Re: Going down in the float

[LABUP@aol.com]

One of my friends horses had always been fine trailering then one day he
started to scramble and ended up tearing the aluminum loose from the siding
and cutting a artery.  When we got him out of the trailer he was all sweaty
with blood everywhere.  the story has a happy ending as we got the vet out and
he stitched it up and the horse recovered fine BUT, we learned two things from
this experience.

Numero Uno - Always, always, do a check on the condition of your trailer
before trailering.  Even if your "float" is new.  You never know what kind of
weird thing might be pulled loose and jutting out causing a danger.  In this
case, it would have been easily seen by us that the aluminum near the base of
the floor had rusted away some.

Secondly - This horse was an older horse (about 20).  We found out that a lot
of older horses don't have as good as balance as they used to.  You get them
in a confined trailer and start tossing them around and they scramble to gain
their balance.  We thereafter loaded him in a slant trailer and he did great.
he never scrambled thereafter.  Maybe this is why the loading backwards helped
the other horse someone mentioned.

I would imagine not just older horses lose their sense of balance but maybe
this is even possible with young ones if there is some kind of health problem
going on that affects their sense of balance.

Lori Bielec
Washougal, Washington