Difficult loader?

By Alibaba

Your news

23 April 2009 19:14

I just thought some of you might be interested in knowing that there is ALWAYS hope for a difficult loader :) Firstly, I detest the majority of Natural Horsemanship, but I do believe that patience is vital. 

When I bought my Danish Warmblood, he was a nightmare to load. I collected him with my trailer (which was an Ifor 505 at the time) and he took over an hour to load. He would not even consider going into the trailer with partitions - He was constantly rearing once he managed to plant his front hooves onto the ramp despite the fact that he was wearing a chifney. We then resorted to removing the partitions, and eventually he loaded with his owner leading him on. 

Trust is definitely the most important thing. If your horse trusts you, then they will know that there are no "horse eating monsters" lurking inside the trailer. They'll also realise that if you're going into the trailer then they're musn't be anything wrong with it or anything scary out to get them! :p 

Most difficult loaders have had a bad experience in the past, whether they fell down in a trailer or they were beaten to load. A sensitive horse will become even more frustrated if they are hit with a whip continuously. Excessive force isn't a good thing if you want your horse to load for you regularly, they have to do it with their own will eventually - This is where patience comes in.

The first time we tried to load my horse at my yard after I bought him was a disaster. We spent hours trying to load him, giving gentle encouragement with a whip behind him but nothing working. He just reared continuously so we gave up as at one stage he actually broke the clip on the leadrope. 

A few days later, we decided to get a friend's help. He brought two lunge lines and clipped them onto the side of our trailer. As expected, Ali planted his front hooves on the ramp. But my Father and his friend picked up the lunge lines, and put pressure around my horse's backside. He was a bit concerned about the pressure initially, but eventually he gave in with his own will and loaded into the trailer. We continued this process several times that day and eventually he was happily loading into the trailer with the aid of the lunge lines.

From that day on, we never had any trouble loading my horse at shows, hunt meets etc. It may not be ideal to rely on these lunge lines all the time, but now once my horse sees them lying on the ground at the side of the ramp as he walks up, that encourages him to go in. He is now an excellent loader and travels well. I recently upgraded to an Ifor 511, and although he's a very spooky horse and "suspicious" of new things he loaded into the trailer more quickly than expected when we "introduced" it to him.

I have helped difficult loaders at shows with this method, and it has ALWAYS worked. My Father drives me everywhere with the trailer fortunately, so this method isn't ideal if you travel on your own. All you need are two lunge lines and one person to use the "lunge line method" though. My horse is now excellent to load, and I'd rather rely on the lunge lines as I don't think he would load without them. He also travels extremely well, and is happy to load with the encouragement of the lunge lines (and trust me, he is the type of horse who WILL not do something if he absolutely doesn't want to!).

Just bare in mind that if your horse decides to try and rear up from the pressure around his backside, do release the lunge lines immediately as it's better to be safe than sorry. Horses who are not used to the pressure at first may be rather sceptical about it, although eventually they should get used to it.

I hope this has helped you - I honestly thought that my horse would never load without being convinced for hours and hours, but he's a star now.