Loading horses into the trailer

[here to stay]

With the timely reminder about the dangers of loading horses, I thought it might be good to hear from people about it. This is not an opportunity to dump on someone just because they do things differently but a chance to hear about ideas you might find works for you.

[here to stay]

I have had horses since the days of small straight load, tiny escape door trailers. I soon decided getting in a trailer and trying to leave through the ridiculous small door was not a good idea. That is when I started teaching my horses to load themselves.

I have yet to have a horse that refuses to load. That I almost always have a hay net filled in the trailer helped.

Typically I approach the trailer leading the horse with a thick cotton lead. As I get close I toss the lead over the horse's back, just keeping a hand on it. I walk the horse forward without pause, releasing my hand from the rope as the horse enters. I end up stading at the edge of the trailer, off to the side in case the horse suddenly backs up. Once the horse is all the way in, I reach my arm only across to grab the butt bar, or to push the partition close without standing still at any point behind the horse. Then I go to the front to clip the tie to the halter.

All my horse approach the trailer without hesitating , some have even learned to speed up going in. This is because the first thing I ever train on, right after learning to stand tied and lead, is to go into the trailer. It starts with simply walking past the open trailer doors, allowing the horse to look at it as much as they want. Even stopping to sniff. But not asking any movement into it.

The next step once they are bored with that is to stop while I step into the trailer and stand there a moment then go on without asking the horse to go in. I admit to occasionally having a horse surprise me by wanting to follow me in but it is easy to stop. The next thing they learn is to walk on -sort of a lunging precursor - where the move a step or two in front of me while I lead.

Once they do that, I start asking them to walk on at the rear of the trailer which is a big step for some horses. When they put even a tentative hoof on the trailer floor, I ask them to stop, back up and we do only that for a time. Once that is ok, it is pretty easy to get them to walk all the way in. At that point, if they want to back out it's ok with me. We just repeat until they are willing to stand at their maximum willingness to enter then wait until I ask them to back out. Once they get to the hay, it's easy. I don't want them to feel trapped while this learning is going on. Once they are comfortable, then I can say no to unauthorized backing out. The last training is to stay put until asked to back out when I am standing by the back edge of the trailer to catch the lead as they come out.

My "emergency" untrained horse load involves a cotton lunge line run from the halter, through the trailer and behind the horses butt so if they back up, the ir butt pulls on the halter. But that is usually a one time desperate measure with someone else's' s horse. It relies on the surprise and can easily become a dangerous battle if an unwilling horse is no longer surprised.

[Maura]

It pays to think ahead and socialize your horses to what they may encounter, including a trailer. Good thinking.

[wildhorseluvr]

Here to stay, that's quite similar to how I used to teach horses to load. When we had a lot of horses, finding the time to do it properly became difficult.  We often just parked the stock trailer in the pasture, fastened the door open, and put the feed at the very back edge of the trailer. Every few days, as the horse became comfortable with eating out of the trailer, we'd move the feed back a bit. It never failed that the horse would eventually load itself into the trailer. After a few weeks of eating out of the trailer they generally lost all fear of the trailer. 

However the the easiest way we found to train a horse to load is to get another horse to do the work.    We had a Kiger Mustang filly, about 12-18 mo. old. She would load easily. One day my DH got something out of the stock trailer and left the door open. She loaded herself in the trailer, then started calling to the half dozen weanlings she pastured with. After looking things over, they decided she was crazy for getting in there and they took off. She'd get out, round them up, load herself into the trailer and start stomping her hooves and calling to the weanlings to join her. After repeating this several times she got a couple of the weanlings to get in the trailer with her. It took her maybe an hour and a half but she finally got even the most reluctant ones to load. We closed up the trailer, took them for a short ride, then turned them back out. They all went back in.  From that day on, all we had to do was drive the trailer out in a field, open the door and that group would come running to get in. That little mustang mare did the same with a few other youngsters. One time we had 9 mares cram themselves into that trailer like sardines in a can. 

[aoconnor]

wildhorseluvr, that is too funny!! Great mental pic going on!

As a rescue, I have had to deal with all sorts of loading issues. The worst was a TB mare that was very badly abused and was found tied to herself by her lead rope with her head down between her front legs inside a trailer. She was starving, dehydrated, and beaten. She had been handled as a yearling when she was sent with a group to a race trainer, who took the clients money each month but had long abandoned the yearlings on a dirt lot. After a year or so, the owners started looking for their very expensive babies, and found them nearly a year later in all sorts of horrid conditions. My vet called me to take the mare, so I went to pick her up. We had to run her onto the trailer, and when she was nearly on, she reared up and spun right over the top of a guide wire slitting open an 8 inch long, 4 inch deep gash under her "armpit" of her front right leg. Off the trailer she went. I left her at the vet and took another of the TB mares that had been in that group. Well, long story short, 3 weeks later the vets still hadn't treated the mare, they had out her in a back stall, long forgotten, getting only half a flake of alfalfa daily. I heard about it, went to get her. It took about 10 minutes to coax her on my trailer with a pan of feed. After that short ride home, it took 5 years to get her to load willingly again. She finally loaded without a huge fight about a year ago, now she loads well every time.

That mare, she is so special. She is huge at 17 hh and 1500 lbs, but she is the spitting image of her great great grandsire.....Secretariat:-)

[Woodpecker]

Oct 26, 2016 13:08:12 GMT aoconnor said:

wildhorseluvr , that is too funny!! Great mental pic going on!

As a rescue, I have had to deal with all sorts of loading issues. The worst was a TB mare that was very badly abused and was found tied to herself by her lead rope with her head down between her front legs inside a trailer. She was starving, dehydrated, and beaten. She had been handled as a yearling when she was sent with a group to a race trainer, who took the clients money each month but had long abandoned the yearlings on a dirt lot. After a year or so, the owners started looking for their very expensive babies, and found them nearly a year later in all sorts of horrid conditions. My vet called me to take the mare, so I went to pick her up. We had to run her onto the trailer, and when she was nearly on, she reared up and spun right over the top of a guide wire slitting open an 8 inch long, 4 inch deep gash under her "armpit" of her front right leg. Off the trailer she went. I left her at the vet and took another of the TB mares that had been in that group. Well, long story short, 3 weeks later the vets still hadn't treated the mare, they had out her in a back stall, long forgotten, getting only half a flake of alfalfa daily. I heard about it, went to get her. It took about 10 minutes to coax her on my trailer with a pan of feed. After that short ride home, it took 5 years to get her to load willingly again. She finally loaded without a huge fight about a year ago, now she loads well every time.

That mare, she is so special. She is huge at 17 hh and 1500 lbs, but she is the spitting image of her great great grandsire.....Secretariat:-)

Wow Oconnor you are one caring, awesome horse woman! Thank God you saved her. I will never forget the day Secretariat won the triple crown. You saved a very special horse, I think, because you are a very special lady❤️ Wasn't Secretariat a beautiful horse? Any pictures to share? I would love to see her, at 17 hands!

[aoconnor]

Hope that comes through. This is "Red", registered name is Minna Rush Red. She is standing with my hubby who is almost 6'2. She looks small in this picture for some reason!

A couple more of my girl..

[wildhorseluvr]

What a lovely mare, and she is in fabulous condition.   I swear she shows a resemblance to Secretariat.  Thanks for sharing.

The bottom picture looks like it was taken at my place! Looks like my corrals, loafing barn and background. 

[Woodpecker]

She is one beautiful red mare. Just her color alone reminds me of Secretariat. Thank you so much for sharing her pic & for saving that wonderful horse!

[here to stay]

aoconnor, definitely typey to her breeding. I've seen that top line and butt shape on others of Nashrullah breeding. Was she a broodmare?

[aoconnor]

Oct 27, 2016 16:45:36 GMT here to stay said:

aoconnor , definitely typey to her breeding. I've seen that top line and butt shape on others of Nashrullah breeding. Was she a broodmare?

Thanks for the compliments. No, she was a yearling that had been sent for race training, but the trainer abused and neglected her terribly instead. I got her shortly before she came 3, and have had her since. She is saddle broke, but I haven't pushed much with her. She took a long, long time to fully recover mentally, and I have let her just be a sweet herd mare. Next year I may breed her, but only if it's to a superb stallion. Otherwise she is my go to for hugs and kisses:-)