Passion and animals intersecting always seems to bring out the craziest of crazy.
The best you can do in the horse world is surround yourself with people whose “crazy” matches your own. :yes:
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OP, I would urge you to look around. I have had boarders and I’ve been a boarder so I’ve seen both sides. It is expensive to board, and the way I look at it, you work hard for your money and your investment in your horse both in time and money should be a positive one, not one fraught with anxiety over whether the barn owner is going to yell and cause an upset.
But as a barn owner, I had rules for the safety of the horses and I expected people to accept and live by them. You didn’t mention what people have done wrong to get the barn owner into such a state that he starts yelling, but whatever it is, I would not want to stay in a barn where the owner has the potential to blow up at people. Good luck.
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Horses pick up on vibes and tension from unstable people like this BO. I would move. He sounds very unpredictable.
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live up to your screen name, pack up and leave. If the facility upkeep is “ok” and you guess care is good then that’s not good enough. Do you sleep soundly at night or do you sometimes waken thinking if things are OK. Who wants to be around that kind of a person? How can you even enjoy your time at the barn if everyone is worried about setting some wackjob off?
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I’ve found that good care is much less of a guarantee than crazy people, so I deal with the crazy people for good care.
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An unfortunate necessity more often than not…
:nonchalance:
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Because most people don’t deal with it and start yet another thread after the fact. As soon as I see drama at a barn I do not engage and move. It’s not hard.
This!
Regardless of the barn owner, I feel that part of horse ownership is staying close to your horse’s situation. The owner is the horse’s advocate, or should be. Even if you feel you can trust the BO/BM, things change over time. Things may get better or worse, and the direction can change over time. It’s important to keep tabs on which way things are going at the moment. IMO
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Do you have a lot of options?
To me, it’s most important to consider priorities. Can you find another barn that’s “better” for you right now?
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Huh? I’m not at a drama barn.
Oh, I was just wondering if there are a lot of barns nearby where you are. Sometimes, whatever the OP’s complaint is, I always ask myself if there’s something better out there or not.
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There are but I picked one 45 minutes away. Care is more important than my convenience.
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And therein lies the problem. How many can really just “pack up and leave?” Because barns are not “dime a dozen” like they used to be! And besides that, no matter where you go, you’ll trade one thing for something else.
Pick your poison cuz the grass isn’t greener it’s just different!
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Yes. It’s more like a job than a boyfriend or girlfriend :). If you’ve got a horse and no facility I’d your own, you need a barn if you leave this one.
So this barn has this one erratic man that might yell at you. That’s not ideal. It’s just important to know what else is out there to answer.
I also agree that if you are boarding, every barn will have something you’d like to change. Your own priorities will determine how much of a priority that something is. You have to be very practical in deciding which of the barns available to you is the best fit at this time. Nothing is perfect.
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I would think the main worry would be the potential for exteme verbal violence to tip over into physical expression. Worth the risk for decent horse care or a convenient location? Only you can decide for yourself if it is worth it.
The other issue is how much fear of this person ends up quelching or altering how all the other folks at the barn behave.
You can get a group culture in relation to a “problem person” that is exaggerated and fearful and in some ways more annoying than the one problem person. Because everyone in the group is constantly complaining and obsessing over the problem person. So even if the OP feels relatively isolated from the trainer’s occasional explosions, they might have just had it with all the anxious whispering and obsessing by the other people at the barn.
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There is always compromise when boarding, so if you don’t have the opportunity to keep your horse at home, making a lot of must-have priorities for a boarding barn is helpful. IE, If the BO is crazy but the care and price are good, maybe it’s worth staying. If the BO is crazy, the board is expensive and the care is $h!+, the it would be wise to look at other options. Best of luck OP!
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The description of the OP of the barn owner sounds a bit like many horse people I’ve known-they’re knowledgeable, like horses, but have zero interpersonal skills or desire to learn them. The only reason they take boarders in is for financial reasons, and they have an attitude that people should be grateful to be there.
I’ve never run a boarding barn, and I can’t even imagine the stress, and I know that boarders (and horses) can be very, very challenging to deal with on a 24/7 basis. But I admit that after a certain point, having to walk on eggshells every time you enter a barn, and dealing with unpredictably extreme reactions to minor events gets a bit much after a certain point.
I’ve also found that type of barn owner ultimately doesn’t create a good situation, even for the horses, no matter how knowledgeable. Boarders become afraid to ask questions because they know the BO will get angry. Rides become less fun if people know that the BO is watching them and critiquing them, especially if they’re having a less-than-stellar ride (which happens to all of us). So people ride less and come to the barn less.
I’ve also noticed the pattern of a BO gossiping and complaining about someone she regards as a problem, but not confronting that person (just because it seems like too much trouble), until something pushes her over the edge-and then exploding, which escalates the situation and makes it a thousand times more emotional than it needed to have been.
Things are rarely black and white, but I do have to say that one of the skills of a BO that I personally need is being able to communicate, in a reasonable manner. If the care your horse is receiving is good and the person is just abrasive (not genuinely abusive or truly crazy), you have to decide if it’s worth it to you to stay. Personally, I don’t find those situations worth the stress, but I don’t own my own horse, which gives me more flexibility in choosing barns.
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It might not be a bad idea to casually search for other places no matter what you decide to do. At the least, you have a plan if things go downhill fast. You might even find a place that is better than where you are now, as far as care and everything else goes.
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Not sure it is fair to suggest that OP has zero interpersonal skills and zero desire to learn them. Not sure how you are jumping to that conclusion based on the little info she has provided.
I do identify with this situation, and a big part of the struggle is that the demand for training barns (let alone full service stabling) is way higher than the availability in the area in which I live…so picking your poison is required. Do I want the quieter and more full service barn with good care but a psycho BO, or the big busy stable where scheduling a lesson is impossible and your horse may fall through the cracks from time to time, or do I want to drive over an hour every day to board somewhere that may tick all the other boxes? OP–what I am saying is that I feel your pain and I have been through stuff EXACTLY like you are describing. (I can give you examples if you DM.) If you choose to confront the BO, you risk insulting them and making your situation even worse in some way. When the demand is so high, there is very little recourse for the dissatisfied boarder because the threat of leaving just opens up a spot for someone else on a long wait list. I wish I had an answer to this problem…the struggle is real.
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