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.
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