You probably already tried this, but is there anything treat/food wise he loves you could feed him in the trailer to distract him?
i meant a trainer to help him learn to load comfortably and safely. I suggest a positive/reward trainer. It would take a little while, your horse will need to trust and want to please the trainer first…before even trying to load. Just small stuff on the ground, that’s all. That’s how it works for me and my mustangs anyway.
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I have a horse that is very worried in the trailer as well. Behavior similar to yours and started with the same style trailer.
For my horse, Sims (Simmy!) he is better with a buddy, and he is definitely more anxious when in the barn alone, which makes me think separation anxiety is a big part of his concern. I’d prefer to haul him with a buddy, but I only have three horses on my hobby farm and don’t want to leave one behind.
I recently sold my 2H straight load BP and bought a 2+1 Balanced Ride, partially for this reason (BP was old and a little small for my XL guys). I took out all the dividers and configured so that he can have an 11’ box.
The new trailer is better, lots of windows and Simmy loads easily but as soon as I start to close the doors he wants to get out. So I let him. I have started practicing by loading Sims with a tub feeder full of soupy beet pulp and senior feed. He happily slurps away and I close a door. If he turns away from his bowl for a long look and certainly if he turns around to get out of the trailer I know I’m close to his threshold, so I stop there until he goes back to slurping. After a week of daily practice, I can close him in and walk away to do chores and he doesn’t leave his bowl. Haven’t actually hauled him anywhere yet in the new rig. It’s a slow process, but he is a lot more calm. I think if a horse is too nervous to eat during trailer practice it’s an indication that he’s not really feeling ok.
I have a terrible fear of heights, but when I worked at a refinery I had to climb distillation towers during maintenance outages for inspection purposes. Each year at the start of the maintenance outage my fear would be crippling, but after 30 days of climbing it would almost feel normal. My point is that ‘practice’ really helped me and that after gaps in my ‘practice’ it would take awhile for me to get past my initial fear. I bet it’s similar for some horses. Simmy is very obedient and tries hard, but will probably always carry some concern about the trailer; I’ve had him since he was 2yo, he’s now 6yo and has never had an accident in the trailer to my knowledge. I’m lucky to be able to practice loading with Sims whenever I decide to invest the time.
Good luck with your horse. It’s not you. I’ve owned 15 horses and Sims is the only one who has been this worried about the trailer. Of course no one else in my family has fear of heights and I’ve never had an accident to justify my fear of heights, so I get it. 
Edited to add a few more details.
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This is a great post!
Ha, this was the exact same thing for me! Except I think my brain has permanently turned off my depth perception based fear, because now I can get right to the edge of a roof and my stomach still doesn’t flip like it used to.
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@endlessclimb
My fear of heights is firmly intact. I trained myself to stare directly in front of me as I climbed to try to block out periphery. I also had a internal chant in rhythm with the ladder rungs to stay focused. The good news is I am the opposite of claustrophobic so I’d feel instantly better as soon as I got inside the vessel/tower. I would volunteer for all the blind walk downs so I would get practice climbing with friends before I had to climb…to the top…alone…at night. 
It’s funny, now that I’m a desk jockey, I can remember those days fondly.
Not sure how to coach Simmy on my coping methods…just going to focus on practice and hopefully he comes up with his own tricks.
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Thanks for all the anecdotes. I’m just glad it’s not JUST my horse that’s a dork about these things. I know from his perspective it’s terribly frightening, but he’s also got a stubborn streak that kicks in once he’s over the fear and into the “I don’t wanna” phase. And that’s what really frustrates me!
I’ve ordered a mirror (just have to figure out how to hang it) and am going to configure a box stall with plywood and taking out the divider. I plan to watch him on the camera and see what position he picks, as well as keep working on the “trailer is a good place” thing. Eventually he will need to learn to ride with the dividers in but I’m willing to compromise for now to get him over this (and he’s my only horse right now anyways).
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