When Coco was loaded into the horse-box to go down to Tim Piper's to complete her training, she walked on and stood still so calmly that a bystander remarked: "There, she doesn't know what all the fuss is about." Galling as that may be when Sian and I have religiously loaded her every day for a week, and taken her from pretty frightened to pretty calm, I suppose that is the end result that we really want.
A horses response to being loaded depends on so many things: his temperament, his general level of training, practice, how he feels about enclosed spaces and whether anything bad has ever happened before or indeed, now. Around here we are blessed with good horse transport companies that take great care to give the horse a smooth journey.
Maverick proved that it is worth trying different layouts as well as persevering with the training itself. He seems to prefer being able to go in and out of a box forwards and backwards rather than turning in sideways although it may just be that he has had sufficient practice to be much happier anyway.
Peechay of course doesn't care where he goes or how he gets there.
With travelling it is worth loading the dice in your favour as it is probably one of the most dangerous things we do with horses. It's a very small space to be trapped with a horse that doesn't want to be there.
