Last year I attended a dressage competition with my mare, Diva. I finished my class, loaded her into the trailer and left her eating happily with the top door open. With her settled, off I went for a cup of tea. 10 minutes later, someone came rushing into the competition gallery, asking who was the owner of my trailer. My heart sank as they said the horse inside had tried to jump out.
We found her well and truly stuck over the front bar of the trailer, with her back feet barely touching the ground. I opened the front of the trailer, hoping that she might be able to scramble over, but the bar was firmly jammed up under her groin and she was stuck fast.
I stood for a moment, took a deep breath (she wasn’t going anywhere after all) and thought about how I was going to deal with this. There were a few people gathered around ready to help, but no one quite knew quite what to do.
With some help, I began to dismantle the trailer from back to front. We took the partitions out from the back first and then the middle bar holding everything up. I asked a tall man whether he could reach up and unbolt the main bar from the middle post. He luckily had a tool in his vehicle that enabled us to remove the jammed bolt.
After this, the bar collapsed and she was able to scramble over and walk free. What a relief!
Diva had a knock on her head and a few scrapes, but otherwise managed to walk away pretty unscathed. I can’t say the same for the trailer, the side wall was ripped away and it had a bent partition. I loaded Diva into a friends trailer for the homeward journey and drove my trailer back, looking a bit worse for wear. She had a few days off and had her back checked by the chiropractor. Hanging over the bar like that must have made her sore.
Needless-to-say, apart from a hefty trailer repair bill, I was very relieved that she was ok. Now when I leave her, I only leave the opposite side rear door open. I am glad to say she has never done anything like it since.
TIP: I have since learnt from the Ifor Williams trailer people, that there are bolts on the outside of the trailer attached to the bar. Unscrew these with allen keys and the bar will drop. So it is worth carrying these with you and if a horse gets themselves stuck like she was, unscrew the bolts so the bar drops and the horse will be able to walk out.
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