If any of you saw Lyric a few years ago, you would agree –
she is one tough mare. To this day she will not do what you want unless
she wants to. When it became clear Princess Lyric would no longer indulge
us by loading into a trailer we had to resort to making her live and eat in our
old straight load trailer. I borrowed some pipe corral sections and made
a home for her with the trailer housing her food. For the first few days
I took all the stuff out of the trailer such as the divider, etc. I
placed the food in one side of the straight load. It was so comical to she
her dart in for a bite of hay and fly out with her mouth full. After she
was comfortable eating on one side, I moved the food to the other side.
Then I put the divider back in and tied it to one side, placing the food on the
open side, then I reversed it. Next I bolted the divider in place and fed
on one side then on the other. After she was fine eating on both sides I
started loading her and having her back out on command.
Next we had to make sure she had fun when we took her any
place. It was important Lyric had all the food she could eat and lots of
carrots. If you take them in a trailer only to ask more than they can do
the horse will always hate the trailer. So we did a lot of novice CTR’s
and camping trips before we asked her to do an LD. We never asked more
than she could give and we always made sure she had all the food, water,
blankets, etc she needed. Keep it fun and keep it to her level and she
will load willingly.
