‘They’ Say horses like trailering in slant loads, but with my own horse, he doesn’t prefer them. He easily self loads on a straight load all day long, but ask him to load onto a slant, and you have to encourage him to get on. My sister has a slant, and he IMO doesn’t enjoy it, as well as my coach, he’s not a fan of getting on her slant load either. He seems happy in his straight load, he’s a dinky little TB in a WB sized trailer, quite a funny sight. He has a lovely drop down window where the breeze blows into his Toupe, with a nice screen to stop any debris from getting in. He seems to love it, and he wouldn’t be easy to load if he didn’t love it.
I originally wanted a slant load because I trailer 90% of the time alone, so thought it would be easiest, but a too good of a deal came up on a 4* straight load that I had to hop on it. Good news, he’s just as easy to work with on the straight load.
It’s that “bracing for the inertia” that I’ve recently run afoul of, because in my slant, my biggest 17 hander has been bracing against the inertia to the point that he is getting a pressure rub on his right hind quarter. Not just a mark; an actual injury. With more room the smaller horses seem to do fine and be able to alleviate the pressure points, but the bigger guys with a tighter fit in that space, not so much.
I think this goes to show that it varies with every situation, owner, horse, and trailer :lol: My 17 hander does just fine in my standard sized Featherlite. I think it truly is preference (and horse preference). Most of mine have never been on a straight load so probably wouldn’t be comfortable for them.
And as stated previously, it seems regional too. Though I got my start with horses AND trailers east of the Mississippi, and have always had a slant. I buck that trend, though it seems to hold up for the most part. Just like out east they’re called farms, and in the west we call them ranches. Different strokes :yes:
I don’t want to say I would never put mine on a straight load, because things change and sometimes situations warrant doing something differently (and I have seen some say they would never put a horse on a slant load, which baffles me), but I do have a strong dislike for straight loads.
I always hear people say their horses choose to ride slanted when they have the choice, but in all the years I’ve hauled, I’ve never had a horse choose to slant or lean on a side wall while shipping loose. They always stand straight and in the middle of the trailer.
I have a slant and it’s wonderful for smaller horses and problem loaders. I don’t have the rear tack room so it’s a nice wide, inviting opening to just walk them up and quietly “squeeze” them in the stalls. But it’s completely useless for my bigger horses. X-tall and x-wide, but they simply don’t fit. Next time, I will be getting either a stock trailer with big boxes or a 2+1.
Mine travels much better in a sland. He scrambles in a Straight and it’s awful… no matter how slowly or carefully you drive. I dont think ive gone to a show in the past 4 years where he did not have some fresh wound covered in aluspray.
Uh oh, I go both ways. Does that mean I am a trans-hauler? I even will use ramps or step-ups! :lol: Had both, fine with both. Current trailer is a 3 horse slant; I got it because my Suburban could pull it and taking 3 horses to a show is really helpful. Also because I drive, I can load the carriage and a horse in the slant, versus hauling each separately. Next trailer – who knows? Whatever suits my purposes at the time.
I LOVE my slant! It’s a three horse, step up, bumper pull with tack room in the front. I have never put a third on it, and will probably never put a third on it. There just doesn’t seem to be enough room to fit one safely. But in the event of a true emergency, I could sandwich my little old man on the back of the trailer to move my three at once.
I bought the slant because I felt like it was a little safer (and better looking) than a stock. My old guy will not back off the trailer, so a straight load was out of the question. Even with a divider that swings, he cannot bend well enough to get himself turned around, and will not, under any circumstances, back off the trailer. I can open the slant and he can turn around to walk off. Additionally, my youngster was not the best at loading. She tends to go backwards. I felt like this might become a very bad habit with a straight load if I’m trying to load her by myself, without someone behind to get the butt bar.
Each divider is a full, flat piece of metal. There is no space for a leg to get caught if someone kicked. I was really picky about this.
My horses ride well in a slant too. No issues at all. I had a lease who did not like the slant touching her side, but she also didn’t ride well in a straight load either.
The one thing I do not like about it is the lack of an emergency or escape door for the front slant. If there was a true issue, I would have to unload the second horse to get to the horse up front. I rarely haul more than one at a time though… so knock on wood…
This is the #1 reason I will never haul in a slant - they are dangerous, and just to haul more with less size and vehicle. Not worth the danger to me or my horses, IMO.
I also can’t tell you how many times I have had to unload in a specific order as someone (horse) was upset at being “left” for a few seconds. A friend of mine, who happened to manage one of the top Hann breeding farms in the country, and taught the Instructor program at a top riding school, had a front horse panic, break away, and scramble OVER the one next to it to get out. She is VERY experienced.
Yours doesn’t have an escape door up front? I don’t think I’ve seen too many of those but I do know they exist. I personally wouldn’t buy one without an escape door. I have had to use it a handful of times; mostly when one particular snowflake didn’t want to back off, and I wanted to get the others off the trailer before I did battle with her.
I agree with you the thought of going A over Teakettle in a straight is very worrisome – I don’t love the idea either. IMHO I don’t think there’s any perfectly safe way to haul a horse.
However, regarding slants – horses do not have more stability standing sideways at all. in fact, if left to their own devices, most horses will stand straight on, facing backwards (aka away from travel). it’s the way every horse I have ever trailered loose has arranged themselves. I’ve never seen one stand sideways, ever.
Horses brace better front to back than side to side - same as humans. you’d have an easier time bracing yourself if the forces going against you were front/back than if they were side-to-side. that’s why martial arts (especially defense classes) teach you to strike sideways - it’s a good way to knock the body off of balance.
the other thing about slants is the amount of torque it places on the front/hind lower limb same-side pair. straight loads do not do that to the same degree. very easy way to fatigue the limb, cause stress to it, and injure it. especially if you have to brake hard. In straights, there is torque during braking hard on the front limbs, but is not a diagonal pressure, it is straight on - AKA the limb is taking torque the way it was intended to.
I don’t like slants because I find in wrecks and emergencies they can be very, very ugly. I especially do not trailer my horse in any slant that has a rear dressing room - I have watched many people get hurt having no escape option. Horses too. I have seen horses come off of slants very sore after long trips (MA to SC, many times) and those same horses did not come off sore when in a box stall arrangement. YMMV.
And… in a wreck, those slant dividers do absolutely nothing to contain the horse - most are aluminum which just about crumples if a horse sneezes on it (and once it is bent, especially in a wreck, it’s very hard to open or remove)… so I am not so sure that slants are in any way safer in a wreck – there’s too many bolts and latches that are VERY inaccessible when the trailer is on its side. They are certainly much harder to extricate a horse from, as the horses tend to panic and get tangled in or around the dividers, and there are several latches that cannot be removed if there is any pressure on them. God forbid you are trailering with several in a slant - if you cannot get the last horse(the one closest to the rear door) out, the other three are screwed until they are cut out.
It’s a real shame there are no long-term studies on which is safer in an accident. Just out of my own experience, I think straight loads are safest. The less bolts and latches to fuss with in an emergency, the better.
So plenty of accidents like that happen in straight loads too? Slant loads are no more inherently dangerous than straights- what’s dangerous is that we put half ton plus living fireballs in tiny boxes on wheels and head on down the highway. I find the biggest difference comes when people actually take the time to train horses to load, to tie, to have patience. A horse that throws a fit because it’s the last horse on the trailer is usually a horse with a training hole, not a horse with a trailer problem.
Honestly, Beowolf, in that bad of a wreck, I think any and all are screwed. If a straight load is on its side, I don’t see horses walking away from that (or easily egressed). Not trying to pick a fight at all. It’s my personal preference and experience that MINE haul better and brace better in a slant. And I just can’t shake the images of a horse struggling to keep his legs braced for the forward and backwards motion on a straight load. I’ve had some come off a box stall so shakey and rattled looking. But they seem happy and fresh when they come off a 24 hour ride on a slant. Just my observations.
In addition to owning an 8 foot, 3 horse slant ( warmblood sized stalls) with a full front escape door I also own a stock trailer that can be separated into 2 big box stalls. I have a trailer camera in both and can tell you with 100% certainty that a loose horse in one of those box stalls, be it a single horse or a mare with foal will travel on an angle with their heads to the rear of the trailer Every Single Time. No matter the length of time they are in that trailer.
In a full stop situation you can bet that a horse has more protection against the force of that stop against the side of their body rather then head on with a simple breast bar. Which more often then most will snap or collapse on full horse chest impact. I have seen this on a number of occasions sadly in my profession.
Add of course the additional inherent risk of a horse actually jumping “over” the chest bar and getting seriously injured just no way a straight load trailer is safer then a slant.
Not IME. I live east of the Mississippi and my trailer-owning friends are about split evenly between the slant owners and the straight owners. Our previous BM had one of each (the straight had a ramp), and the horses loaded the same into both the slant and the straight, step-up or ramp.
I don’t think it’s the horses who have the problem with the style or the loading; if the rider/handler has a problem, the horses probably pick up on their tension. Of course western riders – real western riders in the real west – don’t get tense!
our slant had an escape door for the first horse, the only time we ever used it for a horse was for some else’s horse who would not back, no problem lead the dude out the side door.
Our horses Hated Straight Load, with or without ramps, they are the ones who wanted the slant
Oh, I 100% agree with the bolded in your post. I don’t think there is any way to trailer a horse that is 100% risk free. Most we can do is manage/minimize the risks - having a good loader/trailerer, keeping the trailer UTD and routinely inspected, driving very conservatively. Some horses do better in slants, some in stocks, some in straights. It does boil down to human and horse preference, but the stability thing I think is very much proven by physics.
It’s just been my experience that it’s very hard in a crisis to remove horses from slants. Especially if the last horse loaded in is for whatever reason, obstructed.
I’ve had a horse go over the chest-bar in a straight before and you’re right, I never want to deal with it again. We couldn’t get the pin off the bar and honestly I thought we were going to have to cut him out… but he got out of it, no worse for wear. We were able to remove the divider to get him out.
The same thing though, happens in slants – horses go THROUGH the dividers and into the other horses. The slant dividers are not meant to withstand that much weight and yeah, they kind of crumple leaving just the bar intact. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard and seen horses go over the dividers in slants. What’s the worse is when they kick out and get a leg stuck over it – you wouldn’t think their legs can bend like that.
Accidents happen no matter the type of trailer. From an owner perspective, I just prefer the relative ease and straightforwardness (and also security) that a straight load offers over a slant. I don’t need to get both horses out to get one, I have multiple points of egress, and the horses do too – including if the box is on its side.
@cherham re: traveling at an angle – it’s very different to travel at a slight angle facing away from motion than it is to travel at the diagonal angle (with the motion) that slants force horses to face in. the angles are completely different too. there is a lot more torque having them face motion than there is having them brace against it. horses don’t usually prefer to travel in the position that slants require.
In a full stop situation that cherham mentioned, horses in slants collide to the side with the divider, which does one of two things: it goes through them, or it goes through the other horse in the trailer. The divider does not protect the horse in any way against impact, and IMHO, having a horse’s flank withstand sudden impact is MUCH more dangerous than having its chest withstand impact. I speak from experience there. There is way too much viscera very close to their surface on the horse’s barrel/flanks and recovering from a bruised chest and sore neck is much easier than trying to get a horse to recover from multiple fractured ribs, or worse, peritonitis from rib fractures destabilizing and puncturing the gut. The flank is the horse’s weakest part of the body, structurally speaking – a massive impact there can kill them easily.
Horses don’t easily flip over the chest bar in a straight either - especially the bigger ones – usually they crash into it and if they go bum over teakettle, the roof stops them from a full rotation.
Time and time I hear people say that slant dividers offer “support” for their horses - in a collision, they don’t. Dividers are not meant to withstand 2000lbs of impact and they don’t. In a bad collision, a horse in a slant collides with the divider, bends it, flips over the next divider and into the next horse because the impact is usually head on. This is not a pretty picture and no, it does not happen in straight loads.
If you have a strong stomach, I would look at trailer accident pictures online - slant trailers are especially horrific, and usually require extraction through cutting the trailer. If one is especially interested, many EMTs and extraction teams have experience with trailers and will tell you that slants are consistently the most difficult in a crisis.
It’s all about picking your poison, but IMHO, slants force the horse to travel against the motion and put too much torque on their limbs for me to think they are as safe as other trailer types.
