Post 2
Rear-facing horse float journey
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| Rear Facing Float |
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| Forward Facing Float |
Sixty percent of the horse's weight standing still is on the front end.
If we turn a horse around to face the rear end of a conventional forward facing float it will become unbalanced and as a result be dangerous to tow.
To convert our conventional float
to rear facing we needed to add to the length and reposition the axles.
We decided to leave the original
chest bar that was welded into the float.
This would form part of a bulk
head wall. So on deceleration of the float the impact of the horse's
rump would be well supported. The original chest bar position
determined how much we added toward the back of the float.
We kept the original divider which
was 6' long to which we added chest bars.
(There is no need for chest bars
in a traditional sense. The horse does not rely on partitions to lean
on as he is able to maintain better balance facing to the rear of the
float. These were placed in the float purely as a physical barrier in
front of the horse when the tail gate is lowered.) This determined
the length of the bay area. We thought this amount of space for the
horse to stand in would suffice as this was the standard length in
conventional floats. In hind sight the bays should have been longer
than 6' to allow a larger horse more room to lift their tail and
pass manure.
We added close to a metre of new metal beyond
the chest bars. This was so the head and neck of the horse could extend forward when the float accelerates.
In this photo you can see the original chest bar and the extended section at the front of the float.
We wanted to maintain the extended
area at the front of the original float for housing tack and bedding.
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| Original float with front sheet metal, observation window and wooden floor removed. |
