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> maybe I'm too much of a worrywort but I've always assumed that dividers
> would give some protection for each horse in a terrible crash, or even
> if I had to slam on the brakes.
In many cases, the horse having the freedom to get his footing is a plus. 
I'm sure there are situations where the dividers would be helpful--but I'd
play the odds.  It's hard to choose your kind of crash...

One of the biggest messes I ever had hauling horses was when we hauled 10
stallions from central Oregon to central Idaho 4+ years ago when we moved.
One of the dividers came loose, and there was kind of a chain reaction. 
The driver felt something bumping, and stopped--I was driving right behind
him, thank goodness.  We had to unload five stallions out the front escape
door--the first stallion had a divider literally shoving on his face, and
it took the driver crawling inside and pulling on it with all his might
for me to get the horse loose to lead out.  After we got the front
stallion out and got that divider out, we had to go back through the next
four and unload them forward, removing the dividers as we went.  The one
that had actually broken was between #4 and #5.  Then we unloaded the
other five stallions out the back so that we could fix everything.  It was
after midnight, below freezing, and blacker than black outside--there were
only two places to tie on the off side of the trailer, so I had the other
8 stallions tied anywhere we could find out through the desert--had two
tied to road signs, some tied to a barbed-wire fence, and a couple to
power poles.  Took us two hours to get it fixed, but then the fellas all
loaded right back up as if nothing had happened, bless their hearts.

The dividers are a necessary evil with the stallions--but I think that if
horses get along, the dividers have more potential for harm than for good.

Heidi



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