Horse rubbing rump & cutting it in lorry - help!

[mystiandsunny]

We thought she'd stopped this but now it's back again. When she travels, she leans on the side of the lorry with her rump and literally rubs the skin off near her tail. Even with padding attached to her tail guard to help, she still causes damage.

The times she has done this: with my friend (who drives amazingly well- could stand unaided in living and not know you were moving!) and with OH - he also drives very carefully. She seems to lean on the lorry to go to sleep, almost sitting on the side, then if you go round a corner loses her balance a bit and scrapes her bum as she readjusts her position to sort her balance out.

When she doesn't: with horses she doesn't know well, and with anyone who drives reasonably fast - still smoothly but not as gently. She doesn't in a trailer either.

So - any solutions? I suppose drive faster so she doesn't sleep - but want to give her a nice journey. Can't pad the box as it's not ours. Any other ideas?

Oh, and just to add - we were going to be a small box - for two to travel facing backwards. Will she be worse in this or better do you think?

 

[ajn1610]

I've seen a bum guard advertised it was like a padded apron that came over their backside with a gap for tail but can't remember where. My mum stitched a bath towel to the back of an old travel rug to protect her mare.

 

[Haniki]

This was mentioned a couple of days ago:
http://www.rideaway.co.uk/index2.php3?se...mp;catcode2=QTR
One of my horses has a scar on her rump and she sometimes rubs it raw when travelling so I have been thinking about getting one.

 

[MurphysMinder]

We use a Comfortzone travel rug for Murph. It has padding at the hips, shoulders tail etc. He used to rub his hips raw leaning in the trailer but this gave really good protection. www.cz-equestrian.com. They are not cheap (about £70 now) but we have used ours regularly for the last 4 years and it is still nearly good as new.

 

[dieseldog]

My horse used to do this and I found a nice cheap solution after trying out rugs, tail bandages extra padding was to tie a haynet up behind her. She lent on that and never rubbed herself again. Never fill the haynet up with straw though as you'll spend about an hour trying to get it out of her tail.