Travelling very badly, help needed!

[SillyTilly]

My 8 year old Dutch Warmblood has always loaded pretty easily and travelled well. However, recently she has become a bit more difficult to load. Not only that, but she is travelling quite badly. She comes out of the box drenched with sweat and on edge. On the last 2 occasions she has ripped her back travelling boots and damaged one beyond repair. She has also damaged the rubber floor of my new box! When I drive around bends she stomps around in the box, no matter how slowly I drive. I end up crawling along to no avail. I have no idea why she suddenly started kicking out. She has travelled with another horse, made no difference. I am worried she will really hurt her back legs.

Has anybody any advise as to why she is doing this? Has this happened to anyone else?

I would really appreciate some help, never had problems like this before.
Thanks.

 

[PaddyMonty]

If you've got a video camera fixed it in the horse area then take her out for a short trip. Then you will be able to see what is going on and possibly have a solution for it. Without knowing what is causing the problem any attempt at a solution will just be guesswork.

 

[piebaldsparkle]

Hock issues can turn a good traveller into a bad one.

 

[Merlin11]

One of ours used to do this and we tried a few things. We changed to bandages rather than boots for his back feet - think the boots were too bulky. We found that if he was on the left hand side he struggled with right hand turns and vise versa. We put him on different sides of the trailor for the way out and back to minimise this so that he only has 1 or 2 bad corners each way. Also give him calmer before travelling. All this seems to have done the trick. Others on here have said taking out the partition and putting in a breast bar? helps - this only works if travelling alone though. I think it's also about building up their confidence again when something has knocked it. A couple of times we have had to go back to the start again and feed in trailer and bild ip with small trips etc.

 

[Tinsel Trouble]

The bad traveller on the yard had to be travelled on the 'wrong' side, this sorted him out immediately!

 

[Cazza525]

Funnily enough a friend of mines mare did this after years and years of travelling like a lamb! The first thing they did was remove central partition and crosstied and she was instantly calmer.

A few months later the mare was also diagnosed with an inner ear infection which would account for her loss of balance

 

[fruity]

My mare was a fab traveller until one day her travel boots (hate them and won't put them on anything now) slid down and when we went round a corner she tripped on them and fell down,luckily we were right round the corner from home. She had hurt her leg and was on box rest for a couple of months. After this she freaked when put in the trailer,loaded fine but when you tried to move off she literally threw herself around. I had to go straight back to scratch,got myself a Monty roberts halter,did a lot of ground work,started feeding her in it for 1 month,then progressed to loading her in put all the ramps up whilst feeding for another month, we had a long drive way so my OH would drive the trailer vvvv slowly whilst i was in the back still feeding her (not ideal i know but a risk i was willing to take,she trusted me) we also took the partition out which helped loads, After literally 6-7 mths of this and finally being able to go up the road and back we cracked it. The key thing is not to rush things and if needed go back a step if things go a wry. Your mare has had a scare,you need to get her confidence back. Good luck! It can be solved.

 

[iconique]

You say "your new box" has this just started since you've started using your new box?

If it is, then you have your answer, something about it is making her stressed. If not then try with bandages instead of travel boots, some horses get stressed if they move and the big lumpy velcro ones can give great protection but also cause great problems!
Plus check the floor, rubber or no rubber if its not as solid as it was for some reason they sometimes sense this and it can make them anxious - the suggestion of borrowing a camera is good if its not one of the former. Good luck, there's nothing worse than worrying about going anywhere.

 

[SillyTilly]

Thank-you so much everybody for your advice - I now have a plan of action!

I'm taking the box to have the rubber flooring checked and made 110% secure
I'm going to take short trips with camera set up to watch what happens and hopefully build back up her confidence a bit, and switch to hind bandages instead of her travel boots.

Will then consider a breast bar without partition. She does tend to travel better on the right which I will stick to in the meantime. It's not a hock problem and I doubt an ear issue - but I will keep this one in mind if other measures fail!!

Thanks again everyone!