Yield to pressure
An often neglected preliminary step
That gets verified during trailer loading
I will offer you a series of 4 articles where I list the errors to avoid if you want to easily get a horse into a trailer:
- Error #1 : the leader keeps requesting when this one thinks of going in.
- Error #2 : the horse backs up really quickly and end up hitting his head in the ceiling of the trailer
- Error #3 : too many people around the horse give inconsistent commands
- Error #4 : the horse leader/owner passes on his stress to the horse due to an important stake (e.g. competition, tight schedule, etc)
This article follows on from the first published Rule #1 to load a horse on a trailer to describe the most common mistake of “pushing” the horse without leaving some time to the horse to make its own decision. What can happen when the horse finally changes its mind is that it starts backing up. And that’s when the problems start !! How to react to a horse that backs up, looks up, or even rears up?
In reality, a horse that backs up or refuses to move forward when solicited with the rope is a horse that does not yield to the rope pressure.
What are we taught to do under such circumstances? Do not pull! Why ? If you pull, the horse looks up, bumps into the top of the trailer, hurts himself and doesn’t want to load. QED
In fact, what happens as a horse is requested to move forward on the rope pressure, people tend to systematically release as soon as the horse is backing up. The horse then figures out the release occur when he starts backing up, raising the head or rearing up. Conclusion: the leader is being taught by the horse to yield to the rope pressure. This is precisely what was aimed at being taught to the horse in the beginning !! Who is the bad teacher or the fast learner?!
The moral of this story is that you can’t use the rope to load a horse into a trailer if the latter doesn’t yield to the pressure at any time and in any circumstances! I will try to demonstrate in the following video that there is an infallible method way more effective than using the rope because it does not result in reflex reactions of opposition. The aim is to prevent the horse from fighting the rope or pulling back in reaction to a lack of education.
