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burgetahn

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29 April 2007
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hi . had really bad prolem loading my friends horse 2day. we tried the whip, lungeline round bum, blind fold . u name it we tried it. any advice u could give be helpful. maybe books etc
we can get her on ramp but the next step she rears in the air. she has a chifney on as she is very strong. please help
 
Personally ive never really found any of the things youve tried to work on my mare. They made her worse rather than better. We tried everything. Eventually I turned to a NH trainer who has got my mare loading with no problems (well weve had to overcome the fact that she didnt want to come back home after going out places but thats sorted too!)
Best thing I can recommend is dont get upset or stressed as this will make the situation a hell of a lot worse. Horses sense this and can behave a lot worse.
Have a look at some of the Richard Maxwell stuff - hes recently done some articles in one of the horses magazines - think it could be Your Horse. Youll pick up some great tips from him. Have you tried loading with/without the partition in the trailer? Have you tried without the chifney and just with a headcollar (dont know how safe this would be but maybe some reason why she plays up - maybe she doesnt like being loaded in a bridle?)? Does she normally have loading issues?
 
I would try using food, get a bucket of mix ready then bring the mare to the trailer. Stand her at the bottom of the ramp and let her have a few good mouthfulls of feed and tell her how good she is, then step onto the ramp so you are just out of her reach and shake the bucket (if nessecary), she may hesitate at first but ,most likely will then step onto the ramp, reward her by letting her have some food. Then step further back and continue like this until she is in the trailer. Once she is in let her have lots of feed, and then if it has been easy unload her and repeat, if she has struggled and is still quite wrorried I would unload her and stop for the day. Repeat this the next day and for a few days after, if you are lucky you'll find she's soon eager to go in the trailer, always make sure you reward herlots andmake the whole thing a happy relaxed experience.
 
I've had problems with Ryu loading in the past we tried most of the things you mentioned but whips etc just made the situation dangerous, he now loads perfectly in a NH style rope halter with a 6 ft rope, and a lunge line clipped to the side of the trailer, its taken allot of time and patience but its now a like a little routine, as soon as he gets the halter on and sees the lunge line he walks straight in without any drama, the halter gives control without being painfull, worth a try
 
My horse is 100 times worse if she is feeling pressurised and bullied. It took a lot of time and patience to get her to load. We would back the lorry up so that on one side she was unable to swing out and the other I was standing on with a broom to stop her swinging around. We loaded her in an anti-rear halter, if she reared or pulled back pressure was applied. When she came forward she was praised. Now she is pretty good and we can wrap 2 lunge lines behind her if she is not moving
 
my pony use to be a right cow to load, but i made sure i had a wall one side of her, prefabaly 2 walls!!! but if not some hay stacked up so theres no where for it to go either side of the ramp. and keep practicing by getting it in and giving its dinner in the box. if the two sides doesnt work then spin the horse round on the spot it then becomes disoreigntated and then walk it straight up2 the box and this has worked many a time with her and it works! hopes this helps!
 
Ultimately no system of loading that relies on force, pressure or food is going to be guaranteed to work. The only answer is ground handling, building trust and teaching the horse to accept a lead from you.

I spent 2 days training with what had started out to be a very difficult horse, she will follow me onto a trailer without a rope now - but if there is ANY deviation from how she has been trained, any pressure, any physical blocking from the rope being too short - she will resist and then put up a fight for an hour or more.

Train on the ground, then be consistant, EVERY time
 
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