Cannot Load in Trailer, Hard to Load

A horse’s refusal to load is a highly undesirable behavior that needs to be resolved. Horses are taught to refuse to load in the same way that they are taught to engage in many other unwanted behaviors. They perceive the undesirable behavior to be easier and more rewarding than alternative (desirable) behaviors.

I frequently hear caretakers, owners, trainers blame a horse's unwillingness to load to a past accident or bad experience. This may have been the original cause of an aversion, but fear of a past experience can be overcome quickly with consistent and correct handling. My experience is that almost any horse that can walk forward at all, and can be led with halter and lead, can be loaded in a trailer. Truly non-halter trained horses must be chased into a stock type trailer using a chute or alley, or they must be halter trained first.

PHYSICAL PROBLEMS:

Occasionally a horse cannot physically load because of injury, but this is rare.

Colic cases: should be left loose in a stock-type open architecture trailer so they can lie down if needed. Ideally those horses are sedated so that they make the trip quietly and with minimal pain.

Severe lameness: we usually try to splint suspected fractures before moving horses anywhere so before you start forcing a very lame horse to walk and load, you should have an idea what the problem is. That means that ideally a vet sees a severely lame horse before it is trailered, so that a diagnosis can be made and fracture ruled out. The goal is for any forced movement- including trailering- not to further injure the horse. For severe forelimb lameness- try to turn horse around in trailer so it is facing backward. Severe hind limb lameness- conventional forward loading. A slant load divider can give more stability to horses with either forelimb or hind limb lameness.