Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

My ex was able to muscle any of his horses into a slant load trailer.  But he was their breeder, had them since birth, and they know that he is boss.  All three of my horses are from his herd, and when I took posession of two of them, they loaded into trailers just fine.  The third, Drako, was muscled in by my ex after I came up to do some ground work with him for a couple of weekends.  I drove him around for 10 minutes, came back unloaded him.  Then repeated the following weekend except he took the 3 hour trip from Loomis to San Jose.  He's loaded fine ever since, and even though he's my most difficult horse, he's the best at tolerating trailering.  I'm not really and advocate of muscling a horse into the trailer and since then learned more training skills.

 

I once borrowed a trailer, a quite flimsy one, and maybe I was too novice to drive it so that my horses felt safe in it.  I took my two horses to a clinic and had trouble loading them up again, spent two hours trying everything, but my instructor had to come and help us butt rope them in.  (It was a two-horse BP straight load older Brenderup.) 

 

My mare was VERY difficult to load from that point until I hired the trainer.  She has total fear of straight loads now and we loaded her into a Miley once, and found her with her front legs in the manger and her hind legs swept under my geldings legs.  We unloaded him quickly, got her legs down, and she was cast in the trailer.  We got some guys that were hanging in the parking lot who were able to use ropes to get her uncast.  I went home and got my slant load and she loaded and trailered home just fine in it.

 

My gelding and I have a good relationship, and he trusted me, so I was able to haul him to endurance rides all over the place since.  My mare and I have "green-horse/green rider" baggage to overcome so it wasn't as easy with her.  Every once in awhile it takes me a few minutes to load her.  In fact, I had my friend load her for me one morning when I found myself losing my temper with her, but I loaded her myself on the return trip because I didn't feel as pressured.  She went in right away.

 

I suppose that

On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 4:29 PM, Michelle Aquilino <michelle.antoinette@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I will have to place my agreement with those who say that a horse can outpull you, but at the same time, I am sure there are some people who are strong enough to outpull some types of horses, and thus can see how these techniques can work for some people.  I, myself, am 5'4 and 95 pounds, so when people are trying different things to help me get my horse in, if they ever say "hold this rope, take up slack, and hold her", I don't hesitate to respond with "I can't hold her if she starts to pull", because I know there is NO way, lol.  And I am with the people who learned never to wrap the lead around their hands or arms, and also hold the rope in such a way that my hand is on the outside of all the loops, so if the horse DOES pull, the loops will just come undone without interfering with my fingers =)  We all choose different risks to take, some more than others.  After all, there are people who think we are killing our horses by riding them 50/100 miles ;-)

Anyway, I have been attempting a combination of calmness, reassurement, yet steady pressure (not increasing, as I know that only gets her even more riled up), and firmness.  She has yet to have blown up on me since I've started, and she has loaded herself with not too much fuss (but a little, lol).  Once I get to the point where she goes right on when I ask, all the way, and doesn't blast off right away, then I will start exercising with actually closing her in, calming her, then letting her off, and getting her to reload again (after this "traumatic" experience, lol).  Since my problems have been reloading her to come home, when she "knows" she's going to be shut in again, it is essential that she reloads afterwards.  The next step I plan is to then actually move the trailer a little, don't go far, but movement, and try reloading her after that.  Then hopefully I can finally go somewhere, lol.  If I don't have success, then all of the "aggressive"/pressure oriented people, can say "I told you so" ;-)  but from what I've seen as far as her behavior, reactions, etc, I believe she needs calmness around the trailer, light pressure, and routine.  I am hoping that once she finds the routine, and realizes it's just part of the routine of my coming to see her, amidst her getting to graze, have an apple, go for a ride, etc, that it will become easier and easier.

It is kind of funny though, how people never tended to believe me when I would try to tell them that "forcing" her, just doesn't work, it only makes the situation worse.  But then, with maybe one or two exceptions (those that I can't think of or recall, or weren't present for), it was never those methods that got her in in the end, it was only once we calmed down, she calmed down, and there was less pressure around her.  Every horse is different...  =)

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"Don't breed or buy while shelter animals die"