Advice for buying 4x4/AWD for towing

Hi,

I'm hoping for some advice on buying a vehicle for pulling a horse box. I currently driving a 2001 1.8L Mondeo & wife has a 2002 1.5L Almera. My daughter has a pony on long term loan and the place she has it in livery has a horse box available for use by customers. Anyhow she's wants to travel to competitions (mostly within 30 mile round trip of stables) and after briefly considering putting a tow bar on the Mondeo, I reckon it would be wiser (safer) to look at changing one of our cars. So my thoughts are to sell the Almera and get a used 4x4 style vehicle.

The combined weight of horse box and pony is approx 1500kg, some of the places we'd be going would involve parking in fields so I was thinking a 4x4 might be best but I'm open to advice on that.

I reckon we're going to be on a super tight budget, possibly about €2500, ideally I'd like to get something around a 2001. I'm going to be using whatever I get for my daily commute, about 20 miles round trip. I travel from Bray to Sandyford on the M50 in the mornings, but generally I end up going the stables near Glencullen in the evenings, the roads around the area aren't great and I'm hoping that if we can get the 4x4 Style vehicle that should we get snow it will make accessing the stables easier (I reckon I haven't a hope on hell of getting there in a car).

Driving a large vehicle isn't something that concerns me as I've driven my brother's pathfinder and big in the US, so I don't mind if it's long/short wheel base.

My current thinking is that I should be looking at a 2L diesel 4x4, but any advice on what to consider/avoid or even suggestions of where to buy would be much appreciated. I'm currently paying €592 road tax (before budget), is the road tax on 4x4 much higher.

Thanks,

Dave

PS: I have a EB licence so I'm covered for towing from that side of things.