The 3800 idea isn't total fantasy. Bear with me for a drive into the past. In the 1960s I drove a 1960 F-7 Ford hay truck with a stoop out over the cab over the Cascade mountains too many times to count when what is now I-90 was mostly US10; that is to say lot's of 2-lane road. It wasn't until the truck was stacked 7-high with hay and pulling a 4-horse trailer loaded with feed bags that it felt fully loaded. It had a 332 cubic inch Lincoln V-8 truck engine with a five speed and a 2-speed axle. No, it wasn't fast on the 7% grades but then neither was anything else in those days.
Fast forward to 2015. I bought a 30 foot Avion travel trailer in Western Montana and towed it over hill and dale across US2, through Spokane, past Grand Coolie Dam and up into the Methow Valley to it's new home. The tow vehicle was a 51 Chev 3800 pickup. The trailer weighed ~8,000 pounds. The pickup is powered by a 235 I6, slightly hopped up and has a 3-speed Brownie behind the stock 4-speed. It has the RPO (Regular Production Option) power brake booster and the RPO auxillary spring pack. On this trip we had no trouble maintaining highway speed of 55MPH on the flats and maybe 30MPH on the 6-7% grades. We had no overheated brakes either. Just gear down and take it easy like in the old days before Jake brakes. On this trip the gross weight was 13,000 plus a little. We had little trouble staying ahead of the loaded log trucks on the hills. It's about 10MPH faster than the tankers I drove over the same route only 10 years ago. Why do you have to be the first one to the top of the hill on the way to the rodeo or horse show?
If one were to add a 261 Chevrolet I6 and single 19.5 commercial tires on the rear the truck it could gross 10,700 on the truck and pull whatever you could get rolling that has electric brakes. I have grossed 15,000 with this rig pulling a dump trailer loaded with gravel.
All this is to say that a 3800 with a few modifications should have no trouble pulling a horse trailer of, say, 9,000 lbs. with a few pounds left over for tack. As for status, our rig pulling the Avion or with the Avion truck-camper is the hit of every RV park we have stayed in. Fuel stops take an extra 10 minutes to chat with some curious traveler.
