Trailer Trauma - How do I help her over this?

[Moomin]

We had a bit of an accident about 5 days ago with Moo in the trailer - basically someone drove into the side of the trailer at speed, missed the car but got the trailer good and proper. She is in one piece although quite badly cut and bruised (she bumped her head bless her!). She was incredibly brave and calm about it too - she stood and waited until we got her off and then walked back up the road with me very nicely. Vet said it was lucky she had her travel boots on as it was clearly a huge impact, you can see in the trailer she's broken all the fittings where she fell agaist the partition.

Now she quite understandably refuses (albeit politely) to go in the trailer again even for a look. She has never had a problem loading before - I've travelled her in lots of different lorries and trailers and she's always gone straight in. In fact its the one thing she hasn't needed to be retrained for! However now she just says NO.

I have a feeling that if she does get in there she will panic now too.

How can I help her get through this? Should i leave it for a bit and hope the memory fades, or should I keep trying to load her now? (although it will have to wait a while as the trailer is in bits at the mo!!)

[Pickles]

If you can get the trailer parked in her field for a bit this might be worth a try.

Put the ramp down and take out any internal partition. Then feed her next to the ramp everyday until she's happy. Next step feed her on the ramp and gradually move her feed up into the box.

Hopefully she's forget about the accident and just acosiate the box with feed time.

Once she goes in happily start to use it as groundwork ie no feed involved and eventually take her for little drives, maybe drive up to a local bridleway have a small hack and then load her back home?

[Wally]

You have a long road ahead of you by the sound, but one which is done a step at a time. No hurry, just a bit at a time.

I'd do the feed thing with no question about asking her to go in. Then just put the bucket farther and farther up the ramp, don;t ask her to load, just as her to eat her dinner nearer and nearer up the ramp.

Poor you, what an ordeal, I'm not sure I'd have kept my temper with the driver of the car.

[Aaron]

I had a pony that used to throw itself the the ground and slip and struggle when travelling, obviously due to a bad experience, we didn't notice and just thought the noise was 'usual thumping' until one day we parked somewhere to get petrol and i quickly checked on him and he was on the deck struggling, when he got up he'd just go down again.
this was due to panic, the way to get a better idea, when you get you're lovely honest sounding horse on eventually, travel a short trip with her see whats going on in her mind and just be there to reassure her, take you're feed bucket in. If she is a horse, i know someone who took the partition out and that apparently helped a great deal, infact yes it did!

Hope this helps. Aaron.