Horse trailer design significantly affects transport welfare, with poorly designed trailers causing injury, balance stress, and physiological strain during even short journeys.
The cumulative welfare cost of transport for horses is substantial across their lifetime. Horses transported frequently in poorly designed trailers experience chronic minor injury, respiratory challenges, and significant stress. The good news is that trailer design improvements, positive loading training, and journey management practices can dramatically reduce transport-related welfare problems. Training horses to load calmly using positive reinforcement eliminates much of the fear and injury associated with forced loading, and represents one of the highest-impact welfare improvements available to horse owners.