It's not my area of expertise since I made a decision to get a utility trailer and road the tractor rather than trailer the tractor with my highway 1/2 ton. I did come to understand some issues though. There some issues here to think through, although some have more to do with safety than stress on the truck.

I believe every vehicle has a max weight rating, which is the combined weight of vehicle, trailer and load. It would be good if separate ratings were stated for vehicles with and without factory tow packages.

What is hard on a truck depends on how it's set up. A tow package has things like stronger springs, bigger brakes, TX oil cooler, lower gearing and a heavy-duty alternator for the brakes. Heavy loads and hills heat up TX’s and an automatic with highway gearing often just won’t cut it.

Heavier loads of course require tandem axle trailers and brakes on one or more axles. Somewhere in the archives is a rule of thumb for relating towed weight as a percent of vehicle weight to trailer brakes. I also believe that trailer brakes may be good, but for heavy loads they are not substitutes for the larger vehicle brakes found in tow packages. Another rule of thumb gives tongue weight as a percent of load. One of the things that should limit towed weight is that applying the tongue weight rule starts exceeding the hitch rating.

Around here fairly ordinary trucks towing 2-horse trailers are seen all the time. I don't know if larger trailer means more space, steel or more horses. 2-horses probably works easily, but more starts sounding a bit heavy for a highway 1/2-ton. I know that balancing loads to achieve desired tongue weights is important when towing max loads. I suspect that the horses might resent being 'arranged' to achieve an optimal tongue weight, but then I really don't know. Ballasting might be required especially if carrying something like 3 in a 4-horse trailer.

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