Hauling Tips from A World Champion Roper and an Equine Veterinarian
By Aimee Robinson for Valley Vet Supply
Thousands of miles of dotted lines have passed before the view of World Champion Breakaway Roper, Jackie Crawford, while hauling her horses.
She, along with Steve Allday, DVM, a competitive team roper and equine lameness specialist overseeing the care of legendary Thoroughbred racehorses, share their best practices for safer hauling and joint health for horses.
Joint Health
“We ask so much of our horses, not only in competition but just going down the road,” Crawford says. “They take so much concussion on their joints in the trailer—it worries me even more than what we’re asking them to do in the arena sometimes. We do everything we can, preventatively.”
“The pounding and grinding from shipping, training and performing—all these things add up,” says Dr. Allday, who developed LubriSyn HA. “Prevention and trusted supplements are paramount to maintaining the health of the joint.”
Crawford does everything she can for her horses, including supplements, especially during the summer with more frequent hauling. She stresses the importance of the little things, like where horses are stalled and getting them access to turnout. “It’s hard to find good places for horses to stay where they can rest their joints and relax. It’s important to turn them out and let them roll. Paying for preventative measures is so much better than trying to pay to fix something once it’s gone bad. I’m going to do everything I can, short of bubble wrapping them, to keep them going up and down the road and to keep us winning.”
Dr. Allday’s credo is to choose preventative medicine over restorative. “Staying ahead of it on the preventative side is always smarter when trying to keep an athlete on the road. If you can prevent something from happening, you’re going to have better results.”
Take Pit Stops
“I like to get horses off the trailer at least every six hours,” says Crawford. “We don’t just take them off and walk them around; I really want them to rest for the time they’re off the trailer.”
When possible, find safe and secure areas to unload. If an overnight is required, research stables beforehand and reserve a space. If your horse is selective about their water source away from home, haul water with you, along with their regular feed.
“I think it’s very important for horses to get their head down when you take them off the trailer,” says Crawford. “It’s really important for a couple reasons. It stretches their back muscles, and it helps to drain any fluid they’ve caught up.”
Crawford recalls two horses being hauled by a shipper who weren’t given the opportunity to stretch their heads down, instead they were walked, watered, and tied back up. “For a lot of hours, those horses never drained. We came back home, and two of them ended up in the vet clinic with tubes coming out of their chest with pneumonia. It was the craziest thing, and honestly, until that point, I hadn’t thought about it either.”
To encourage horses to put their head down, she waters them on the ground, grazes them, or puts hay on the ground for them to graze.
Dr. Allday explains more. “As you go down the road, there are a lot of dust particles—hay and things that float around in the trailer that horses inhale. These get into their upper respiratory tract and down into their bronchial tree. When horses get out [of the trailer] and they put their head down in the water as they rehydrate, it basically stimulates the clearance mechanism, and helps things move up out of the bronchial tree and the lower tree. This helps the horse expectorate and move things out of their airways.”
Open the Windows
Crawford cleans out the urine and manure from the trailer during her frequent stops, and Dr. Allday agrees. “Ammonia is very irritating to the airway of both people and horses. Getting that cleared out is an excellent suggestion, especially during winter, because we tend to seal the trailers up. I like good air circulation and ventilation in a trailer, winter, or summer,” says Dr. Allday. “Clean air is key, and airflow also prevents a hot trailer.
“If you have a four-horse trailer with four horses in there, they generate an unbelievable amount of heat,” warns Dr. Allday. “Even in regular temperatures, let’s say 72 degrees, four horses require a tremendous amount of air circulation to keep heat from building up inside. During the period of an hour, they can raise the temperature in a trailer by 20 to 30 degrees.”
Other Protective Measures
Protecting horses’ eyes and legs during hauling is important too. “We haul our horses with fly masks, so that if anything blows, it doesn’t get in their eyes, and we use shipping boots. What I tend to do in the summertime is to use mud or liniment on the legs to help cool the horse,” shares Crawford. She specifies that in the summer, she uses the mud or liniment by itself, and in the winter months, she’ll apply it underneath shipping boots.
About Valley Vet Supply
Valley Vet Supply was founded in 1985 by veterinarians to provide customers with the very best animal health solutions. Valley Vet Supply serves equine, pet, and livestock owners with thousands of products and medications. With an in-house pharmacy that is licensed in all 50 states and verified through the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP), Valley Vet Supply is the dedicated source for all things horse, livestock, and pet. For more information, please visit ValleyVet.com.
See this article in the September/October 2023 online edition:
Colorado Horse Source Magazine’s September/October 2023 Issue
The Colorado Horse Source is an independently owned and operated print and online magazine for horse owners and enthusiasts of all breeds and disciplines in Colorado and surrounding area. Our contemporary editorial columns are predominantly written by experts in the region, covering the care, training, keeping and enjoyment of horses, with an eye to the specific concerns in our region.