The aim of packing for a yard move is a calm first week: your horse should eat familiar food, wear rugs that fit him, and be handled with his own kit while everything around him is new. Start with what touches him daily — his headcollar and lead rope, grooming kit, hoof pick, and any boots or bandages he normally wears. Add his own water bucket if he is at all fussy about drinking from strange ones, since a labelled spare bucket weighs very little and can save a first night of refused water in an unfamiliar stable. Add rugs for the season he is moving into rather than the whole wardrobe: a stable rug, a turnout rug and a spare of whichever he is hardest on, cleaned before they go so the new yard starts with kit that smells of home but not of the old stable's deep litter.
Feed and forage for a gradual changeover
Sudden feed changes upset horses, so send enough of his current hard feed to cover a gradual swap onto the yard's supply across the first week or so, measured out or clearly marked so staff can see the proportions at a glance. If the yard's hay differs from what he has been eating — haylage where he had hay, or a much richer cut — send a few bales or nets of his old forage for mixing if the yard agrees, and say plainly on his sheet that forage changes should be gradual too. Label every bin and bag with his name, what it is and how much he gets, in the yard's own working measures, because 'one scoop' only helps if everyone is holding the same scoop.
Tack, documents and the labelling that saves arguments
If he will be ridden, his saddle, bridle and numnahs go with him, photographed before the move so condition and fit are a matter of record rather than opinion later. Put his name on everything that can be labelled without harming it: rug labels or tags, a name plate or tag on the headcollar, tape on grooming tools, his name inside the feed bin lid. Yards are busy, generous places where kit is borrowed in a hurry and returned to the wrong hook; labels are how his things keep being his. Pack his documents separately from the horsebox clutter — passport, vaccination record, insurance details — in one folder that travels in the cab and is handed over, not left.
The one sheet the yard actually reads
Finish with a single written sheet, not a booklet: feeding amounts and times, forage notes, turnout preferences, handling quirks that matter for safety — bargy at the stable door, nervous of clippers, loads better from the left — plus your number, your vet and your farrier. Give the yard the paper copy for the feed room wall, keep a photograph of it on your phone, and store the same routine in KinsLe's Care Pass, where it can be shared with the yard as standing instructions for his care; when the sheet on the wall fades, gets knocked into the muck heap or is still in the old yard's office, the details of his first week are still exactly where his carers can reach them.