Finding Towing Vehicle for Horse Trailer

All the horse people I see in my area use dually's.

Thanks for all the feedback!!! Very much appreciated.

One bit of info I forgot to include: this would be strictly for emergency towing.

We live in Bonsall and the Lilac fire can very close to us (we're just down the road from San Luis Rey Downs, where a ton of horses had to be evacuated and some died...awful!). Anyway, we won't be doing any regular hauling, so a "borderline" vehicle would be fine, I think. And payload may not be as much as I stipulated (just looking at maximum amounts here).

GF who is now wife towed a 2 horse slant (similar ratings to yours) with a Dodge 1500 CCSB 4x4. Then I started towing it with a f350 CCLB dually 4x4 and with 2 big hay burners I could feel it more than anything I've towed before. I don't know how she thought the 1500 was an ok tow rig but I suspect she didn't know any better and that was what she could afford. Trailer was at it's max as we traveled around on the HS rodeo circuit here in Oregon. The big truck was night and day difference, her words.

I would say an Expy is on the light side and if and SUV is what you want, a Excursion or 2500 suburban would be better. 250/2500 would work too. There is more to it than just tow rating. As already mentioned you're looking at 1400-1600lbs of needed payload which is the max for some 150/1500. I'd say you're squarely in 250/2500 territory.

I don't think the Expedition will be enough payload capacity for that loaded trailer, especially with 700 lbs cargo/pass. You would need a 3/4 ton SUV, or a late model HD 1/2 ton pickup with 2K payload as a minimum.

Jerry

TONGUE WEIGHT

This will be your constraint almost any 1/2-ton anything. Horse trailers tend to bias towards heavier tongue weights, usually more like 20%. That means more like 1,500 pounds of tongue weight. That's way too much for an Expedition.

Can you weight your trailer loaded? It's the only way to know for sure what your actual tongue weight is.