Picking up Touch A Prince

 We picked up Touch A Prince on a very stormy evening.  He was coming with a shipper from Pagosa Springs, CO, and we met the shipper at a truck stop in Golden, outside of Denver.  The horse took a LONG TIME to load in the shipping trailer at the beginning of the trip, and so they got a much later start than expected.  Then, because of the storm going on in the mountains and into Denver it took the shipper much longer than was expected to arrive at our designated meeting spot.  As a result, we were standing in a wet icy parking lot at a truck stop at nine o'clock at night discussing the best way to transfer the horse from his rig into mine.  Neither one of us wanted to mess with a horse who was a difficult loader, in the dark, on wet and icy pavement, near a freeway.  The shipper had the brilliant idea to open up the back of both trailers, and I would back my trailer directly up to his.  This created kind of a tunnel for the horse to walk directly from his trailer into mine without ever touching pavement.  I backed my rig up to his until both of our rubber bumpers were touching and we had the setup in perfect alignment. 

 

Once everything was in position, we assessed the situation and decided I could just lead him from one trailer, over the rubber bumpers, into the other trailer.

 

Then the shipper untied the horse, let him turn around (thank goodness for large trailers), and I took the rope to guide him into my trailer.  

Touch A Prince followed me right in like a lamb, and proceeded to dive into the hay net I had in the manger of my trailer.  We fastened the butt rope behind him so he couldn't back out, and he seemed okay with the whole process.

He was tense and somewhat nervous, but when I patted him and told him I'd take care of everything he took a deep sigh and lowered his head, even gently touching me with his nose.  I then switched his halter to a leather one I had brought with me, because I much prefer hauling horses in something that will break if something goes wrong.  I pulled my rig forward a few feet, just enough that we could get the back door closed behind the horse.

For as tough as the driving was in such bad weather, the actual transfer of the horse went quite smoothly.  I love the photos, they certainly capture how dramatic the evening was!  I'm so grateful for my Bit of Honey crew, Rebecca and Joyce, who went with me to do this.  I'm also very grateful for the shipper and his regular phone calls to update me on his route changes due to weather and road closures.  He was a genuinely nice guy, with a brilliant idea to transfer the horse this way so we didn't have to concern ourselves with slipping on wet icy asphalt so near congested traffic off the freeway.

Our drive home from Golden was very slow, mostly we had to go about thirty mph because of road conditions.  We saw many many accidents and cars that had flown right off the road into medians, barriers, other cars, and snow drifts.  We took it really slow and Touch A Prince was a champion hauler, just busy with his hay net.  When we got home to Bit of Honey Training at near 11pm all of us were grateful that harrowing part of our journey is over!