As a horse owner, there are a few things that you live in fear of. Colic, torn ligaments and tendons, nails through hooves, trailer accidents, etc. The last in that list happened to me on Saturday. I hope it never happens again. It was easily the most helpless I have felt in my entire life. Here is what happened.
My friend Jan and I were going about two hours north of here to Misty Morning Hounds to compete in a Hunter Pace. It is a 5 mile course that is timed but you do not know the time when you start out, you have to go at the pace that you think is most reasonable. The team closest to the Pace time wins.
We met at the barn at about 5:30am and fed our two horses and got everything packed into the trailer. We loaded the boys up and headed out. We had gone about 5 miles and were almost to the interstate when we felt a small bump. We looked at eachother and Jan eased off the gas and gently applied the break. That is when all hell broke loose.
The trailer must have come off the ball on the hitch because all of a sudden the truck was shoved from behind (by the 5-6K pounds of trailer and horse behind us!) and was spun almost 180 degrees, so that we were now facing into oncoming traffic. The trailer jack knifed and then whipped around behind the truck, breaking all attachment to the truck at that point (safety chains included) The trailer then took off on its own across the six lanes of traffic and headed straight towards a curb, house, and irrigation ditch all at once. All I could do was watch my horse in this death trap as it flew towards the other side of the road.
Jan and I were both fine. We jumped from the truck and she ran for the horses while I grabbed the phone and called 911. Amazingly enough, both boys were completely fine and were munching their hay when we got to them, muttering about crappy women drivers. The pictures tell the rest of the story, except that we couldn't get the horses out of the trailer! The bottom of the trailer was too close to the ground and the ramp wouldn't open. A few beatings with a crow bar later by one determined tow truck driver and we were able to get them out.
My friend Jan and I were going about two hours north of here to Misty Morning Hounds to compete in a Hunter Pace. It is a 5 mile course that is timed but you do not know the time when you start out, you have to go at the pace that you think is most reasonable. The team closest to the Pace time wins.
We met at the barn at about 5:30am and fed our two horses and got everything packed into the trailer. We loaded the boys up and headed out. We had gone about 5 miles and were almost to the interstate when we felt a small bump. We looked at eachother and Jan eased off the gas and gently applied the break. That is when all hell broke loose.
The trailer must have come off the ball on the hitch because all of a sudden the truck was shoved from behind (by the 5-6K pounds of trailer and horse behind us!) and was spun almost 180 degrees, so that we were now facing into oncoming traffic. The trailer jack knifed and then whipped around behind the truck, breaking all attachment to the truck at that point (safety chains included) The trailer then took off on its own across the six lanes of traffic and headed straight towards a curb, house, and irrigation ditch all at once. All I could do was watch my horse in this death trap as it flew towards the other side of the road.
Jan and I were both fine. We jumped from the truck and she ran for the horses while I grabbed the phone and called 911. Amazingly enough, both boys were completely fine and were munching their hay when we got to them, muttering about crappy women drivers. The pictures tell the rest of the story, except that we couldn't get the horses out of the trailer! The bottom of the trailer was too close to the ground and the ramp wouldn't open. A few beatings with a crow bar later by one determined tow truck driver and we were able to get them out.
It all started on the left of this picture near that tree. That is where the trailer hit the truck and spun us around. Then the trailer flew across all these lanes of traffic and ended up in the ditch.
When we got over to it, this is what we saw. That is Reno's butt on the right for those of you that wanted to know. You can see how close it got to these people's house. There was apparently a woman working in her office in this corner of the house, so thankful the trailer stopped where it did!
This was the view of the left side of the trailer. The front was crumpled in and the hitch was buried in the ground. This is why we buy STEEL framed trailers!
This was the view from the other side of the trailer. You can see how far off the ground the trailer actually was. This was about 3 1/2 - 4 feet off the ground.
This was what the boys did while they waited for us to bust them out. Notice that Copperfield took way more advantage of the hay net than Reno! If they had been in there much longer, we were going to make Reno share some of his! Also, in this picture you can see there is no bar in front of Reno. When we loaded him there was a steel bar there. With the "sudden stop" he crashed through the bar and it was laying on the ground.
