Trailer Troubles

This definitely comes in the ?get back on the horse after a fall? category, but I didn’t realize it until I drove my trailer yesterday, for the first time since my accident last summer when unloading a horse at a show.? I was surprised to find myself over-thinking everything and hyperaware, even just hauling my stuff to a new barn within 5 minutes of the old barn.? Fortunately my friend Jessie showed up before the second trip and the part that should have really made me nervous, loading and unloading the actual horse.? She took over and I became the grateful assistant. Maybe I should have paid attention to the fact that I needed to do some trailer repairs and some retro-fitting of the breast bar, but the trailer sat still for months at the end of the barn.? It was so full of storage items, that it just seemed too much bother to get it out and worked on. The tongue wheel had settled into the ground so much that I had trouble getting it high enough for my hitch, never a good sign. ??Repairing a steel horse trailer around here is nearly impossible ? all the shops I called just do aluminum horse trailers.? I’m going to have to take it to a regular trailer repair place, not a horse trailer specialist, and I haven’t made the calls to figure it out. Sometimes ? usually at some sort of horsey dinner, when we’re all telling war stories ? we rather gleefully recall accounts of trailer incidents, at least the ones where no one gets hurt.? I had one 25 years ago (is it really 25 years’!) where the receiver on my Reese hitch came out as I was going about 55 mph downhill on I-95 south of DC.? We figured out later that the cotter pin had slipped off the hitch pin, and the only thing holding the trailer to my SUV was the chains.? Now, a quarter century later, I still get white knuckles when I feel the trailer sway even just a bit. I think I’ll get over my panic when I finally get the repairs done and the storage stuff where it needs to be, so I can do some remedial loading/unloading lessons for both myself and my horse.? More than one person has told me that I don’t drive my trailer enough anymore to make it worth the cost and trouble, but I’m not yet willing to give it up.? I still recall the wonderful feeling of freedom I had 35 years ago (35 years’!) when I bought my first trailer and knew I could go anywhere I wanted with my horse, any time I wanted to do so.

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