I've also never done the park and feed deal with the trailer, and I can't begin to imagine ever doing that. We've had horses that were difficult to load, that refused to load, that threw a fit about loading. We always got them loaded and didn't have to beat them senseless. But we were pretty insistent that they were going in - - if they wanted to stand there for a while, ok but they had to look at the trailer, etc. We don't use treats or food as a reward just steady pressure. If they wanted to start rearing and thrashing backwards, ok now we're going to really go backwards. If they wanted to try to dodge to the side, then ok we're going to go around in circles for a bit. When they got tired of that, we let them stand facing the trailer. And we kept pretty much steady pressure one way or the other for them to move forward, they got release by doing so.


I just think it's pretty futile to try to come up with why the horse decides now not to load (unless of course you know for a fact that something happened, and specifically what it was). And even if you know that something happened, unless you're going to just ride your horse at home, it still has to get in the trailer.