Trailer orientation for a horse with hock arthritis?

Alibear

Alibear

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Does anyone have any thoughts on the best orientation for travelling a horse with hock arthritis?
I'm mulling over upgrading my trailer next year and do have one with hock arthritis, they travel fine facing backwards at the moment and in the past travelled well herringbone in a lorry when we went out in a friends one.
Loads well but found trailer ramp easier and although loads well there is a mild in step pause when loading and if they do more than that it's a sign to get hocks checked again.
My options are mainly between facing backwards and herringbone.
 
Alf self-loaded and travelled very well herringbone, but flatly refused to load in a rear facing box-said No as soon as he realised he was turning right at the top of the ramp. I managed to con him into getting on one with a ramp on the right hand side, so he turned left as he went in, but he travelled really badly in it
 
We travel ours in a forward facing trailer, no issues at all. She’s had her hocks injected with Arthramid though. The trailer is quite low so she doesn’t have a large ramp to go up x
 
mine travels forward in the trailer but I did have to remove the partition as he used to sweat up a lot! it completely stopped when I removed the partition. I've never considered it might have been to do with his hocks! but he was diagnosed with hock spavin at 4, then had them fused at 5, so might have just been a coincidence
 
I travel mine in a (forward facing) mare and foal trailer and I have noticed he likes to stand on as much of a diagonal as he possibly can. He seems perfectly comfortable and is always happy to load, but diagonally is clearly better for him. So on that basis I think I'd go herringbone rather than backwards facing, if those are the available options. But that's only an N of 1, so hardly reliable data on its own!
 
Ours struggled massively travelling herringbone in our 7.5t (sweating and leaning) but was ok facing forward in a trailer when we took the partition out. He'd curl himself like a prawn and shive his hindquarters in the rear left hand corner. So still slightly diagonal but the other way. I'm wondering if it depended to some degree on the side of the worse affected limb?
 
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