# Well it could have been worse



## drafts4ever (Sep 1, 2009)

WARNING: NOVEL (I'm highlighted the short version for you skimmers out there)

*I drive an hour to go rent a trailer and truck combo to haul my horses. I call them and tell them specifically what I need and do they have a trailer that will fit BOTH my horses. They said yes the trailer is a slant load two horse 7'5 tall and 7'2 wide. GREAT so I reserve it and pick it up Friday the 25th. *

I get to the barn and in the process of putting in shavings I'm thinking this trailer looks a little narrow. So one of my students grabs a ruler and she and I measure the inside width and height. *It's 7'3 tall, fine. BUT 6'9 wide. that's NOT 7'2 wide and NOT a draft safe double load trailer! I get Caleigh and load her and quickly find out if the divider is closed it smashes her into the wall so we take the divider out, put her away and load in Sampson. The trailer can only fit one draft at a time.* I call up a friend and ask if *I can make two trips and tie Caleigh to her trailer when I head back to get Sampson*. She said yeah sure since the play day was literally right up the street. 

So Saturday (today) comes. I get up at 6:30, get to the barn and start braiding tails and manes, my students horse's tail and mane. *Get the drafts all ready to go and load in Caleigh. No problem.* I get to the play day, unload her (she's half asleep in the trailer), tie her to my friends trailer with a haybag and a water bucket and head back to get Sampson with one of my students moms to help just in case he's difficult to get in. *Just like Caleigh, he snorts at the floor and then walks right in*, dives into the hay bag and off we go. 

We get back to the playday and as soon as I park I hear him calling out to Caleigh and any other horse that is willing to listen to him. K and I get out of the truck and *I open the trailer and immediatly he starts backing up STILL TIED!!! I stay calm and say whoa Sampson, you're ok, everything's ok. He calms down*, calls out again and stands still. *I get in and reach for the trailer tie to unhook him when he FREAKS. He pulls back hard, his rear feet fall out of the trailer, his halter snaps like it should in these situations and he runs about 50 feet away and stops. I get to him and he's shaking. I check him all over, no scratches, not lame but very very nervous. My friend's husband grabs my extra halter and we put it on him and he walks him around for me. When I turn around K and Pam (the family friend) gasp and Pam runs over and smashes a hand towel to my face. *

*Here's what happened. When he backed his halter broke like it should BUT the throat latch latch broke and smacked me right under the bottom lip leaving me with a pretty nice (or nasty depending on how you look at it) gash. K says I need stitches, Pam gets saline solution and washes it off and says glue would be better. Luckily it didn't bust through. Pam lets me borrow her car and says she'll watch the horses while I go to a local urgent care. The doctor looks at me and says it's not bad enough to need glue or stitches but not small enough to leave open and air out so she cleans it, gives me a tetnus shot just to be safe, and puts steri? strips on me to close me up. She said to expect tightness and bruising but I should be healed in about a week. I could have been way worse and apparently I'm one of the lesser horse incident people that have recently come in. So far it looks like I was popped in the mouth, I'm keeping plenty of ice on it. *


Meanwhile. My trainer has been called by my student who left out that I was perfectly fine and my trainer is freaking out. She's at a show in Oregon so she called the barn and tells her dad something VERY BAD happened to ellie she doesn't know what's going on but Sampson hurt Ellie. I get back to the playday, start saddling up Caleigh for her first class and I turn around to see my trainers Dad running down to Pams trailer. When he sees me he's fumbling over words asking if I'm alright and Vicki called and my student told her I went to the emergency and blah blah blah. When I told him what happened he chuckled a little, had a look and said...hmmmm I think you'll live. I called my trainer, explained everything to her and she laughed. 

*The rest of the day went fine.* Caleigh did great in her classes, so did Sampson. *I only put Sampson in one and it was a game called the phone book race*. I did it by hand halter style. *The judge tells you a page number and you have two barrels about 50 feet from each other. On the farthest one there's a phone book you rip your page out. They time you and we came in 5th*. He didn't want to trot down to it the first time but opened up and trotted back just fine. We had a time of 47.39 seconds. Pretty good for him I think. *In total we got one 1st place, two 2nds, two 3rds, one 5th, and Caleigh and I did "Ride a buck" you sit bareback on a dollar on your horse, last one to keep the dollar keeps the dollars of the other riders. This time the dollar was placed at my knee. I made 4 bucks in that. haha. *

Anyway I'll post pictures later. I only have them of Sampson. A photographer friend of mine took some too but he hasn't emailed me any yet.


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## LoveStory10 (Oct 31, 2009)

Oooh that sounds sore, but at least things turned out okay. Well done on your placings


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## drafts4ever (Sep 1, 2009)

Thank you! Caleigh had a fun time and after the trailer incident we weren't sure how we were going to get Sampson home. We just weren't sure if he would load again or not but he walked right in and unloaded at the barn just fine. Everyone things that is was a combination of distractions and anxiety when he backed up and realized he still couldn't move. I could have done things a lot different and next time since I know he is easily distracted in these situations I'll do it a lot different, goal is to get him untied and out as quickly as my fingers can do it. So we practiced him loading on his own and unloaded with someone guiding him out with a long line on the outside so he has plenty of space, no one in trailer with him at all. That's what we'll do next time. 

I haven't uploaded pictures yet but I will later. I need a nap. We just dropped off the trailer. I let the rental place know that the dimentions they gave me were wrong and that for longer hauls over 30 minutes I wouldn't recommend putting a horse over 17.3 in there for hauls over 30 minutes. Sampson had head room and he's 18.2 but I wouldn't feel comfortable hauling anywhere but down the street in that trailer with him. They said thank you. Next time I'll be renting from a different place and measuring when I get there before hand.


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## haleylvsshammy (Jun 29, 2010)

What a story! At least you did well in the show! Better luck next time


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## drafts4ever (Sep 1, 2009)

I want to continue to take him to playdays with my mare until he's sold so hopefully I'll be able to find a trailer company that is reliable.


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