Transporting horse to Scotland - Help

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ossy

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I had a horse on loan that I am having to return to her owner in scotland. This would iinvolve a 5 hr drive in the horse box there and same again back. I drove her down myself so I'm confident with travelling long distance with the horse but the owner has said she is happy to meet me half way to collect the horse, which would save alot of time.

Does anyone know of any places close to the M6 around the Border/carlisle that would be safe enough to do this? Ideas I thought of was Country park with horsebox parking for hacking, service area set off from the main Motorway, competition centre that would allow us to do this?

Any help/advice would be good.
 
Tebay services?

Wherever you do it, if its near the road I would back the boxes up to each other, drop ramp of her box then drop yours ONTO her box like a bridge, put the gates across and transfer horse.

Horse never touches the road, much safer and this is how big transporters do it :)
 
Patterdale said:
Tebay services?

Wherever you do it, if its near the road I would back the boxes up to each other, drop ramp of her box then drop yours ONTO her box like a bridge, put the gates across and transfer horse.

Horse never touches the road, much safer and this is how big transporters do it :)
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Thats intersting to know thanks, although I think the owner will be coming in trailer and I have a 7.5tn'er not sure it would work might give it a practice with my friends trailer at the yard first. Did wonder about Tebay too or maybe Gretna as that is off the road a bit and you can access the same area from both North and south bound.
 
Would you not be better facing Eric gille transporter to do the whole journey and her splitting the cost with you or her halfing the journey with him?

They are insured and highly recommended and often do massive journeys......
 
Springy said:
Would you not be better facing Eric gille transporter to do the whole journey and her splitting the cost with you or her halfing the journey with him?

They are insured and highly recommended and often do massive journeys......
Click to expand...

Eric Gillie are fantastic!! I would trust them 100% as have used them before. Would definitely do this and try to split cost. Although they weren't massively expensive anyway.
 
Yeah we've used gillies before as well, he recently took another horse down to derby for the owner, will get a quote and see how it compares.
 
This thread has been really helpful to me. I'm going to be moving to Aberdeenshire this year and will have to transport my horses up there from Lincolnshire. Was going to post nearer the time to ask for transporter recommendations, but can see from this that Eric Gillies is probably my best bet - thanks folks!

To OP: Hope you find a good place to stop off. Maybe try the BHS website and see if there's a yard near where you want to be that might be kind enough to let you do a swapover?
 
Eric Gillies are the best transporters ever in the whole Universe - amen!

I can't recommend them highly enough. They will take the stress out of the whole journey for you and are very reasonably priced. They took my horse from East Sussex to Cumbria.
 
Gillies! Definitely! We moved our two up to Aberdeenshire from huddersfield (tho I also from lincolnshire-stamford!!!), and they were so professional, the horses even had three nights b&b at their yard in Kelso which they seemed to enjoy. They arrived here in fine fettle and I would thoroughly recommend them; their lorries are state of the art!! Good luck, they were not expensive either! :-)
 
oldhat said:
Gillies! Definitely! We moved our two up to Aberdeenshire from huddersfield (tho I also from lincolnshire-stamford!!!), and they were so professional, the horses even had three nights b&b at their yard in Kelso which they seemed to enjoy. They arrived here in fine fettle and I would thoroughly recommend them; their lorries are state of the art!! Good luck, they were not expensive either! :-)
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Small world!! We're moving from Skegness/Boston area. Great to hear that someone else has done this epic journey - I had wondered whether they would stop or just keep going! It's a real relief to have a recommendation, was getting a bit twitchy about what to do. Now, can you recommend any livery yards round Inverurie/Dyce type areas?!?!?!
 
Waiting for Gillies to get back to me about transporting from Devon. Cost may be prohibitive in this case. Any one had a mammoth journey like this and what did it cost. 539 miles door to door but I have said I would meet the transport in the North of England if they had a cheaper option.
 
I'd suggest getting in touch with one of the livestock marts for swap over facilities. They are usually very helpful and used to handling livestock, though not perhaps horses. I've sent sheep all over the country using livestock hauliers.

Another for Eric Gillies -- who do actually have stop over yards up and down the country, so may be they can help. Either that or let them handle the whole thing and save yourself some worry. Probably cheaper anyway.
 
I wouldn't use Gillies again because of the arrogant woman on the phone and even more arrogant know all driver.

I had them transport a horse for me from vet hospital back to home. Horse had been skin grafted after a 4 month stay and had to move as little as possible. I gave them express instructions to not unload him under any circumstances after the vets put him on, until my vet could unload him at our end.
Got a phone call from the driver to say he was here, by the time I got outside he had the ramp down and was walking horse briskly down it, grinning like an idiot and saying 'look he's fine, I knew he would be, no need for vets and all your fuss.'

I went apes**t. And fell out with Gillies forever!
 
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