Horse trailering -- I typed for 5 minutes but the Q was closed when I tried to submit it - here's your answer

I'm going to reiterate a suggestion I've seen several times already: get the Parelli horse-loading DVD.

Do not: blindfold the horse or sedate the horse (except in the case of an genuine emergency where you truly didn't have the time to adequately train the horse beforehand) or lure the horse on with treats.

Horses have a hierarchy of needs:

(1) safety

(2) comfort

(3) play

(4) food.

This means that, until a horse's safety issues are met, they are not going to be persuaded by comfort or the promise of food. For example, if I flicked you repeatedly in the shoulder, you might move away from me a little to get me to stop. If, on the other hand, I was flicking you on the right side and on the left side was the edge of the cliff, I'm not going to talk you into dropping off the cliff simply because I'm annoying you. The same goes for whacking a horse on the butt with a broom, or flicking with a whip, etc. If a horse thinks it's going to die if it gets in that trailer, no a