Can horses get claustrophobia?

Tweet

Anna (@LadyDuck) commented on a recent post that animals could also have problems and maybe Red, the Collie pit pony that I wrote about recently, suffered from claustrophobia. I believe one of my harness ponies became claustrophobic. We bought the two ponies in Victoria, Australia, and they made the long journey to the west in a big horse transporter. It would have been very confining and a very long trip. Both were seasoned travellers but one, Burgundy, began to play up in the float (that’s what horse trailers are called here). He would fling himself against the side to the extent that it became hard to keep the car on the road. He would come off the float in a lather of sweat but immediately drop his head and start eating grass, not seeming the least upset. He would willingly walk back on but once the vehicle started moving, he would start his frantic movements. I was worried that he would fall down in the float and we’d not be able to get him up easily. We ended up having an open-type trailer made. Fabian had the front third and Burgundy had the back two-thirds. If he fell over he had plenty of room to get himself back up without endangering us. He also had a lot more room to balance himself. This seemed to solve the problem. We never had any more trouble after that. In the photo, Fabian is on the left and Burgundy on the right. They are focussed on a bucket of carrots.