It's hard not to get emotionally involved with a horse that is in trouble and I got very close to Moose yesterday as I tried to show her that the horsebox was not such a terrible place to be. I got an e-mail from Steve Mills, the transporter last night which said that: You where great today, I was a little worried for this one did move around quick. Anyway all went well with the other end. The horse travelled well and also walked out very relaxed.Thank you again great job and well done." As I had been lying awake worrying about whether she was alright, it was great to get this in the middle of the night so that I could go back to bed and sleep.
In the days before I started to see things from the horse's point of view (I wasn't born this way and it's not the way I was brought up to be), we had a couple of nasty incidents with horses that we were loading. The first was when a pony (Roxy as a foal above) came out through the jockey door of a trailer we had borrowed taking the whole of the wooden side with her. Amazingly she was fine and she travelled okay after that but the friend never loaned us a trailer again. On another occasion, I went up to collect a horse called McKenzie from my Mum's. Once we set off with him in the horsebox he reared and went over the partition. Luckily, he was fine too and frequently travelled to events but its a wonder. At that time we gave no thought to practising horses before we ever travelled them and didn't think that they might be frightened and that it is entirely against their instinct to go into a small dark space where they will be trapped. It's a couple of decades ago now but I would give anything to go back and do it all properly; at least that way you can keep the risk of an accident down to a minimum.
This morning I have picked up the BHS Stage 2 Manual and it says about loading: "A sharp quick tap with a whip on the hindquarters may persuade a stubborn horse to walk forwards." I don't know where this evolved into chase it on with a big lunging whip as I see and hear about all too frequently. Even tapping like that can create a horse that runs backwards or stands on the ramp kicking out with its back feet - not something you want to be behind if you are doing up the breech bar. There is absolutely no place for whips when loading horses - but I can't say that in the old days I didn't use one. While we are learning these things for ourselves, it it the horses that pay. I really envy anyone who comes into this having never used fear and force with horses.
