Horse Trailers
Buy and sell horse trailers in Panama.
In Panama a horse trailer gets hitched up for a festival more often than for farm work: it goes to the horseback parade, the rodeo or a Peruvian Paso show. The one that comes up most often pre-owned is a two-horse bumper-pull with a locker at the front for the saddles. The other common types are stock-combo trailers, which carry a horse one weekend and a few calves the next, and goosenecks big enough for a riding club’s horses. New or used, steel or aluminium, three questions settle it: how many horses, how big they are, and whether the tack travels under lock.
Two-horse trailers, stock-combos and goosenecks:
the two-horse bumper-pull is the everyday one, with a centre divider, a rear door or ramp and, on most of them, a lockable saddle compartment in the nose. It suits an owner riding out with a partner, or a competitor taking one horse to show and another as a spare. A stock-combo has open slatted sides and a divider that swings or lifts out, so the same trailer takes a horse to a parade and moves calves or cows between paddocks. On a working farm it is the practical choice, but the gaps and bare steel are harder on a horse over a long trip. Goosenecks that carry three or four horses belong to riding clubs and families who travel as a delegation, and they need a pickup fitted with a ball in the bed. Trailers built for cattle first sit with the other livestock trailers.
A trailer for rodeo, Peruvian Paso shows or a horseback parade:
start from the horse and how often it travels. A Quarter Horse worked at roping and barrels is broad through the chest and hindquarters, so look for a stall wide enough for it to brace its legs, and a divider that leaves room at the shoulder. The Peruvian Paso horses shown at the Azuero contests, such as the one in Parita, are smaller and lighter and travel comfortably in a standard stall. For a family that only rides in the San José horseback parade in David, a stock-combo that also works on the farm earns more than a horse trailer standing idle the rest of the year. Whatever the use, the saddle locker should shut tight and lock, so the saddle and bridle never ride loose in the pickup bed.
Stalls, windows and the saddle locker on a used horse trailer:
check them from where the horse stands. Run a hand along the walls and the divider at leg and head height. A bolt end, a torn sheet edge or a split slat poking into the stall is how a horse gets cut. Open and shut every drop-down window and the bars behind it, because a window rusted shut leaves a horse without air when the traffic stops. Rust streaks or water marks inside the saddle locker mean the roof seams leak. On a stock-combo that has hauled cattle, look at the divider hinges and the slat welds, which take the knocks. Ask for the documentation that goes with the trailer and check that the serial number matches the papers.
What a used two-horse trailer is worth:
a sound one with a saddle locker changes hands around $3,000 to $3,500. Plainer single-axle trailers start near $1,200, and a recent, well-kept one can ask double the higher figure. What moves a trailer up the scale is whatever a buyer cannot fix cheaply: a frame that has not rotted, a floor that was replaced rather than patched over, and brakes that work. Fresh paint over a soft floor adds nothing.
Getting a horse trailer ready before the David fair:
the weeks before it, and before the smaller town parades, are when riders go looking, so list it then rather than after. Photograph both sides and the back with the doors open, the inside from the horse’s point of view with and without the divider, and the saddle locker open. Say how many horses it carries and how big a horse it has hauled comfortably, whether the divider comes out, what the floor and mats are, the ball size and whether it has brakes. If it has carried cattle, say so. A buyer driving over from Chame or Boquerón will want to know whether the divider, the spare wheel and both keys to the saddle locker go with it, so have all of them in the trailer when they arrive.