How should I travel him home?

jesterfaerie

jesterfaerie

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Due to travel the horse home from uni in a month or so and I am undecided how to travel him home.
He was a nightmare to load into a trailer and was much better in the lorry, but it also may have been due to it being me who loaded him as I left him to it whereas his old owners tried to load him into the trailer and were forcing him to go into it.
He travelled quite well in the trailer, felt a little like a youngster would, trying to find his feet. But didn't cause me any concern, and was fine going slow, fast, uphill, stopping, etc. However this journey only took half an hour or so on small 30mph roads.
In the lorry he apparently (I followed behind) hated it when they were slowing down and seemed to panic to find his feet when they tried to slow down even if it was gently so they had to gradually slow down without using the breaks. He also managed to pull a front shoe off which made me wonder if he struggled to find his feet more travelling sideways than forwards. This journey took an hour and a half - two hours and was mainly A roads and motorways.

So I have a dilemma which one to use to get him home - it will be the second journey (time and road type).
We are looking into buying a trailer for when he comes home will be travelled in a trailer at home if he were to travel at all.

Opinions and help needed, thanks.
 
Can't you travel him in a forward facing lorry. Was the lorry you were travelling in harringbone? (sp) because he might not have been use to balancing going sideways.
 
I don't know anyone with a forward facing lorry, yes it was harringbone. Yeah I thought it may have been a balance thing from the way they discriped how he felt.
 
I bought a horse from Germany who could not find his balance in our lorry (herringbone0 We tried leaving him loose but I think it was too big an area for him and he fell over! I ended up buying an equitrek trailer which he is much better in. He still doesn't like travelling but at least he can balance in it.
 
My mare won't travel in anything apart from a rear facing box. How long is the journey? Could you hire a box?
 
The journey is around two hours, I may have to look into hiring out a different lorry, the lorry he came down in was hired out. I just dont want to risk him not loading into something completely different.
 
If the partitions were right to the floor ones, that may have been the problem. Many horses like or need to splay out their legs and any restrictions cause them to struggle for balance, lean diagonally against the partitions and generally thrash about. Make the space they are in really wide.
 
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