The Not-So-Secret Diary of Diva the Shetland Pony – Travelling Companions

When travelling with your horse or pony you may need to take a companion along to ensure the horse is OK, and sometimes it is nice to have a human travelling companion too!

I am fortunate in that all my horses and ponies have been confident and able to travel on their own. If I have youngsters, I start them on short journeys with a net of hay available to them. I do not usually add a travelling companion as they then may come to rely on one, and it is much easier if they are happy alone.

Sometimes, however, horses or ponies are just not settled on their own, so in these cases a travelling companion is a must.

One of my sister’s point-to-pointers hated travelling alone and would sweat and paddle his feet, but with a companion beside him he would relax to the point that he looked almost asleep! With an eye on the payload it is helpful if your companion is small. My sister’s Shetland pony, Melland Jackson Jive, combines his showing career with that of keeping the point-to-pointers company on the way to the gallops and races. He is more than happy to stay in the box with a hay net and a carrot or two whilst the big horse does its work!

If you have two horses or ponies in a box (depending on the payload), one thing to be aware of when you are at a competition is that your horse may not like to be left in the box on its own, even if it is used to travelling alone. Horses are herd animals, and seeing its travelling companion being taken away can sometimes prompt even the steadiest of horses/ponies to get upset.

A friend’s horse, Daisy, used to be like this. She would travel anywhere alone, but if she went in a lorry with another horse she would get very upset and start rearing if the horse was unloaded. The solution was an easy one. We would unload both horses and I would walk my horse round the box, so Daisy could no longer see her, and then simply load Daisy back up. She would stand in there without any issues if we just did this trick!