trailering problems

[Suzanne Mounts <mountss@usfca.edu>]

This past weekend, I had a new problem trailering my horse.  I have a
two-horse straight load trailer.  I trailered from my home out to Pt.Reyes
(about an hour and a half drive) with no problem.  I left the trailer to be
worked on over the weekend.  They redid the suspension system.  The inside
walls were beginning to rust through, so they also bolted a 1x12 board
along the base of the inside walls.  

I picked up the trailer and headed for home on Sunday evening.  No problems
to start with.  As I got near home I ran into stop and go traffic.  The
horse was ok as long as we were moving, but when I stopped I could feel her
through herself hard against the end of the tie-down several times.  Once I
got through the traffic, she was quiet until I got home.  When I opened the
manger door to unhook the tie-down, she went completely nuts--ended up with
both feet and the front half of her body in the manger.  I managed to
release the quick-release hook and she got her feet out of the manger.  She
thrashed around a bit and then quieted down.  I opened the manger door
again to try to put a lead rope on her and it started all over again.  I
shut the manger door and was nursing a smashed finger when a friend who had
heard the noise came out to help.  She opened the manger door and again,
all hell broke loose.  I yelled at her to close the manger door.  We opened
the back and the mare came right out (fortunately, with hardly a scratch).

I am baffled about what went on.  Before I bought the horse, she had been
trailered in a slant load.  I think she prefers the slant load, but had
trailered numerous times without incident in my trailer.  She also has a
history of breaking lead lines when she gets frightened (though she has not
even tried to break away for several years, outside of this incident in the
trailer).  At first I thought it might have had something to do with the
new board and her having slightly less room to spread her feet, but that
didn't make too much sense since she was ok during the first hour of the
trip (including one stop along the way).

Someone asked me if I had ever trailered her at night, and I realized I had
not.  It was just getting dark as we hit the stop-and-go traffic where she
first started pulling back.  And it was definitely dark when I got home.  

Has anybody had any experience with horses reacting differently to being
trailered in the dark?  Would it help if the light inside the trailer was
on?  Any suggestions other than buying a new trailer?

Thanks for your help.

Suzanne Mounts
Oakland, CA