“Can you put a horse on the tail lift of a lorry?”
I’m the first to admit that when I bought my first horse Jack, I knew nothing. I didn’t realise I knew nothing but I knew bugger all. Not too dissimilar from now but ya know… always learning and all that.
He was sold to me as a thoroughbred x Cob (I still have the receipt with it scribbled on lol), which is laughable considering we later found out he was a Clydesdale x warmblood. I’d never owned a horse, let alone had one vetted or more importantly, transported a horse from a to b.
My dad was by my side through the whole process of finding him. I remember I’d been looking for months and still couldn’t find one. My mum on the other hand was the sensible person trying to convince me to pursue other avenues of interest… pretty much anything other than the money eating pain in the arse that is the horse. I came from a very non-horsey family, in fact a family that had no animals whatsoever so the mere thought of my buying one seemed outrageous. There were lots of comments regarding me being swapped at birth etc. I think my mum just anticipated a life of poverty for me… I mean she wasn’t wrong let’s face it…
My dad on the other hand was super for it (silly man), looking at horses for me, especially after the first two I viewed ended in disaster. And he eventually landed on Jack… I instantly said no. He wasn’t for me. But he convinced me to see him and I distinctly remember walking away from the first viewing and saying to my dad, “I want that horse! I’m gonna buy that horse!”
We viewed Jacki twice before organising the vetting. He was 3 years and 2 months, as lanky as could be and had no clue what my leg and seat aids meant. He’d been backed at 2 and a half years old because a vet advised them due to his size - I mean 🙄
We knew if all went well on the day of the vetting, we’d be bringing him home and so the chat about transport was brought up. Luckily my dad had a mighty sized work van so I begun looking for a trailer. There weren’t that many companies around back then to hire trailers from like there are now so I must admit, I was struggling… and that’s when he said it. I’ll never forget it, “Dya reckon he’d be alright on a tail lift?”
“Sorry what!?”
“Well, I can get one of those lorries with a tail lift. We could whack him on that, you hold him while I put it up and then walk him in the back. He’ll have plenty of room in the back!”
“…..uh….no Dad…. No…. We can’t do that”
“You sure!? Coz I can get the lorry just like that!”
“We can’t do that Dad.”
That was 16 years ago. You’ll be pleased to know we hired a trailer, we didn’t whack him on a tail lift. He did reverse out quick sharp on his first attempt at loading and broke my hand but that’s a story for another day.
It’s one of my funniest “things that non-horse people say” and something me and my dad chuckle about still to this day. Jack is now 19 years old and still taking me and now my husband and children on adventures too.
