Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Horse Post

Nicer weather is on its way, slow though it may be. That means that I'll be playing with my horses more and talking about it here. The following post is the first in a progressive series on me teaching 2 of my horses to load. Let me just put the disclaimer out there, I'm not perfect and I don't always think things all the way through.

Trailer Loading Horses 1
Let me start by introducing my herd. The first horse I got is a registered appaloosa gelding (but is ½ thoroughbred.) His name is Big Boy. The second horse I got is also a registered appaloosa, but she’s a mare (also ½ thoroughbred and she acts like it!) Her name is Nina. The third horse I got is a registered paint mare that I named Rain; I got her intending to train her to ride and sell her. The fourth horse I got is an Appendix QH gelding. His name is Foster and I am his retirement home from WWU.
Foster loads wonderfully! Rain loads great but doesn’t like to back out, she likes to turn around. I can deal with that because I have a stock trailer. Nina, Miss Hot Head, gets very anxious and antsy when it comes to loading in a trailer. Often times she may put some feet in the trailer only to high tail it out of there however she can. Big Boy, well he locks up and it is impossible to load a horse who won’t move his feet.
After nine months since we last hauled the horses and it had been, oh probably 6 months to a year before that, we decided to load up the horses to haul them to my brother in laws for pasture rotation purposes. Needless to say, trailer loading didn’t go good. I am perfectly willing to admit that I don’t know everything and that I don’t always think things through. For instance, what should have happened is that knowing we were going to be moving the horses soon, I should have started working with Big Boy and Nina on trailer loading ahead of time. I didn’t and Big Boy had a yucky experience. So now I will be working with the two of them so that we can successfully haul them to a new and “greener” pasture. *Grins* I really do mean another pasture and one here on earth.

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