Days of Our Rasps: Season 2

Farrier Drama

Yeah, at this point I don't have much else to post about but there have been updates in the farrier saga.

I had done some snooping and checked with a couple of friends who use the same farrier and as of the week prior to when he was scheduled to trim Katai he was still showing up. I did find out some other things that were going on with him in his personal life but injury or illness still wasn't completely off the table.

In the meantime I was able to talk with Jane's farrier. He was reluctant because he assumed that my farrier had stopped showing up for a reason (of course) and unfortunately because I didn't know why he'd stopped showing up I didn't have anything to say. Jane talked to him though and he agreed to come out and trim Katai on Monday as long as Jane was able to be there. I'm a very professional and reliable person and Katai's good for her feet to be trimmed so I'm confident that he'll see that but I'll do whatever I need to at this point to get Katai's feet done. Even if that means having my trainer baby sit us.

Also, I'm really glad I actually have someone scheduled to trim but disappointed that the weekend is really off the table for riding at this point. It may not be for all horses at 9 weeks between trim cycles but Katai has a foot that's slightly clubbed and she grows a ton of heel which makes her more unstable. Luckily her breakover isn't bad, but it's like she's wearing high heels. With that, there's no way I'm going to risk riding her and asking for anything athletic. The fact that I know she may be doing that in her paddock makes me nervous and I'm going to be worried until she gets trimmed.

Really no new media so you got a roany butt shot that I took for the saddle fitter

This is also a good place to say that next time (if there is ever a next time) I'm going to be more aggressive in finding a different farrier so that it doesn't go this long. It was just so tough to know when to do when my, up until three weeks ago, very reliable farrier didn't show up for an appointment and didn't let me know why.

Then, this morning I finally got a text from my farrier. I put what he said together with what I know from my friends and let's just say that he hasn't been physically ill or injured AND it also had nothing to do with me or Katai. He let me know that the last few days(!?!) had gotten away from him and that he'd be able to come out on Monday. At this point I'm extremely frustrated with him AND I already have someone coming out who will hopefully be more reliable. I wrote a very polite and pleasant message back to him that I wanted to see how it went with the new farrier and I'd let him know if I wanted him to continue to trim Katai. At this point I don't believe I do but I also haven't even met the new farrier yet so we'll see plus I don't believe in burning bridges.

Fingers crossed that everything goes well with the new farrier on Monday and that Katai's able to be back to normal after. The nice thing about this farrier is that he's already coming out to the barn to trim Jane's horses (my previous farrier was just coming out for Katai) so he's already out there on a regular basis. Hopefully that means that there's an extra layer of reliability there :)

You Spin Me Right Round Baby

Shit is getting real here at the barn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No, not that kind of shit.

Crazy barn drama type of shit. Last night I went to the barn just for a normal ride. I went through my normal routine which includes being very careful to follow all the rules of the barn. I swept up after myself, turned off lights, cleaned up poop, etc. I got into the arena for a ride and had a wonderful and productive ride for about 25 minutes and then, I still think just to mess with me, the barn owner decided to start fixing something.

At 8:15 at night.

I mean it’s his barn, he can work on it whenever he wants. But generally that means just briefly checking in with anyone at the barn to make sure that you aren’t causing a dangerous situation before you start some construction project. Thanks to a complete lack of communication my pony tried to kill both of us by getting so completely wound up that she spun circles around me for about 20 minutes. She was so scared that even her eyes were sweating and this is a pony that is nearly bomb proof. The weather is chilly and all the horses are on edge but that is just so much more of a reason to briefly check in with the person that is paying to ride at your barn before you start some noisy project. If he had told me before he started causing a racket I would have just dismounted and left so that I didn’t put any of us in that situation but instead he ended up prolonging my ride by about half an hour which meant that I was there after barn close. That meant that he tossed all my stuff, including my phone and jacket, off to one side in the barn isle and shut the lights off on me.

All I could think is where am I right now, preschool? The Twilight Zone?

People just don’t behave like this in real life. This is reality show style drama and that’s coming from someone who has worked in HR for the last 5ish years and has seen some crazy drama.

After I got Katai to stop spinning and lower her head a little I climbed back on so that she wouldn’t be dwelling on that scariness over her day off. I got a nice walk and trot in each direction and then climbed off.

After the ride I went out and got her groomed up and swept all the dirt into a pile again but then she decided she’d had it and wasn’t standing in cross ties anymore so I removed both of us before something dangerous happened and walked her up to her pasture. It was when I got back that the lights were off and all my stuff was piled to the side of the isle and the pile I had left had been swept up. At first I wondered if I’d left something in front of a door or something so he’d had to move it but no, it was just passive aggressively moved. I turned the lights back on, put my stuff away and then grabbed some miscellaneous items that I normally keep at the barn so that I can get that stuff back home and organized before my move. I felt guilty for leaving the pile of dirt but was absolutely going to pick it up as soon as I got back and it would never have even been left if the owner had been just a little bit conscientious since then my pony wouldn’t have been so wound up that I had to leave it like that.

Typing this up is still making me upset enough that I’m shaking and again, this is coming from someone that deals with a lot of conflict. I just don’t want to deal with conflict at the barn since that’s my happy place. I have no ill will towards the owners or the barn or the people that I’ve enjoyed spending time with over the last few months. I was going to continue to highly recommend this barn to people but after this behavior over the last couple weeks I just can’t in good conscious recommend that anyone board at this loony bin which is unfortunate since it is a truly beautiful facility and there are some great people boarding there. I’ve been trying to just keep a low profile since I was aware that this type of drama was going to occur during my last few days but now I’m really going to need to be extra cautious. Unfortunately looks like I’m not going to be able to move this weekend and since they are demanding to be on the property when I leave (drama with the person who’s picking me up who apparently "said bad things" about the owner’s wife) I’m limited to which days I can get out of there. Luckily I do have a trailer I can borrow just in case I can’t get schedules to work out but since it’s all the way across town I’d rather try this avenue first.

All The Dramas

Thankfully I’ve not yet been involved in the barn drama partially, probably, because since I work in HR I’m pretty adept at conflict management/avoidance but also because I’ve been nothing but pleasant and complementary to the owners of the facility. Unfortunately it seems to be one of those cases where if you disagree you become the enemy and I’ve got very little tolerance for that.

 

If you remember I posted a while ago about how the owners and kicked a couple of people out and I was happy that they were being proactive about it. At that point I believe the grand total of people they had kicked out was three but I found out later that they’d kicked out two before I ever got there. Since I understood the reasoning and knew that two of the people were actually endangering other boarders and their horses I wasn’t concerned and as I said then, I was actually pleased that they were taking a tough stance on that sort of behavior. After that though they’ve kicked out two additional boarders through a whole host of drama including the hay debate.

 

Now I understand as well as anyone else that the barn needs to be operated like a business. They have to make sure that they know how much hay and grain is going out so they can account for that in their budget and if someone takes hay or grain without asking it’s stealing. However, in my mind if you work something out with the owners that while your horse is offsite at a show you can take the exact same amount of hay and grain that they would have been fed at the barn that should be ok! They are still probably saving bedding and labor of looking after your horse during that time so they should be ok with it. However, at this barn the owners got into a huge fight with a boarder that wanted to do just that and told her that she could purchase a bale of hay from them for $10 (our hay is normally between $5-$7 per bale). This wasn’t me, I wish I were showing but I’m not, but honestly I probably would have just bought the hay since in the grand scheme of things $10 isn’t that bad. It’s just left me with a really bad taste in my mouth that they treated someone who was asking for something so reasonable so badly. I can even see if to keep things neat they wanted her to buy a bale rather than take hay, which might be tough to keep track of, but charge a reduced rate since that horse would have eaten almost that much as part of regular board. Or charge reduced board that month since the horse isn’t staying at the facility for three days. Any of these things would make sense or at least having an adult conversation about it but instead everything just blew up and the boarder left over it. I honestly can’t say I blame her.

 

I’ve been waffling over a few things including the fact that other than two other people the barn is quickly becoming home to only western pleasure horses and the fact that the owners are adding all these rules that aren’t in the contract I signed. Just for an idea, because I think this type of thing is interesting, I live in an area that charges about $450-$1000 for stall board and $200-$350 for pasture board. At J’s place I paid $300 for pasture board which included hay overnight when horses were brought into a dry lot, grain twice per day, and someone who put on and took off Katai’s grazing muzzle every day (and the pastures were amazing and well-kept with almost no weeds). At this barn I pay $325 for pasture board with no hands on care, no grain, and hay just during the winter. I would be paying $650 for stall board which does include blanketing and grain twice per day as well as daily hand walking to semi private pens and full day turnout. However, it seems that amount does not pay for poop pick up on the way to and from the pastures. I’m the first one to clean up poop anywhere in the barn or arena both indoor and outdoor but when the walk from the pasture to the barn is almost a mile down a driveway and my horse poops in the grass half way there I just don’t know that I should feel like I should be required to go pick it up while she stands in cross ties. What are your opinions? Am I being a spoiled brat that it’s bothering me? Between that, the hay debate, some of the complaints I’ve heard from other boarders and the fact that I wouldn’t trust the barn manager to notice if my horse were injured (a pasture horse is currently in surgery that had a two inch diameter and four inch long branch lodged about three inches in right above his right eye. Another boarder noticed when she brought her horse in that it had happened and they could tell it had been several hours and they had to call the barn manager who lives on site and tell her) I’ve been seriously thinking about moving Katai again.

 

Trust me, it’s the last thing I wanted to be considering at this point :-( I hate moving barns anyway and rebuilding all these friendships and I’m sure Katai would really like to not have to move and adjust again. There are some great people at this barn it just seems like I only see them about once a month. I honestly was thinking I’d just stay where I am but then I heard from a friend that the manager of a nearby barn that is dearly loved by the local dressage community was opening up a second barn. This is new barn is actually a location I’d toured when I was going to leave J’s initially but I didn’t like that manager who did really odd things and was known locally for being flaky when it came to things like turning horses out. Now that this new woman is taking over that facility I’d jump at the chance to board there. 

 

When I went to tour the barn they were having a spa day and they welcomed me in with open arms and a glass of wine (seriously, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven) and I got a tour of the new and improved facility. There is still some work to do before it is ready but they’re aiming to have it ready in about two weeks and it already looks amazing. The arena has been completely redone and she’s been working on footing daily. The pens are semi private, full day turnout, nice large stalls, and trails on the property that aren’t overwhelmed with bicycles, joggers, rollerblades, and poorly behaved dogs. It sounds like L will be teaching there probably but even if not, there are a couple of other dressage instructors. Plus it will be a truly mixed barn with other people who ride various forms of English (hunter, jumper, dressage, eventing, etc.), some people who drive their horses, and some western people. Plus they have an area for dogs to hang out on the property so that I can actually bring my puppy while I ride and he wouldn’t have to go back into his kennel :-)

 

If you can’t tell from the above I’m already fairly convinced but what do all of you think? What would you do in this situation? The care at the current barn is far from bad and actually Katai has been doing well. I’ve got friends there and so far have been getting along great with the owners. Is it worth the risk to move again in your opinion even with some of the big concerns I have about the current barn or would you just go ahead and move to the new barn with the manager/owner that so many people have said great things about?

I promise there will be more Katai centered posts soon!