My next door neighbour has a Freelander and I have an ageing Discovery V8. He tows a caravan but really knows when it is on the back, steep hill starts can be a bit of a clutch event. I tow a 2-3 ton trailer all over the place and the Discovery just eats the miles as if there was nothing behind me (well ok, a slight exageration). If you plan to tow a trailer with two horses I really think you should be looking for something a bit bigger than a Freelander. After 145,000 miles my Disco will still do 0-60mph in 20 seconds with 2 tons of trailer. Oh, and always get a 4 wheel trailer. Much better behaved, especially if you get a blowout at 80mph fully loaded. A complete non-event (apart from the noise and shredded rubber). One last thing, My Disco has an automatic gearbox. I really would not consider anything else, can't really fault it, and I really do work it very hard. Also must have air con.
Pulling away on a really steep uphill gradient fully loaded is one good test, no problem with Disco V8i 3.9 ES. The other big test is stability. Overtaking a lorry at speed, going downhill and being hit by the lorry slipstream can make a trailer swing and start oscilating. Terrifying and I do mean utterly terrifying!!, if you try and slow down it gets worse, you need to accelerate to straighten things up or pray for the road to start going uphill. In the Disco / Trailer combination it is rock solid, you can throw it around all over the place at any speed and the trailer follows like a puppy dog (4 wheel Ifor Williams). I nearly killed myself towing a smaller trailer behind a Montego Estate car, started weaving from side to side on the M25 at just 55mp on a downhill stretch, I was swerving pretty much out of control across all 4 lanes and the hard shoulder, with the car being picked up and dumped from side to side by the trailer, a serious underpant moment! Towing is a pretty damn serious thing to be doing, and two horses in a trailer are not only heavy but they have a habit of shifting their weight in transit. Get a big and powerful tow car. Live with the fuel consumption or get a gas conversion, a few hundred pounds per year extra in petrol bills is worth it, and so what if Holland sinks and Ely becomes an island again, I will be able to buy a boat and not travel so far to the sea! Bring on global warming, it has little to do with us anyway, the heat output of the sun is increasing, politicians are just using it as an excuse to hit us with more taxes.... but that is for another forum.
Les