Anyone with a 3.5 horsebox! Removable breast bars?

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elsiex

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Does anyone out there have photos of their horsebox with a removable breast bar fitted? We are doing a van conversion as opposed to the box type.

We are also considering having the horse section totally blocked out from the living area, as I can't bear the thought of horses rearing up and having to be cut out!

I am going to visit the coachbuilders on sunday and would love to take some pics with me..

Thanks.
 
I have a easily undo and pull out breast bar on my conversion, and you can have tie up rings lower down so the horse can lift its head too high to get its legs under to jump, I also know if it flipped in an accident or something and I could open the ramp, then I can also open the big back double doors and get them out or get to them. The problems with the equitreks and the small jockeys groom doors is the horses cant get out and the whole thing has to be cut open if the horse jumps over with a solid breast bar.

Heres a pic of mine anyway sorry its not great quality!



2lq4k3.jpg
 
I think the reason most horse try to jump over the breast bar is when people leave the rear door open so the horse sees the tempting escape route and gives it a go!

Good idea to fill the space with tack lockers however bear in mind horses can still jump/rear up onto the lockers and get stuck. Easier to deal with than a horse caught over a breast bar I'd imagine though.
 
MegaBeast said:
I think the reason most horse try to jump over the breast bar is when people leave the rear door open so the horse sees the tempting escape route and gives it a go!

Good idea to fill the space with tack lockers however bear in mind horses can still jump/rear up onto the lockers and get stuck. Easier to deal with than a horse caught over a breast bar I'd imagine though.
Click to expand...

My friend was just telling me the other day about her mare rearing and getting stuck on the lockers. They had to have the whole lorry apart ie all partitions right out on the showground to get her down again. :eek:

Do they not just put collapsible breast bars in 3.5t lorries like they do in trailers? I have a hex key for my trailer so I can collapse the whole lot from the outside incase my stoopid beast decides to hang itself up?
 
Not sure what was meant on the Equitrek comment further up, our bar in our lorry is removable (as we have done), I am not a fan of the lorry in general (the quality of build and finish is not great, ours is on a 60 plate and the paint around the cab is already coming off) but it is not mine so I just use it. One of the things I did like about it was that the jockey door opens into the horse bit, not into the groom area at the back. This stops any sneaky attemps to get into the back of the lorry. Plus I have a real problem with these rear facing lorries that have windows and doors at the back with no solid full height wall to stop the horses seeing it. The ones with the smaller doors are just lethal. On two different occaisions this year I have seen horses trying to escape through the back door as their owners had left it open and wandered off.
Also when travelling my psychotic Welsh D x he found having a window out of the back really traumatic when on main roads, he was pretty much bombproof despite being a monster but I think the sight of a lorry bearing down on the box or vans tailgating us was terrifying. He never had a problem in a trailer, equitrek or standard larger lorry, but he hated the Theault style of box with the large back window.
 
We were concerned about horses jumping over breast bar so went fully enclosed. The box created by the bar (internal) is also the tack lockers.
Basic metalwork and full divider....
DSC05538.jpg


Enclosed....
Picture001-1.jpg


The finished result...
Picture041.jpg


The system works very well and gets a lot of interest when OH goes out anywhere.

Living area with access to tack lockers.
Picture043.jpg


oh and internal doors to stop second horse making an escape when ramp open....
Picture038.jpg
 
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I've got a van conversion type and I have a large cupboard in front of the horses which forms the only storage. We are currently working on getting some purpose built anti-weave grills made to attach to the top of the cupboard to block it off a bit more. These will be on hinges so they are out of the way when loading and are then swung round and bolted into place once the horse is in.
 
Thanks so much for all of your replies.

We are now having the entire thing enclosed, it will eat into the grooms area quite a bit, but where you have to have the 'shelf' bit for them to put their head over, can fit the saddles nicely tucked under on the other side, along with the spare wheel so it will work quite well I hope!

Paddymonty- I took your photos to show our coachbuilders and am having the same thing done now.
 
elsiex said:
Paddymonty- I took your photos to show our coachbuilders and am having the same thing done now.
Click to expand...
Glad to be of help.
One other thing you may want to consider. When building ours I made the ramp wider than is standard on 3.5t. This reduced the amount the horse has to bend to get out making unloading very easy. The manufacturer I got all my parts from advised me against this due to extra weight of ramp with the possibility that the ramp spring would not be powerful enough. This has proved to be totally unfounded. I would recommend you you make the ramp as full width as you can.
Before starting the build we looked at a lot of 3.5t boxes and identified the things we didn't like so I cpould avoid them in ours.
So far (18 months on) it has proved a valuable exercise and we wouldn't change anything in our box if I ever built another one.
 
PaddyMonty said:
When building ours I made the ramp wider than is standard on 3.5t. This reduced the amount the horse has to bend to get out making unloading very easy. The manufacturer I got all my parts from advised me against this due to extra weight of ramp with the possibility that the ramp spring would not be powerful enough. This has proved to be totally unfounded. I would recommend you you make the ramp as full width as you can.
Click to expand...

Quick question, does this make loading easier too as they have more space to turn?
 
I would say yes as our ramp is almost the full length of the horse area (not including breast bar box) hence they do not need to shorten (bend) their body significantly to get in or out.
 
I think if I was doing a conversion, and wanted to have a breast bar - then I would follow the design that the ifor williams trailors have and have the ability to collapse the breast bar externally.

We have an equi trek rear facing trailor with a fixed breast bar and it is a concern that there is no way to collapse it , to make matters worse the rear door is too narrow for a horse to get out if it comes over the bar.

I think having a fully enclosed horse section is the safest tbh.

Lloyd.
 
Hi
I recently purchased my 3.5 ton horsebox from ID horseboxes in yorkshire
Instead of a breast bar my have a door and tack lockers.The door opens in case of emergency so if the side ramp cant be lifted down the horse can come through the back as the door is wide enough for a horse to come through.
I thought this was great idea there are not enough people that think about what to do if theres emergency and you cant get your ramp down.

Also ensure there is enough strength in the wall between the horse and driver i have heard horror stories of horses coming through and killing people when an accident as happened and the wall as not been strong enough to hold the horse.
this link shows the boxes they make and how the door fits in hope this helps :)
http://idhorseboxes.webs.com/photogallery.htm
 
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