Travelling with a horse can be incredible frustrating--never more so than when you don't own a trailer. My daughter enjoyed showing her horse, but for the first three summers we owned him we didn't own a trailer, so we hitched.

Hitchhiking with a horse is a fine art. The first summer we owned Tribute was no problem, as we would just ride along with the family with whom we boarded him, but after six months we moved from Iowa to Illinois. That created a problem. First, we had to find someone to haul him 150 miles. Then an ice storm hit and he couldn't walk down the farm driveway in Iowa without breaking a leg. Finally, his previous owners volunteered to bring him to Illinois when they visited family at New Year's. Trib arrived in a stock trailer, swathed to the eyes in blankets and hood, to a welcoming stall full of new sawdust, grain, hay & carrots.

We boarded at Meg's 4H leader's. Miriam had a 4-horse, and was used to giving rides to her 4-Hrs, but she showed the quarter horse circuit, so we could only hitch with her to open shows. Other 4-Hrs had trailers, and sometimes we could get to shows by calling around to find who was going where pulling what with how many horses inside. It gave me new appreciation for logistics, and Trib learned to load in anything!

The last summer before we bought our trailer, a friend offered to haul us to a show in Lincoln, Illinois. We had never seen her trailer, and were startled to find a homemade wooden trailer into which Trib had to jump to load. He did.

Later that summer, Trib won a trail class at a 4H open show, where one of the obstacles was a trailer into which the horses had to walk. Meg just flipped his stirrups over his saddle, and he walked right in. (Every other horse showed at least some hesitation, but not Tribute.)

Finally, we bit the bullet. Meg's saddleseat/driving/jumping instructor was upgrading to a 4-horse, so I took out a bank loan and bought her 4-year-old Stidham Deluxe 2-horse. Now our only problem was our only vehicle--a Ford Pinto. We worked out a deal with another 4-Hr with a saddlebred and no trailer. Sarah would borrow her neighbor's van, which had a hitch and electric brakes, and pay for the gas, we'd provide the trailer, and off Shiloh and Trib would go to shows.

That worked for one perfect summer--and then I changed jobs again and we moved to northern Minnesota. Sarah trailered Trib up for us, and I started looking for a towing vehicle. I made a deposit on a new Chevy truck, heavy-duty with trailer tow package-- and after four weeks was notified it was discontinued! My deposit was refunded, but we had signed up for a horse show in southern Illinois--and had to find a tow vehicle within the week! I bought a 7-year-old Dodge 3/4 ton pickup, and we set off, pulling our trailer behind us.

After the first 200 miles, the cab became so hot a jar of vaseline melted, so I knew we had a problem. We stopped 40 miles north of Rochester, at the Cannon Falls Cannonball truckstop. I phoned the Amoco motor club, who told me they would tow me to Rochester, where the truck could be fixed, but I would have to leave Trib, the trailer, 3 saddles, 3 bridles, the driving harness and Meg's show clothes behind. I declined to abandon them by the side of the road, and frantically phoned around until I found a horseman who would take in Trib for the night. He unloaded Trib, unhitched the trailer, and sent us to a tiny garage down the road, where the guys put the truck on a hoist and started chuckling. "Hey, Earl, you wont't believe this!" After all the farmers waiting for their bailers to be repaired had chuckled at our truck's underside, the mechanic informed me our new muffler had been mounted under the manifold--four feet of new pipe and we'd be fine!

Trib, Meg and I hit the road the next morning, and Trib made reserve high point horse, while Meg was youth of the year, despite our rocky start.

In the future we dealt with flat tires, an alternator going out on the Burnsville Parkway during Friday night rush hour, an unexpected October ice storm when we converted the Stidham into a stall while we cocooned in a motel, and trailering Trib loose for 3 hours when a leasee returned him without a halter, but I think our first four years of Travels with Tribute are enough for today. Happy trails!