Disastrous evening - please help!!!!!

Had a friend who's horse simply would not load. So i suggested that she take off her jumper and use it to blindfold the horse, walk her in a couple of figure eights to disorientate her and then walk straight up the ramp.

Works a treat. Horse loaded in about 30 seconds, no fuss and no panic.
 
I had a mare that got worse loading. The more i tried to get her on the more she refused. In the end i did exercises near the lorry such as moving her sideways, moving her backwards away from the ramp, rewarding her by releasing the pressure as soon as she went backwards etc. Within 10 mins she followed me on, however you have to almost fool them in to thinking you dont want them to go on if that makes sense?! It worked for me anyway...
 
Friend has a horse that can be tricky to load.

The thing that always works is - one person only, no one behind, no pressure - horse goes on.

Some just react really badly if hasteled from behdin.
 
I wlii no longer load a horse with two lunge lines as I had a bad accident doing so; for a start you havn't always got two available helpers. What happened to me was the horse (a bolshy strong bugger) spun round on the ramp, my helpers tried to block him by raising the crossed lunge lines to block him, he pulled me into them and I was choked by the lines which were at my neck height. I ended up with rope burnt neck and bruised windpipe.
If I need to load a silly bugger (and this is a quick fix, we all should take the time with the training) I get a long line, clip to headcollar, take end through tie ring in lorry then bring round back end of horse and keep pressure up. If horse pulls back he creates pressure on back end and learns to go forward. It helps to have someone on lorry to tie up but I load plenty single handedly like this! And believe it or not its done quickly and fairly stress free!
 
First of all I have to say that I have not read all of the posts above because I gave up reading about "hitting" "shoving brooms up ars**" and other radical approaches. Now i don't know the answer to this problem, wish I did, but a) If I hit Fly he would panic and destroy all the trust we have in eachother, b) a broom up the ar** would probably end up in him hurting himself to get away and c) a chiffney would probably break his jaw. With PATIENCE and a little understanding we do get him to load on his own but it can take ages. We usually out fox him by letting him think his stable mate has loaded and he rushes in. We stand the stable mate at the ramp and walk fly away to front of lorry. The stable mate is then walked around the other side of the lorry whilst I come back to the ramp and he usually loads first time thinking hes already on board! I know each horse is different but i think if I had to resort to violent approaches then I would pack it all in today.
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I personally think the key to successful loading is keeping the horse calm... if they get wound up then you have lost the battle, keep them calm and the pressure on and it is then a case of mind over matter, and they do give in in the end. Horses are very weak with mental exhaustion.
 
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I personally think the key to successful loading is keeping the horse calm... if they get wound up then you have lost the battle, keep them calm and the pressure on and it is then a case of mind over matter, and they do give in in the end. Horses are very weak with mental exhaustion.

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That's normally my motto to be honest, but last night when he refused to load, he wasn't wound up in the slightest. Even when he stood with his feet on the ramp etc - just flatly refused to move. When he was rearing etc he wasn't wound up either - as soon as he came back down he'd just stand there or try to wander off to a bit of grass
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I think sometimes there has to be a point where the patient waiting no pressure approach is just not working, and yo uhave to apply a little more pressure. Not saying I agree with brooms etc, or lungewhips, but for some horses it does work and I think it depends on the personality of each horse.

I'll never forget seeing a RS pony being loaded at a well known establishment, they beat the hell out of it with a lungewhip
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The poor thing was only a youngster. I'd never do anything like this to a horse, but I do think sometimes it is necessary to use lines and helpers etc, and that it isn't necessarily going to have an adverse affect on loading the horse in future.
 
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