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DON'T FORGET THE HORSE
by Debby Buck DeJonge
(reprinted from Dressage
Savvy)
The beginning of the end of casual
riding coincidentally coincided with the delivery
of my shiny, new, custom-made, horse transportation.
Merely referring to it as a "trailer"
connotes images that aren't necessarily in keeping
with this baby. I'll never forget my mother's reaction
while she was performing her perusal, "You're
not entertaining the notion of allowing those bowel
evacuating creatures to inhabit this Ritz-Carlton
on wheels, are you dear?"
Good question. It did smell so
good and sparkle, with or without the infusion of
sunlight. But inhabit it they did, and then the
real fun began. This being my virgin experience
in loading / towing / stowing and general horse
hauling lead me to thinking, in hindsight, that
every trailer manufacturer should include some kind
of a "Chicken Soup for the Horse Hauler"
instructions or "Loading for Dummies"
or whatever the lingo of the year was. Case in point.
My first horse victim was, thank
God, a self loader. Literally. This big dappled
gray Quarter Horse could have been an advertisement
for the entire AQHA. It should have read something
like: Even Blondes Can Go It Alone with a Safe and
Sane Quarter Horse. Actually, it has nothing to
do with hair color and everything to do with experience,
or like I hinted at, lack thereof.
Here's how my very first loading
experience went: I inched 'Kid' toward the trailer,
slowed to a crawl, threw his lead line over his
neck and offered this advice: "You're on your
own." Kid responded like all good Quarter Horses
and marched methodically into the trailer.
It took several much more exciting
loading and sometimes almost loading experiences
with my new warmbloods to realize just what a gem
I had had in Kid. The bigger they were, the worse
they loaded. It's just a theory, but so far it still
gels.
I could offer up some further
advice for the trailer manufacturers of the world
about loading of non-Quarter Horses. It's called
bribing. Feed the little darlings in the trailer
for a week. See, the trailer is fun. Then, one day
when everything is peachy, take them for a little
ride. As in, short. In fact, make it short and sweet.
Unload them at an alfalfa field and then reload
them, carrot first, and leave them with the following
impression: trailers are a good thing.
The whole point is that you want
the horse to load whenever and wherever you want.
Like the time Adomino colicked at a show and some
Einstein had blocked my rig so I had to cop a ride
in Jeanne Metsker's rig. We headed for her trailer
and someone shouted, "Does he load?" To
which I replied, "No, I rode him to the show."
Of course he loads. Any horse I work with loads
or they don'tget to go and play. See how this works?
Speaking of play, the Party Barbie
rig was packed to its gils getting ready for the
July Dressagefest and our Fun Freestyle performance.
Between the costumes, the food, wine, and tack,
there was barely room for the competitor team. The
entire charade must have smelled like too much fun
as my husband popped his head out the door and admonished,
"Have fun at the show and don't forget the
horse!"
Read
some more Horse Tales!
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