Horse trailers log lots of miles en route to variety of activities

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Jun 24, 2004 by Linda Hamilton Deseret Morning News

Spend 15 daylight minutes on I-15 or many of Utah's other major highways, and it's pretty likely you'll pass at least one horse trailer, probably several.

"Oh, you're going to see a lot. Yeah, they're out there, for sure, moving around right now," said Utah's top brand inspector, Terry Menlove, whose department is concerned with movement of horses and cattle around the state.

On a recent Sunday along I-15 in Davis County, 21 vehicles towing horse trailers swept by in one 20-minute period.

Ten days of 15-minute daylight spot checks by the Deseret Morning News along the highway, mostly in Davis County but also in southern Salt Lake County, found a one-time low of one horse trailer going by. A dozen more 15-minute observations yielded an average of 6.8 horse- conveyance vehicles passing by, with at least three each time.

Where are these people and their equines going? What activities put so many horses on Utah's roads?

That's what Justin Hansen of Ogden often wonders when he sees horse trailers traveling while he's working for the state. "That's always kind of interested me," he said.

He's curious even though he's often one of those people towing a horse trailer somewhere.

He and his team-roping partner, Matt Petersen, haul four horses to PRCA or U.S. team roping contests several times a week. Their competitive fortunes are "here and there, I guess," said Hansen, who got into rodeoing at Weber High School. "Some weekends are better than others. It's a hobby, but we make money at it."

Money and competition bring Dottie Mordhorst and Karla Lane onto Utah highways several times a year. They trailer their four quarter horses down from the Caldwell, Idaho, area whenever there are barrel races in Utah with big purses. They did pretty well at a recent Farmington race, said Mordhorst, who tries to rodeo most weekends, except in the winter. She and Lane each raise and sell barrel-racing horses, something Mordhorst said she's done "all my life."

Professional and high school rodeo events are a big reason for folks to trailer their horses, and Menlove says there are a lot of horse shows and horse sales and auctions at this time of year that necessitate movement. Breeding enterprises also have horses on the go, and some racehorses are transported, mainly toward Wyoming's racetrack in Evanston.

Menlove says trail riding is also hot now that the weather's nice. He's just come back from a 10-person, 10-horse trailer trip to the Blanding area for a four-day ride to check out Indian ruins and springtime wildlife and flora, so he knows first-hand about that purpose.

Paul Tingey of Centerville recently used his stock trailer to pick up some of his horses from pastures in West Farmington and West Centerville. He hauled them to his home, where he and grandsons Brandon, Weston and Austin, ages 8-10, were preparing to ride up the Centerville switchback trail to their family camp near the Skyline drive. They took five quarter horses, including a pack animal.

The Tingey family also spends 10 days each year riding in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains, and they travel to monthly outings with the Back Country Horsemen, a group dedicated to gently using the land for pleasure rides and for service rides on which members clean up and help repair heavily used trails.

Jim and Norma Petet of Centerville also go on the monthly Back Country Horsemen activities, using a newly acquired used motorhome to pull their trailer and one horse, Danita. Norma rides with the group, and Jim enjoys staying in camp with their dogs.

Rich Stucky of Park City hauls a unique trailer emblazoned with PRCA logos, but he doesn't rodeo. He often hauls his two paint horses, Sunday and Tuesday, from home to his favorite trail, the Spiro, at Park City Resort. He says he typically rides with a couple of friends about once a week and sometimes hauls to Antelope Island or the Davis County Skyline drive or other places. He likes to go on overnighters, sleeping in a tent and fencing the horses in between two trailers so they don't have to be hobbled.

Stucky's trailer has its own story. He bought it from a Utah State University student who bought a raffle ticket at a Pocatello PRCA event and won the trailer, then sold it to Stucky. Stucky was in Reno once with the trailer, and a cowboy there recognized it as the Pocatello raffle prize.

Trailers seen during the News' spot checks along I-15 ranged in size from a one-horse rack in the bed of a pickup truck to a six- horse trailer with human living quarters, air conditioner and satellite dish to an 18-wheeler with horse stalls. Some vehicles may have been empty or used for other purposes at the time, but it's obvious that there are a lot of horse miles covered on rubber tires in this state.

And that there are some pretty serious people hauling them.

Dustin Campbell of Wasatch Trailer Sales in Layton said he recently sold a horse trailer that cost $62,000, and should someone want more, there's one going for twice that. Many trailers now come equipped like modern RVs with cooking appliances and restrooms, and some even have washers and dryers and are lined with cherry wood, said Campbell. Most new sales are bigger than the old two-horse, straight-load units that were popular 15 years ago.