’s where we put everything! Our other considerations: Strawberry doesn’t load onto trailers–the old owner warned us of that, and after 2 years–even though I win the battles on spooking, trail riding and ground work, it’s a lot of work. If she spooks, Triton spooks so it’s an on-going ordeal. It doesn’t sound like a vacation to me. So we are thinking of trading the truck and the horse trailer w/LQ to get a class A motorhome.