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I’m sure everyone who has been around horses has seen some bad or difficult loaders. Our Jack was one of them. He actually did not fear the box or trailer, he just didn’t see the bleemin point in going into one of them. Once we got him in, he always had that smug look about him and was chomping on the hay completely calm and happy! How annoying! That is, not that he was calm and happy, but that he put up such a show before it!

After first long loading sessions going to one of our few competitions (with lines and brooms and all…), we decided that we have to do something. At first we tried feeding him in the trailer, which worked out fine. But he still was being a pain when we wanted to load him for real. Next thing was then to obtain a Dually halter and work him on the ground based on Monty Roberts’ methods. Have to say that this brought about a bit of an improvement. However, he still was jamming up on the ramp and taking his time, jumping sideways off the ramp etc.

Then I read Richard Maxwell’s advice on the matter and this was the final breakthrough! Jack needed to be kept in constant and boring movement when he jammed up on the ramp, eventually (within some minutes) he got bored, reared once and then walked in like a lamb! Yessss! :D The boring movement was simply moving his head from side to side when nothing else was moving. He was resisting this, but by taking a good hold of the halter and using your arm muscles it worked fine. And ok, the rear was always impressive, but it is just the final show-off opinion of his before he walks in. We knew this, kept calm and no bother. Loading had suddenly became a lot easier!

For this post I wanted to look up some practical info and help on loading difficult or scared horses. That is, you can read all you like about the subject, but it’s always better to see the work in action. So I searched Youtube for any films clips that would show how it’s done well. I selected three clips from different trainers that use somewhat different methods and made some comments. The common denominator with all of these trainers is that they avoid violence, food or people behind ‘helping out’ with the process.

The first one is a Cornish Mutual clip.  

Horse here is only a reluctant loader, and actually ends up going in very easy. But I thought to include it here because it’s a nice and clear film with some basics explained, and she is using a Dually halter. Dually is a great training halter, because the training part is combined with a normal halter. That is, you can lead your horse or tie it up securely with the normal halter-ring, but if you need to, you can use the training loop if the horse becomes difficult and misbehaves and you need to school him. I like Dually better than the rope-halter for schooling because it is softer, and you can also use it for easy and relaxed lunging as well as riding. When you use Dually in loading, make sure that you tie the horse on the normal halter-ring and secure the training loops with tierips into the halter, so that they cannot accidentally loop into anything in the trailer and cause accidents while you are driving.

What’s important as well is to distinguish between really frightened horse and a horse that just doesn’t want to do what you tell him to do. A frightened horse starts shaking, breaths faster, gets sweaty and all around panicked. A truly frightened horse is a more complex case and the trainer here states that she doesn’t have time within this small time interval to deal with that type of situation, and that if you have such a case, then it is better to have a knowledgeable person to come and help you.

The second clip is featuring Michael Peace:

The horse here is a youngster and has been difficult to load, but Michael has been working him from the ground already for 4-5weeks and started him on the saddle as well. That is probably why it seems to be an easier case as well now. However, it is educational watching and has some good tips as well. Notice that he is here using a normal head collar.

He is also using the tactics of keeping the horse in movement when it seems to plant itself. And the use of the quarter rope I had not seen before. If you are going to use such a rope, be sure that you have trained with it on the ground many times before so that your horse does not panic when you put it on in a loading situation! Michael is an expert; you can tell from the clip that he reads the horse very well and knows when he is truly worried and when he is just being stubborn. Only when he is being stubborn, he uses pressure from the rope behind the quarters. This skill may take time to develop…

And the last clip is by Gord Searle:

Now finally we have a truly difficult case here! I am very happy to have found this one, because it shows the whole process, warts and all. Difficult cases are not loaded in trailers within minutes, well unless you are Monty Roberts or Buck Brannaman! This is a horse that has been loaded once before as a two-year-old straight from the herd, cattle-driven into the trailer and driven off straight away. Came out as a sweaty, shivering wreck! Now, that couldn’t be too much worse start for a young horse!

I’m commenting quite a lot on this film, because it shows how to deal with quite a lot of different situations with a difficult horse.

He is using a rope training halter, a long rope and a whip with a rope attached to it (like a lunging whip, only a bit shorter). If you decide to load your horse with a training halter like this, make sure you change it to a normal one when you eventually tie up the horse and drive off. In my opinion, you should never tie a horse with a training halter, definitely not for a travel in a trailer.

At first he is desensitising the horse to the whip-rope. This includes wrapping the rope around the horses neck, body and quarters. In no point is he whipping the horse, he is just flinging the rope on her with the aid of the whip. The whip is there to give a bit more length to his hand as well as precision. You could do this just the same with the end of the lunging rope/line. So, let me just repeat that this is not whipping. It doesn’t hurt the horse. You can try it on yourself to test if you like. At first the horse is a bit freaked out by it, but as you see, she soon learns that it doesn’t hurt her and she settles down and relaxes. He is also flinging the rope around on top of the horses head, this is also part of desensitising. What else he does with the whip is to use it to tap the horse’s side and to prod the horse with it. Both of these actions you can do with your hand as well, tapping and prodding, not hitting and punching. But he finds the whip to be better, because it is longer than his arm and he can reach places easier. Especially handy, if you want to correct the horse’s position when it is stepping on the ramp – this you cannot really do with your hand without moving away from your position. Ok, I hope it is now clear that Gord does not use violence here at all, eventhough he uses a whip and a rope.

Gord has also some really good advice before showing the work on the horse. A very good point he makes is, that it is not the trailer that is the main point and focus, it is the relationship between the handler and the horse. When horse relaxes and trusts the handler, he will go where-ever he is lead.

In the beginning of the training he is pointing out that it’s not that the horse is not moving, she is just not moving without explosive energy. What he is aming at here is to tone it down and make her more relaxed and do things in a calmer way. He also points out that in the beginning the horse is not paying attention to him at all, she is just whirling around. He needs to get her in a calmer state where she is paying attention to him. See how he is also patting and stroking her at times. Then he is moving the horse past the trailer, at first the aim is just to make him walk past it calmly and later on you’ll see that once the horse is calmer, he is asking her to stop there. At one point (6:50) the horse starts backing up, notice how he keeps an even pressure but at the same time walks with the horse. As soon as the horse offers forward motion, he releases the pressure. So, no fuss no anger, no shouting, just calmly keeping the pressure and when horse offeres what we want, pressure comes off. Also notice how the leadrope is slack, he is not dragging the horse in any point.

About 7:50 you notice him using his whip to prod the horse to make him step back and a bit later on tapping on the shoulder to remind the horse not to step into his space. So, no hitting here, just prodding and tapping. Straight after, you see a difference on the horse, she starts relaxing.

At about 9:00 she is starting to explore the trailer in a very relaxed manner. He points out that he wants curiosity, no force and no pulling on the rope. Never pull on the rope when the horse is exploring the inside of the trailer or pawing on it to check whether it is ok to stand there. Just as was said in the first film, if you disallow this, the horse will think that there is something not right with it since she is not allowed to make sure it is ok and non-dangerous, so give horse time to explore it in a relaxed manner.

At 9:46 you see that the horse pulled back from the trailer and he is now putting pressure on the rope preventing him from going backwards. He states that at this point, when she has been allowed to explore a bit and is calm, he wants to create a little bit of pressure. And so he is asking the horse to step forward and will keep the pressure even until the horse offers forward motion, and then he slacks. The idea is not to pull the horse forward, it is to hold an even pressure until the horse moves forward himself. He also talks very clearly about give and take, when the horse gives you something, you cannot just keep on taking all the time, you should also give her some relaxation. That is, when she has done something extra, you take her away from the trailer, give her a pat, stroke her. And then take her back to it; it’s a lot of back and forth. Pressure and release.

At about 12:00 he shows how, when he put a bit of pressure on her, the horse overreacted. He just holds the pressure and releases it when she comes forward. He says that you will get these overreactions, and you shouldn’t get exited or anctious about them, keep calm and relaxed.

Same thing happens at about 13:00. The horse overreacts and backs off, he maintains pressure until she calms down and moves forward. At this point they all had a break, and he continued after about 15min with just reinforcing the sensitising and making her move where he wants.

At about 14:45 you will see how he starts to work on lining her up so that she can eventually step into the trailer straight on. This he does by just gently tapping the horse with his whip. There is one point at 16:18, when the horse spins around and gives him her butt - that’s not on - so he gives a bit more of a decisive tap on her hindquarters. This may look more foreceful, but again it is not more than a tap to let her know that that move is not ok and to move her butt off.

At 16:50 he is flinging his rope more, however, not touching the horse, the idea is to make her move off, because she was starting to resist him and moved into his space. This is why he went back to the basics and moving her off the way he wanted.

At 16:57 he states that this is basically the big blow before the calm. She has now tried everything to avoid going into the trailer, so now she is putting it all out, since nothing else has yet worked. She starts calming down quite quickly though, and by 17:20 she is again behaving better, and he is pointing out at about 17:32 that she is not cutting into his space anymore.

At 17:57 he is starting to ask her to stand in front of the trailer. As he pointed out earlier; this has nothing to do with the trailer, it has all to do with the horse trusting him and doing what he says she should do. Then the trailer is just an extention of this work.

And just within minutes from the big blow up, she has her front feet in the trailer (18:47). You see how he just stands in there completely calm and lets her explore the inside of the trailer in peace and quiet. She apparently also was very keen to paw the trailer madly for quite a while to make sure it is safe… Then he shows that everytime she does something more, he rewards her by taking off the pressure and leading her away from the trailer. He points out that even though you keep calm, let her explore and paw, you also have to ask a little bit more each time to keep the progress going. If you don’t ask more, you will get stuck in a certain level.

At 19:45 you see another example how you can line up your horse with the aid of a whip and gentle tapping. Later on he also stresses that your bodylanguage is extremely important; if you are tense, angry, irritated, fearful, the horse will pick it up and things won’t work. You have to keep calm and relaxed at all times to relay the same thing to the horse.

Notice that at about 22:45 she moves her hind leg finally towards the trailer, and just a bit later on he also points out how her hind legs are starting to move closer to stepping in.

At about 25:00 he comments on how he does not want to use food to lure his horses into the trailer. He wants the horses to get into the trailer because he says so, not because you have some treats or food. This way he can be sure that the horse will always walk into a trailer with him, even if he didn’t happen to have food with him. However, there is some hay in the front part, but that he doesn’t consider food or treat, it’s just what you have in a trailer. He rewards his horses with release, not with food.

And then after a gradual forward motion, at 27:00 she steps completely in. He eventually turns her around, waits until she is calm (reward the good behaviour, not the bad) and then walks her out. And repeat this many many times. He talks also about the fact that you have to first get your horse under control in calmness before you even introduce the trailer. So, lots of work from the ground and when the horse respects your space and moves off calmly from your signals and the way you want, then you can approach the trailer and start introducing it. If the horse trusts and listens to you, then the trailer is not going to be a problem.

What all these films have in common, is that all the handlers are calm, consistent and firm but nonviolent. None of them use extra bits of equipment such as walls or extra ropes on the side or back. This is really good in practice, since in normal life, you would not necessarily have these around you.

Hope that gave you some good ideas in case you came across a difficult loader at some stage.