Final Essay draft- Patience

On latter reflection I think the most important lessons are learned by experiences; this experience of mine taught me the importance of Patience. On Saturday the 28 of September I bought my first horse. Most young horse lovers are spoon fed and get whatever they desire; a new horse, saddle, lessons, etc. unlike them, my parents decided to teach me the lesson that you have to work hard to get what you want. I guess it’s a good thing I had to work to pursue my passion; it sure hasn’t made thing easy but I have learned alot. Finally, after working for eight months at an Italian restaurant I had enough money to buy my own horse.

 Don’t get me wrong, I have been riding other people’s horses for 10 years so I have a bit of experience. I found my dream horse online: Bolder is 7 years old Quarter horse, AQHA registered, with perfect conformation, fantastic build, and filled out nicely. I fell in love with this palomino. After a couple weeks of discussing this with my family; I found a barn to board him at and someone to trailer him over here. So now here’s where the story really begins. 

When we met up with Bolder’s previous owner and got the paperwork signed, we unloaded him from his old owner’s trailer and were now ready to load up and head home. I popped him in the trailer and tied him up. As I was moving to close the divider he decided to try and back out, being tied up real tight he couldn’t move. He started freaking out because he couldn’t move, I not wanting to be trapped in a small enclosed metal area with flailing horse limbs jumped out. When I turned around he had fallen and his legs were strait up in the air. I don’t know how he twisted himself enough to fall down, but he did. When he got back up, we were able to secure him in the trailer. After the fact I learned he has never been loaded like a regular horse: they had loaded him with plenty of food and grain so he wouldn’t mind being in-closed in a small metal area. I hope he only needed one flip-in-the-trailer event because I don’t want to deal with it again.

After he settled in for a couple of days at the new barn and was doing well under the saddle, I decided to set up a lesson with my WAHSET drill coach, Dawn. After going through the whole ordeal of setting up the time I would be able to borrow my boyfriend’s truck and my aunt’s trailer to be able to haul my horse to Dawn’s house. I had an uneventful drive to the barn; it was my first time driving a truck and trailer.

I was ready to load so I walked straight towards the trailer to bring him in and about five feet away he balked. He had too many bad memories from the previous experience. It took about twenty minutes to get him close enough to smell the trailer. At that point we decided to cancel the lesson and use the trsiler as the lesson for the day. Eventually, I was able to get his front feet in and with a bit of grain and whip encouragement he eventually got all the way in. We went in and out quite a few times and decided to call that enough for the day.

This was worrying me because all of the events I do with my horse, they involve trailering a lot to different places. I knew with time and trust he would eventually be able to trailer again. I talked to the neighbors, who I have known for a while because of 4-H, they were kind enough to let me use their trailer to keep walking him in and out and to get him use to the idea. So for the next five days I would go over there before or after I rode to practice with that skill.

I found out that Bolder’s favorite food motivator to get into the trailer is an apple. I think it was the third session I was able to stand with him in the trailer for about five minutes. This is with me talking and calming him the entire time. This was a huge leap because he was trusting me enough to do that. On the fifth time, with the help of my boyfriend, we were able to lock him inside the divider with me by his head. I was also in the tiny space with him so that could have ended up really bad if he decided to freak out. To me that was worth the risk because I trusted that he would not freak-out and injure me and he trusted me to not leave or hurt him.

A couple days after that I decided to try loading him in my aunt’s trailer again because every trailer is different and I’ll probably be trailering him in her trailer frequently. At first I just allowed him to sniff the trailer and get use to the different smell. Once again with my boyfriend’s help I was able to get him in. My boyfriend was standing behind Bolder with a whip, he didn’t necessarily use it, but when Bolder would back up he would remember there was a whip back there and decide to go forward to get away from it. After a couple minutes we were able to lock Bolder and I in the trailer slant. I tied him off and snuck under the divider so he would be in there alone. After a couple minutes of petting him and keeping him calm, we got out of the trailer and closed the back doors. There was no freaking out and that was defiantly an accomplishment.

The next Sunday was drill tryouts for WAHSET; now this was the big test. I had the coach stop by and pick me up on the way because she was already trailering two other horses and had room for one more. Bolder sniffed the trailer and with a little encouragement from behind, he got in and we closed the back door to the trailer with me in there too. After I had tied him off, Dawn opened the back door enough for me to slip out. We closed it and he was locked in there and not having a fit. I breathed a sigh of relief and we headed to the tryouts. When we got there I slipped back in and untied him and everything when smoothly from there. We did the same process loading him back in and made it home safe and sound. I am so glad this experience was a good one because now he knows that trailing to new places is not a scary thing and I will be there every step of the way. I also think having two other calm horses in the trailer with him made a huge difference.

It was hard work getting him down here, but the biggest challenge was getting him comfortable with loading in and out of a trailer. I wouldn’t change a thing about how I retaught him to load. I was patience and took little steps at a time with him; getting him used to the progressive stages. Now, I know it will still take a couple minutes to load him, but that will get better with time; I just have to remember patience is the key.