Mara loads onto a trailer!

Can you imagine going 15 months without knowing if your horse loads or not? I've have this tiny stress in the back of my mind all along.

Warning: This is the most boring detailed story about a trailer loading that you've ever read, I'm sure, and please don't read on unless you've had similar worries about that one day when you have to load in an emergency, but you have no idea if that will happen. Or, as in my case, an old friend offers to come by and "simply pick up" my horse for a trail ride in Wuppertal.

I spent the last few days going over everything I knew about difficult-to-load horses, and at the same time was afraid to hope that she wouldn't be one.

I've loaded horses countless times, pretty much every weekend for years (the trails weren't at the barn when I was doing endurance with P and Mac).

I've never had a problem so I didn't know how to prepare if there was one. Mark Rashid's chapter on trailers seemed to be the best plan, so it was fresh in my mind.

I was going to rent a trailer cuz I thought it might take half a day, and I didn't want an audience. But my man had other plans. He didn't see what the big deal was to just walk her over next door and use theirs, so without telling me, he just walked over there and asked. And they said yes. I was very uncomfortable about it. Our next door neighbors are nice, but they're not our fiends. And loading next door, there would surely be an audience, and they'd surely want to "help" with brooms and loud noises and ropes and such.

You can't be nervous when training a horse to load, but I was more tense about dealing with the neighbors than the loading thing.

Then at the time I was supposed to go over there, a thunderstorm arrived. Thank God, I can get out of this. Oh, but I have to know!

I was holding onto this image in my head, a photo of Sheraza, Mara's mother, at a mare/foal presentation, and the baby looked kind of like Mara. I hoped it was, I imagined it was - I studied the photo even, enlarged, and saw a star on the chestnut baby's face. Oh God let this be true, that she was trailer broke as a baby with her mother so it's no big deal.

As you've noticed by now if you've been reading for long, I tend to worry with my 2nd horse in ways I never did with my 1st. I expect the worst. Not without reason -  when she first arrived she was sometimes dangerous to be around. Even now, when the donkey snorts, Mara does a full-body spook. And trembles when something unexpected happens.

Finally the neighbor came over and said "It's time" so I went and got my horse.

I knew I needed help with one thing - I have little idea about European trailers - little fiberglass things - I didn't know how to remove the chest bar cuz I didn't want that in my way. The last time I put a horse in a trailer, getting Baasha to the clinic, I whacked my head on that bar. I don't even know how to operate the latches on the ramp.

I wasn't gonna be able to do this alone, because of my cluelessness with the trailer itself.


Below is an Internet photo I found of the same model trailer. (A Kraemer.) It's wood below - the same wood our stall is made of, and fiberglass above.



I walked Mara up to the trailer and the neighbors followed. I peered through the little tack room 1/2 door and suddenly remembered shoving all my stuff in there in 2009, when Anja helped me get Baasha out of Wuppertal and bring him home forever. My heart seized up in the memory. Mara stood there curiously touching the trailer with her nose.

Then I took her around the back and let her look in for a few seconds. Anja told me I have to go in first, but don't duck under the chest bar until she's settled. Or something. It was a very urgent thing she was trying to explain, how if a horse explodes at the wrong moment, when I'm on the wrong side of the bar...well, I'm not sure. (My first trailer also had a chest bumper, but you could open it up and walk through to the tack area.)

I walked into the trailer and Mara followed me without a single request from me. Then we stood there together in that tight space. Anja said, "I'll shut the butt bar and then you can duck under the chest bar" so we did. Mara looked around, probably wondering why the trailer was so spacious - it was a warmblood model.

I looked at Mara as she calmly stood there, and suddenly realized what had happened .......and started unloading carrots into her mouth and praising the day she was born, whatever day that was. I exclaimed, "Yeah, someone did it right with her!"

Then Anja said, "OK let's shut the ramp and lock her in." And that was fine. Then she said, "Come on out and let's see how she deals with being alone in there." And that was fine. She didn't make a peep, didn't move a hoof. I was amazed, but then again, this is actually normal for me. None of the 3 horses I hauled regularly had any issues, and I'd even taken all 3 on a ferry to the peninsula. (Bad experience, don't try this!)

I hadn't given much thought to how she might unload. Anja said, "OK let's see." She let the ramp down, I crawled in again through the 1/2 door and threw the rope over her neck.

Mara backed out carefully, straight back, calm as can be, and stood on the ground still facing the ramp, still looking in. Anja exclaimed, "Wow, she was really well trained." I said, "Right, oh, I don't even notice cuz I'm so used to horses unloading like that."

Huh. Her past owners didn't teach her to lift her hooves, but she can load and unload like a pro.

Mara started to paw at the ramp, and look inside the trailer, as if she wanted to go in again. Anja said, "Yah, that's where you rewarded her."  I was pleased, so happy!

I said thanks to my neighbors, and told them I'd repay the favor anyway possible. They were both stroking Mara simultaneously, one on each side, saying what a good horse she is, "Braves Pferdchen!" (Good diminutive horse)

I told Mara how wonderful she is and prayed thanks to God for letting this go as perfectly as possible.

And now I'm thinking of what my neighbors are discussing tonight.

"It wasn't about teaching that Arabian to load. It was about exposing our American neighbor to a German horse trailer." : )