[RockyMtnRay]

Originally Posted by stump54

Excuse my ignorance but I thought a 5th wheel, and gooseneck were the same thing. If not, which would you recommend for the combo of an '04, four door, pulling two 1000lb quarterhorses?

Thanks,
Stump

Goosenecks and 5th wheels are similar in terms of loading on the tow vehicle, quite different in layout and hitch details.

The short answer is almost all horse trailers are gooseneck or traditional (hitch point below the truck's bumper) design so you really don't have much choice anyway. For a two horse trailer, you should do fine with either a gooseneck or traditional trailer. I've seen very few 5th wheel designs in that size trailer...the ones I have seen have some kind of living area over the hitch and would probably be too heavy for a DC Tundra anyway.

The long answer is a gooseneck trailer has an extended hitch that attaches to a more or less standard trailer ball that's mounted in about the center of the bed. The gain over a standard trailer is that the weight of the hitch is put more or less over the rear axle of the tow vehicle (not applied several feet behind it with a fulcrum effect on the loading) and the pivot point is also within the wheelbase of the tow vehicle so that sway and other aspects of a conventional trailer are almost eliminated.

A 5th wheel trailer's hitch is in the same general location on the tow vehicle as a gooseneck's ball except it's a pin and plate design pretty much identical to that used by semi-trailers/semi-trucks. A pin/plate can carry a lot more weight on the hitch than a gooseneck's ball can (due to a much large weight bearing surface), hence 5th Wheel travel trailers often have heavy bedrooms and bathrooms located over the hitch area.

Gooseneck hitches are pretty common on cargo/utility/horse trailers but almost unheard of on travel trailers. 5th wheel hitches are very common on travel trailers but pretty rare for other trailer types.

HTH