I have had a three horse slant previously and now a two horse straight with a ramp. While I love the height and width and openness of the two horse (has an open area in front of the horses with chest bars and escape doors on each side, plus a tack room), I have found that I really need my horses to self load when I’m by myself for it to be done safely. The stalls have butt bars, and I prefer my horses to walk in on their own, then I secure the butt bar behind, and go up front later to tie. I tie last thing when they load and untie first thing when unloading. With one person, it feels a bit iffy to lead the horse in, leave them untied and trust them to stay put (hay nets don’t always provide enough incentive, especially if they are the least bit uneasy), walk to the back to secure the butt bars, then go back up front to tie. With help it’s no big deal, they can secure the butt bars for me after I lead the horse in. But with one person it’s a whole different thing.
Also, scary loaders are a nightmare with a ramp. Having a back gate to slam shut quickly is a nice feature I wish I had on this one. Getting a ramp halfway up and then having a horse plow it (and you) down is not a good thing. It would be perfect, I think, if it had a single gate inside the ramp. But that being said, I appreciate the other features it has, like removable dividers. When I hauled my yearling filly on her first trailer ride ever (a four hour trip from the breeder’s), I took out the center divider, closed everything up, and just left her loose in there to find her footing and comfort. I tied hay nets front and back for her, watched her on the camera, and in the end she wound up riding backwards at a slight angle. I liked having the ramp for the filly, I’m not sure she would have loaded as easily if I’d had to teach her to step up at the same time. But with the ramp and open box, she just walked right in, no hesitation.
The main things I disliked about my slant load are probably the same things others have mentioned - no access to the middle horse, small stalls, lack of any real ventilation - and the main thing for me was nothing between the last horse and the back gate. I never did feel comfortable not having something there to keep the horse in if the gate gave way. Not that it ever did, but that was a big wide open space that felt un-secured to me with just a gate latch. And the front stall was only big enough for smaller horses. My 15H QH was just too crowded, but my 14H QH fit…okay. It wasn’t the best, but she was the smallest of the three. The Appendix guy got the back.
Funny story about my rescue mare - I had a heck of a time getting her to load in my straight load, especially the right stall. She’d get halfway in, then just lose it and barrel out backwards. I tried lots of different things, and finally called her previous foster asking for help. She said, “I dunno, she always loaded fine in the stock trailer.” Her stock was a slant. Light bulb went off, I swung the middle divider over to the same angle that a slant would have, and viola` - mare loaded into the left stall without issue. Once she was in, I could move her over with the divider until she was standing straight and I could latch the butt bar, and she was fine with that - but I always had to start with the divider swung all the over. She was a pretty big mare, and I think it was just a claustrophobic habit she had. Walking in straight just didn’t feel right to her, she need her angle! Now teaching her to self load was a whole nuther story - but we got there.
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I wish there was an animated nodding emoji. Though once I did put my horses in the slant load with my mare facing backwards and nobody got hurt.
