It can happen to anyone. You are late in getting ready for a horse show or a hunt, you try to rush your horse into the trailer, but the horse refuses to load, and you end up late or entirely missing the event. Perhaps it is more than just a once in while thing. Maybe your horse make a habit of battling you when trying to load him and now you can't get him in no matter what.
There are few experiences that are more exasperating than trying to load a stubborn horse into your trailer. When they don't want to cooperate, even the most even-tempered person can become tense and pissed. This increases the stress for the horse too. Now he his being asked to go into a trailer, which he doesn't want to do, but now he has an enraged human to deal with also.
Why are some horses difficult to load?
One of the major factors is the horse's instincts.
"Horses naturally perceive anything that represents restriction and confinement as a threat to their safety," says Suzanne Ridenour, a horse trainer and instructor from Crystal Lake, Ill. Making them inter a small enclosure such as a trailer goes against their instincts.
It is hard to know if a horse had an unpleasant loading in the past. "A horse will remember a traumatic or unpleasant trailer ride, and he will do whatever he cannot to repeat that experience," says Audrey Bray, a horse trainer and American Horse Shows Association judge in Seminole, Fla.
There are many things that can make a horse associate a trailer as being uncomfortable such as: long rides, speeding over potholes, turning too sharply, sudden stops, or an accident resulting in an injury.
Typically the horse is refusing to load because of the signals being sent by you. "Horses are very good at reading the body language of humans," Ridenour says. "If you lack confidence, your horse knows it, and he will respond accordingly." If you are appearing to be anxious, your horse will think there is a reason to be afraid of something in the trailer and then become fearful. Or, if the horse is a strong willed type he might sense you as someone who doesn't have to be obeyed.
However, if you trying to force him to load, that may make him more determined than ever to put up a fight, says Sandy Arledge, a professional horse trainer and American Quarter Horse Association judge in San Diego, Calif. Even if you're eventually successful in loading your horse into the trailer, the battle will start all over again next time. So what is the best way to deal with an unwilling horse? Obviously, your best bet is to not give your horse a reason to dread the trailer in the first place.
