When I was married, my ex was into horses and we had used 3/4 ton pickups to pull a large 4-horse trailer. They got the job done, but barely. Get the 1-ton dually diesel, you'll appreciate the peace of mind it will give you.

I love a 1-ton dually—until winter comes.

Back in the day we had a diesel one ton axle F250 to pull a gooseneck that had a large dressing / gear room and room for 4 horses.

The big take away was to ALWAYS have a winch as we found ourselves in a couple very muddy, slippery locations we had to park the rig in. Without a winch...well you can fill in that blank.

You can run the math all day and always come up with numbers that get you into a 250/350 SRW
within or even well within the tow ratings of the the truck. The stability of the dually in high winds or when 2-4 horse get to moving around back there cannot be understated.

As others have said, check with your insurance Co. about the rating of the truck. My 2016 F350 DRW crew cab long bed with a full tank of fuel weighed 9995lbs on the way home from the dealer as a brand new truck. Geico doesn't rate the F350 as commercial, but they do rate the F450 as commercial as a friend of mine found out, regardless of weight.

Also, always do the math on the Rear Axle Weight Rating (RAWR), not just GVWR or GCWR. You may find in many instances that the math works well, until you figure out what's actually on the rear axle. Many time the RAWR will be your limiting factor.

No specific brand to recommend. But I would suggest a dually. As other people already recommended, better to have more power, than under powered (should you decide to tow something heavier in the future). Most of the people I see towing HUGE and HEAVY load 5th wheelers use dually. Horse carrier should be an easy tow for a dually.

The big 3 each have a vehicle they use to calculate max load. With the exception of 5th wheel towing the vehicle rated for the max is usually a standard cab, 4x2, gas powered truck.

The reasoning is simple, weight. The gas engine 4x2 is the lightest configuration available and that is what they use to base ratings on. Everything else subtracts.

Here are negatives about dually's:

more rolling resistance
rear wheels generate more heat which can lead to earlier failure
tires are more expensive
more complicated rotation
harder to maintain
fewer tire choices
front tires are about an inch narrower per wheel (personally I like all the front tire I can get)
less fun to drive when not towing.

I have several heavy duty trucks. My 2003 Dodge 2500 differs from the 2003 3500 in the rear spring pack and the rear brake size. Everything else is the same. The differences in combined weight and other ratings is a shell game the manufacturers play with the various state governments.

I expect the same is true on my 2019 Dodge 3500.

Do I find dually's more stable? Yes, no doubt. I also like the looks of them when towing large loads. It just looks better.

As far as gas vs diesel: I can't think of a single person that tows heavy that wishes that they'd bought a gas engine. I've met a ton of gas guys who wish they'd bought diesel. If nothing else, when towing at the upper limits and especially in the mountains, the diesel is a much more pleasant driving experience. It is nice to arrive at the end of the day relaxed instead of tense.

Maintenance on the diesels often takes a hit and I can't figure out why. On my 2003 dodge with about 200k on it I've replaced 1 drive belt and a fuel pump which was a factory recall. Other than that, only consumables. Hard to complain about that.

Drive them all, talk to a bunch of horse folks. See what they drive and tow with. Yes, there is an aspect of keeping up with Joneses but in general there is a reason why most of the trucks there will be 1 ton diesels...

Good luck on your journey.

Its not not possible to give you a good answer on the exact configuration of truck you need without some real detailed specifics on what you are towing. I own and have owned a pair of superduty fords towing for the last couple of decades. When I buy a new one I head over to the Ford towing guide to find out how to configure it.
Those guides are here. https://www.fleet.ford.com/towing-guides/
I'm sure every mfg. has the equivalent. That will give you a good idea of what you need for a specific load. You can either spec the trailer and then buy the truck to tow it, or spec the truck and then limit your trailer choices to what you can tow. These trucks at high tow ratings are ungodly expensive. Lots of people advocate towing at less than the mfg. recommends but given the nature of legal risk these days, the SAE test, and the dang cost of the trucks I have no issues at towing at what Ford says is the limit. And over hundreds of thousands of towing miles I haven't found that to be a real issue. But of course I don't live in the rockies.
To the poster above on diesels. A 2003 motor is nothing like a modern emissions diesel. I would kill to have access to an early 2000's diesel in a new truck. There is no doubt that they make for better towing, and with many loads the mfg. may require the diesel. But you are going to pay and pay for that. Upfront is $10K for the motor. Over a reasonable life you will spend substantially more. Often lots more. I put more than $40K in costs to a pair of 6L Ford diesels between 100K and 200K when I finally had enough. It takes an ungodly number of miles for the fuel savings to payback the extra costs. And I could go on to the many subtly issues like what to do when your wife calls about the water in fuel light 1000 miles from home. If your payload lets you I would avoid one at all costs.

You will be fine with a single rear wheel 250 diesel.
The 350 has a second set of helper springs and if the loaded weight is too light you will go from the regular springs onto the heavier springs and have a very uncomfortable ride.
I have taken trips with a friend that has a 40 Ft. car trailer with 2 cars and a lot of other stuff inside and it's no problem.

I'd be confused completely by that answer since you have no idea the weight of the actual trailer. Many 4 horse slant load living quarters gooseneck trailer would exceed the towing capacity of any run of the mill F250. The OP needs to get some basics on what he is towing to decide what he needs to tow it. Edited to add the description of the F350 spring issue is nonsense. The helper springs mean nothing till the load gets to the point they are in use. "too light" and they are just a couple of steel parts you are carrying around. The F250/350 differences can matter for a lot of reasons, mostly to do with the 10K issue for registrations, insurance, etc. but this is not one of them.

quote:

Edited to add the description of the F350 spring issue is nonsense.

It does make sense if you have a partial load such that the regular spring pack compresses to the point just before the overload springs are engaged. Every bump you hit is going to engage the overload springs and cause a poor ride.

I don't have this problem anymore as my truck is either loaded or not loaded. However, when I had a travel trailer with a weight distributing hitch (Blue Ox), I found that setting the weight bars so that the overload springs were engaged resulted in a better, more stable ride than setting it according to Blue Ox's instructions.

Ok as perhaps as discussion item for optimizing bumper pull towing comfort with an F350. But this thread has been about big loads with a 4 horse LQ trailer on a gooseneck. Even the aluminum lightest one I have compresses an F350 onto the overload springs. And with a gooseneck or fifth wheel this is not something you can tune like a weight distributing hitch.

I wonder how many saying that you must have a dually actually have duallies or even really know what they are talking about. I have a single rear wheel GMC that I have towed 15,000 pounds regularly with, commercially, with no issues whatsoever.

You need two numbers. Pin weight and gross trailer weight. This will dictate what you need truck wise.

There's a guy on youtube PD Diesel Power that owns a 8 crew cab long bed single rear wheel trucks that he uses to haul hotshot loads with (Ok he has 2 duallys too). He says they average 17K pound loads and he prefers single rear wheel trucks for this. He mainly runs Dodges but has had a few Fords. 1 or 2 of his trucks are around 500K miles.

Now I'll agree that a dually would be more stable but I think a 1 ton single rear wheel diesel that setup properly would work fine.

Also if looking at Ford and if you are set on a Dually, take a look at the F-450 pickup. It has a wide track front axle that gives a much better turning radius than the F-350. Sounds crazy but its true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heUJLQmgW54

I saw a really good you tube video about this topic a couple of weeks ago. Conclusion: You want an F350 dually with an 8 foot bed. You need the 8 foot bed for adequate gooseneck clearance. The 350 has more springs, more brakes and obviously more rubber on the road.

Having a live, moving cargo of your hooved friends, and family, rolling down the highway at high speeds is a nerve wracking experience. Be the best you can be.

I have been hauling my draft horses around for 25+ years. My 18 foot Eby aluminum bumper hitch trailer will hold 4 1,800 pound horses, but usually we just have two horses along. I have a 2003 F350 regular cab with a V-10 gas engine. It works great. I can pull two or three horses with my F150, but the dually is much more stable and feels more secure.

Your trailer with living quarters is going to be huge, so get the 350 dually.

I had a diesel, and I prefer gas. Unless you are driving over about 35K miles a year the gas engine will be more economical, based on my calculations years ago. The new diesels are much more powerful, but the gas engines are probably adequate. I don't go drag racing with the horses on board. Plus diesel stinks, and your hands will stink almost every time you fill up the tank even if you wear surgical gloves.

You may want to just observe what the other guys are driving when you go to an event. There are quite a few Freightliners and bigger at draft horse shows.

There is a lot of exaggeration and opinion presented as fact in this thread.

^^^^^^^ Please enlighten me as I’m confused as to what is good and bad info. I appreciate everyone’s input thus far as many of those responses are very lengthy and I’m sure time consuming to type up. I am wondering now if the dual rear set up is really necessary vs the single rear wheel in the 350 class. And the info about the insurance considerations has me wondering too. Lot to look into and numbers to crunch. Thanks all.

Any recent version of 3/4 or one ton truck will be fine. You’d be better off with a 3/4 ton with tow package or a one ton but the dually would not be necessary. Diesel is great but if you don’t want to spend the extra money, gas works too.
When I say recent, I only mean that you might want to avoid older trucks as they didn’t tow as well (efficiently) as the newer ones.

quote:

. I am wondering now if the dual rear set up is really necessary

You need to know your pin weight and gross trailer weight so that you can do the math. Your pin weight will be the weight on the gooseneck hitch when fully loaded.

The truck will have a carrying capacity (weight in the bed, your trailer pushing down in this case) and a towing capacity (total load being pulled).

This discussion is going nowhere without some more concrete figures...

So..let’s look at a few weights since the OP isn’t providing any. Please keep in mind these weights are approximate...

A 4 horse gooseneck trailer with living quarters will weigh approximately 14,230 pounds empty
https://www.helpfulhorsehints....rse-trailer-weights/

A horse (depending on breed etc) will weigh about 1250 pounds each for a total of 5000 pounds

Tack estimate could easily run 1000 pounds

Personal items for living quarters (food, water, other supplies) could easily weigh 500 pounds

4 people could weigh at least 600 pounds...

That brings the weight to about 21,330 pounds

So if we look at the 2020 Ford towing guide we find the following max tow ratings. Keep in mind that these are configured for max towing and your run of the mill truck on your dealers lot may not have these ratings.
The truck ratings shown are for crew cab 8 ft bed 4x4 trucks.

https://www.fleet.ford.com/con...ailerTowingGuide.pdf

F-250 SRW gas- 14,700#
F-250 SRW diesel - 17,300#

F-350 SRW gas- 15,500#
F-350 SRW diesel - 21,700#

F-350 DRW diesel - 34,700#

F-450 DRW diesel - 34,600#

So as you can see from the above calculations the F-350 SRW diesel MIGHT work but you would be at 100% of your capacity. No one I know ever reccomends towing at 100% capacity particularly with live animals...

That leaves you with the F-350/450 dually diesel. The two trucks are very similar but the F-450 has a wide track front axle which, as said previously, allows for a tighter turning radius...

I have owned a construction company and have had my Class A CDL for over twenty years and have towed construction equipment up to about 80,000 pounds so I have a little experience with the subject. I also drive a F-350 SRW diesel and use it to tow smaller items which gross around 15K...

14,000 pounds seems really heavy for an empty horse trailer. You sure that isn’t a gross weight?