Protect Your Horse with a SafeKick® Wall System

Are you concerned about your horse injuring itself due to kicking in the trailer? Many horse trailers have thin rubber walls with thick, hard backing plates to secure them. With less than 1/4 inch of rubber, it doesn’t take long for a horse to paw or kick away the rubber, exposing sharp fasteners that can injure them. The SafeKick^® Wall System, a standout feature of Double D Trailers, is your answer. Designed to flex when your horse kicks the walls of the horse trailer, SafeKick^® walls are made of a thick slab of durable material composed of 95% plastic and 5% rubber. This innovative wall system is designed to absorb the impact of kicks, ensuring your horse’s safety and your peace of mind during transport. Say goodbye to the risks of traditional trailer walls and embrace the advanced protection of SafeKick^®.

Ready to learn more about how the SafeKick^® Wall System can protect your horse? Talk to a member of the Double D Trailers team to learn more.

Understanding Why Horses Kick

Habit, fear, and excitement are the three most common reasons why horses kick the walls of a horse trailer.

Stall kicking and trailer kicking are sometimes related behaviors. Often, horses that kick in their stalls have learned that behavior in response to boredom -- some horses realize that if they kick, they’ll get rewarded with food or attention in response to the action. If your horse kicks in the stall and kicks when loaded in a horse trailer, you may be able to correct the behavior with careful training, but meanwhile, the SafeKick^® Wall System offers essential protection to your horse during this learning period.

Horses who kick out of fear are another problem entirely. Sometimes horses kick the walls of horse trailers because they’re afraid of being confined or of the trip that’s coming -- they may have experienced trauma while enclosed or been involved in a trailer accident. Fear kicks usually don’t start right away. The horse will try to back away or resist entering the trailer first.  This is a much trickier problem -- you’ll probably need the help of an animal behaviorist, who should be able to tone down the kicking or pawing. These horses will hurt themselves in a trailer eventually unless you take care to design your custom horse trailers with their anxiety in mind.

You know your horse better than anybody, though -- just because the most common causes of kicking are fear and habit, that doesn’t mean your horse might not be kicking out of joy. Interestingly, not all kicking is negative! A horse that happily loads, has a great time when he’s on the trail or at a show, and gives every sign that he’s enjoying every minute might be kicking or pawing out of impatience or excitement. Those are the horses we all want, but protection for their feet and legs remains a priority.

As a horse owner, you understand your equine partner's nuances best. No matter the reason for their kicking, safeguarding them with a SafeKick^® Wall System is a wise and caring choice for their protection. All our trailers come with SafeKick^® Wall Systems standard because we care about your horses.