Horse Trailer Loading Tips | Free Guide

It’s easy to lose your temper when teaching a horse to load in a trailer. Unfortunately, getting impatient with a difficult or stubborn horse that won't load in the trailer is the worst thing you can do.

The late Bill Van Norman insists that you need to take your time and keep your temper when teaching your horse to trailer load.

Bill offers his valuable advice in AQHA’s FREE Horse Trailer Loading Tips.

To begin training your horse to trailer load, Bill suggests these tips:

• Send your horse in a circle around you directly behind the open trailer.
• Use a lead rope, not a longe line, so you can keep your horse fairly close to you.
• If your horse wants to stop and smell the trailer or look inside, encourage this behavior and recognize it as a sign that he’s trying.
• When his attention fades off the trailer, ask your horse to move out again and continue circling you.
• Circle in both directions behind the trailer to help him become comfortable with being worked from either side.

“I have a 3-year-old Quarter Horse mare named Channel, and she has always been very difficult to load and I have tried everything. But I tried what you suggested in this article and, like magic, she got right in! It is so great to not have to worry anymore about how I would get her to the vet if she got sick or injured. Last winter, during a snowstorm, she would not get in the trailer so I could take her into town for a vet check of her eye injury. It’s good to know that if something like that happens again I should be able to get that rascal in the trailer! Thank you!”