What safety precautions do trainers like Clinton Anderson recommend during trailer loading?

Clinton Anderson addresses trailer loading safety directly in his horsemanship program, and his recommendations reflect hard-learned lessons from years of starting horses and dealing with resistant loaders in training situations. The most fundamental safety rule Anderson teaches is never wrap the lead rope around your hand. A horse that scrambles or spins can generate enough force to seriously injure or kill a handler who has the rope wrapped around their hand. The lead rope should always be held in a way that allows it to be released instantly if the horse explodes. He also recommends wearing gloves for any rope handling work, especially with horses that have not been confirmed to load. The second major safety point is positioning. The handler should never stand directly behind the horse during loading attempts, directly in the kill zone if the horse kicks. Anderson teaches handlers to work from beside the horse's hip, using a lead rope on one side and a flag or stick on the other, positioned far enough back to be out of kick range but close enough to apply effective driving pressure. For horses that have a history of scrambling, Anderson recommends using a slant-load trailer rather than a straight-load if available, because many horses are more comfortable in a slant-load and the risk of a horse going over a divider is lower. He also recommends removing any obstacles from inside the trailer — buckets, haynets hung at head height, or anything the horse could injure itself on during a scramble. Anderson and Parelli both recommend that the first several times a horse is transported after loading training, the trips should be short — fifteen to thirty minutes — to allow the horse to build confidence with the motion and balance demands of being in a moving trailer before longer trips are attempted. A horse that is fine loading but has never traveled can develop loading resistance after a difficult ride if the ride itself is frightening.