I have a super tough 18 year old mare. Tough in the arena, tough /hard worker gives 100000% every time. I mostly just breakaway rope on her at the rodeos but she is a tough barrel horse as well and will crack her out ever once in a while when I need her. Have owned her 7 years now. I mostly stay relatively local but 4-5x a year, usually summer time, I will travel to rodeos in near by states. I'm from CA and I just got back from a rodeo in Ogden Utah. She always, and I mean always , has issues with drinking on the road. I've hauled horses all my life and thought I had ever trip in the book to try. SHe simply does NOT like to drink from buckets, but will suck down water from water trough like no other. There have been times when she won't drink that I will tske her in the stocl pen with the calves at the rodeo and she will lead me to that water and suck it down. LOL Ive hauled my own water from home, made mashes with senior feeds, Used water filters on the hose. SHe is lucky she is world class at what she does cause she totally ruins the fun of any road trip! LOL With less water comes other problems, she eats less, gerts a little impacted ( Not quite colic but her gut just moves a lot slower). etc. I leave water in front of them the whole trip, i overnight after 8 hour drives, etc. she is on ULCERGUARD the entire time! At rodeos I know I can't access a trough, I get IV fluids from my vet to use just in case. LOL 

     Then there are trhe mystery trips where she surprises me and eats and drinks just fine, no issues.  Then when I get HOME..... it takes me 1-2 weeks to get her back to normal. I take her temp twice a day for the entire trip and its always normal. As soon as that mare gets home she has a FEVER within 12 hours!!! Quite possibly from whatever was in the stock tank when she drank out of it. But I would rather get water into her than have her dehydrate and colic. She goes off feed when she gets home and it just takes her a long time to recover. While she is on the road she is happy go lucky, not nervous, always relaxed etc. My HUNCH is she develops pretty bad ulcers on road trips despite being on a preventative DAILY while at home and ulcerguard the entire trip. This horse is taking years off my life worying about her. 

ANy suggestions? I'm glad I'm not a pro that has to keep her on the road 10 months out of the year, it would kill me. LOL She is literally making me want to sell out and never sit on a horse again. LOL BUT>>>>>>>>> While at the rodeo... she wins everything I ask her to do and is a NFR quality horse. Ugh. Thanks! 

We once had a cutting horse that would not drink out of a bucket once the water level got low enough that his eyes were below the rim of the bucket. Took a while to figure that one out. The trailer we were pulling at the time had the three point canvas hay holders that hooked to the side and divider. One time, on the way east we stopped at Flagstaff AZ to water the horses and he would not drink. My daughter, who was about 14 at the time said "Why don't you just fill the canvas hay feeder with water". Sounded crazy, but, we really needed this horse to drink, so we tried it. He played a little with the water and then drank. I refilled it and off we went down the road. That canvas hay holder would just swing a little on the road, but basically held water great, losing very little, and it was always in front of our horses while we traveled. You would think that it would spill all over the place, but it doesn't and the horses drank whenever they wanted to. Never a problem again. If you have this kind of hay holder in your trailer, give this a try. If not, it would be easy to set this up with three rings to snap the canvas to. 

THanks WIn, I forgot to say that she always manages to eat her Renew Gold despite all these other issues, For some reason that is her go to! LOL I will see if I can find a canvas hay feeder for the queen. WOrth a try i guess! LOL 

Try GutX by 100X Equine. It made a world of difference in my ulcery mare when she was in it. I read once that some horses drink better out of blue buckets. IDK. I'm sure you're giving electrolytes. Have you tried dipping water out of the stock tanks in the rodeo pens? 

THanks Can Can. Yea I've packed water from the stock pens. I think we have a solution. Will be interesting to see if it works next road trip. ANd NO, on the advice of my vet I am not supposed to give electrolytes unless she drinks. If you give them and they dont drink, it makes it worse. LOL 

Is there some sort of small trough that you can get her used to at home, and then take it on the road with you, that would be similar (but smaller) to what she likes?

Is it the metal ones she likes? Or the dark black ones?

Could you get a smaller gallon size one like this for example? Just trying to think outside the box!!