Trailering: Clean It Up

As I write this on Wednesday, it's a "chilly" 75℉ (24℃) which is 30 degrees cooler than a week ago at this same time.  Thank goodness.  With such cool weather, I was able to feed seven horses (fed for the neighbor), clean four stalls (twice!), ride three horses, fill 2 water troughs, bathe 1 horse, move sprinklers, clean the barn aisle, and putter around doing other odd jobs.

Tuesday was just as nice.  After riding and doing barn chores, I decided to give the inside of my horse trailer a thorough scrubbing.  On a hot day, it's like a sauna inside when you hose it out.  With low temperatures and a cool breeze, it's almost like visiting a water park.  Almost.  I wish I had thought to take before photos, but alas, I didn't.  I would have been embarrassed to show them any way.

Speedy is a messy traveler.  He breathes/sneezes a constant stream of wetness against the front window and partition which subsequently gets grossly crusty.  He also loves to poop in the trailer, and it ALWAYS hits the wall and STICKS. I keep shavings on my trailer floor which help absorb some of the moisture and prevent the floor from becoming slippery, but it's hard to clean out every single poop ball which means there are always a few floating around in the shavings.  Speedy is also a sloppy eater so there is also loose hay mixed around in the poop infused shavings.  Add some summer time dust, and you have a pretty good mess.

I emptied the tack room, swept out the shavings, and armed myself with a scrub brush and a nozzle sprayer set to jet.  Here are some after photos.

Wet gunk removed from divider and window area clean!

I just realized there are some confusing elements in this photo that beg an explanation.  

The water tank: I haven't used it in a long time, but I don't have anywhere else to store it.  Speedy travels on this side of the partition so it's no big deal.  When I bring more than one horse, I remove the water tank so that a horse can travel in that stall.  

The door next to the water tank: that's a pass through door which leads to the living quarters.  It's one of my favorite features of the trailer.  There's a screen on the other side which allows good ventilation to pass through the living quarters.  It's also handy when camping; muddy/dirty shoes, folding chairs, ice chest, and jackets can be stored in the horse compartment without taking up space or stinking up the living quarters.

Where's the other divider?: I took out the second divider long ago.  99% of the time, I bring only one horse at a time.  Without the divider there, he has a lot more room while traveling.  Back when I was using two horses at a time for endurance riding, they traveled quite happily side-by-side in the double stall while the first stall was used for the water tank and a hay bale.

Most of the poop has been scrubbed off the wall.

What's that above the middle window?: The rectangular thing is a light, and the black lumps are the mounting bolts for the Hi-Tie.  The bolts don't stick out that far, but I wanted to be really careful. They're covered with heavy duty foam and Gorilla Tape.  They're actually no longer than the receiver bolt for the missing divider seen in the center of the photo.

This is the cleanest the tack room has been in a very long time!

I love having a clean trailer; I just wish it would stay that way!  I'll add fresh shavings before Sunday's show and I've already put my regular stuff back in the tack room.

If you want to see more pictures of the trailer or read more about trailering, I've written a small series on safety and so on.  You can find those posts at this link.