My own horses, I've noticed, hate to stand at a slant, and will stand facing forward if they *must*, but if I let them free in the trailer, they're all facing out the back.
Facing backward makes the most sense to me, because think about it: If you're sitting in a car, staring out the side window the whole time, you'll probably start to feel a bit woozy. So you'd usually turn to look out the front or back windows. Well, most trailers don't really have anything to look at toward the front, except maybe some dingy little windows way up high, so they look out the back.
So which theory have you found to be true or believe in the most?