3.5 renault master with fixed breast bar?

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deoni12

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Does anyone have a renault master with a fixed breast bar? I have just bought myself one and I haven't used it yet but am nervous after reading on google about horses jumping over. One time my horse ducked under a removable breast bar and was briefly stuck so I wouldn't put it past him to jump it! Does anyone have an easy solution, I was thinking about anti weave grills but I dont want to add lots of weight to the van, or has anyone got a removable breast bar fitted and what was the costs? (or am i being paranoid! haha)
 
I have one, but the 'breast bar' is a solid partition and about 5 foot high, so hopefully not much chance of a horse getting over it. I do not use the central partition so removing that took a far bit of weight out. You can't get 2 horses in a 3.5 tonne anyway, so never sure what that was for :)
 
I have 3.5 tonne with fixed breast bar but mine is also solid, tbh if numpty did get over it which is v unlikely due to its height I would try sticking something under back legs so can get rest over and out big back door, I also have camera though so can see immediately if anything wrong.
 
Ive got one with the solid partition between horse and grooms area. I had a grill fitted to mine as M is so greedy I worry he would try to climb over if he saw any spare bits of hay he had dropped!! It does add a small amount of extra weight but I only travel one most of the time and if I do travel two, the other one is a tiny pony.
 
We took ours back to the people who originally converted it and they changed it for an emergency exit quick release version. It wasn't that expensive to do in the great scheme of things.
 
Be careful - mine has a filled in/fixed breast bar that stands about 4 1/2 foot high and couldn't imagine anything be able to rear up over it......until a very neurotic connemara managed it! Never been so scared in my life - by some miracle he managed to clamber over and come out the back doors unscathed, but please don't take the height/solidity for granted!

I would say anti weave bars or having it converted to a collapsible breast bar is a very good investment, and will give you peace of mind if nothing else!

(not sure from your post if yours is van or coachbuilt - mine is a van so has double doors so at least had space for the horse to exit - if I had had a single grooms door it would have been a fire brigade job...)
 
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My personal one has a full partition between the horses and living, so it goes up to breast bar height, then a shelf for the horse to put their head over, then up to the ceiling. It has a sliding window in the middle so I can see them from the living/bit more ventilation.

You do lose a bit of room in the living, HOWEVER, you don't get muck/hay everywhere, and underneath the shelf in the living provides a perfect place to put your saddle racks.

I was worried about the horse leaping over situation personally but others don't seem to so much.

The ones we have had built for others have all been fixed breast bar.
 
Mine has a removeable anti-weave grill which shouldn't be too expensive to have made and would do the job. I only just bought the box and have used it once, I travelled without it as I was reasonably confident that my horse would be fine as he has travelled in the same sort of box before (frequently, for about 3 years) and never looked like he was going to go over. I have heard that they aren't ideal for the horse as it is better that they can move their head and neck freely for balance.

In an ideal world I would probably choose something like montanna describes, with a window they can get their head through and move it from side to side but not big enough to make jumping through it appealing. I have also heard of having a bolt and ring fixed to the floor behind the bar so that you can tie to the floor, so the horse doesn't move his head too high, so discourages jumping again.
 
I have one. The bulkhead (fixed breast bar) is pretty high and I've never had any trouble with either of mine climbing it. A friend's horse was stung while travelling in hers and did try to get over in a panic so she had anti weave grilles fitted quite reasonably, which you swing into place once the horse / ponies are loaded. I am careful though that when mine is standing on the lorry, I never leave the back door open in case he realises that there's a potential exit in that direction.
 
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