Has anyone been in a primarily western/trail barn where the door call was required?
Me personally - I have not. And the horses and riders survived just fine.
It appears to be a strictly english phenomenon - again, this is just my experience with barns in the area.
I havenât either. Iâve been in Western barns, English barns, Saddleseat, and TWH barns. None of the Western barns Iâve been in have had the door call-out requirement BUT they also arenât typically set up in the long rideable hall presentation that Iâve found prevalent in other disciplines. The arenas usually arenât attached to the barn or completely indoor either.
Would vote for this every time. Being a feral kid riding feral ponies didnât make me a good rider, but it made me a sticky rider!
My barn runs a Barn Rats program, where kids get to come and learn all the things, a couple of us ancients were laughing at the fact that now parents have to pay for this, whereas we learned and earned! Cleaning stalls, sweeping aisles, cleaning tack etc, earned you free rides!
I am constantly shocked at how the kids cannot do up buckles or clips, manipulate ropes, or problem solve! How mums hover and dive in to help if kiddo has the least problem solving a task.
As to barn rules, I canât remember the last time I read our posted ones, because they all seem pretty normal and standard practice to me when I did soâŠ
Yes. In my experience it has had less to do with the discipline and more to do with the way the arena was oriented. If there are clear sight lines from the indoor to the exterior itâs a different proposition than if thereâs a blind approach. Itâs not in my current barnâs culture, for example, because almost the whole end of the indoor is attached to the barn aisle, thereâs a separate mounting area to enter and exit without interfering with traffic, and everyone can see whatâs going on. I still reflexively yell âdoorâ when opening the side door, though⊠I may be coming in behind a horse on cross ties.
Iâve ridden a saddleseat barns and never had to call door. You listen to footsteps, poke a head in and go when itâs clear, doors were kept open. Horses had zero issue. We did have a sign when trainers were working babies to be aware.
Current barn, doors are closed and you call door when opening, closing, or walking in.
Yes. Fully enclosed arenas with no sight line or windows to outside, and doors that open directly onto the track. With riders of varying skill levels, and horses with varying levels of training, failing to call door could easily cause an accident.
Jumping is also safer with the door call and then waiting to hear okay from the inside. The last thing you want when jumping a line is to suddenly have a door swing open at the end (or side) of it with a horse blocking your landing.
Also depends on the arena door - some have windows, some donât, so calling can make it easier for the person entering the arena to establish that itâs safe to open the door.
Hoo buddy - I would hate to have an arena where this is a legitimate concern! +1 for roll up/wall slide doors.
PSA to indoor builders: put the doors someplace where a horse can enter and exit without becoming a traffic hazard!
Or have them swing out, not in.
Every arena where Iâve boarded has doors that open directly onto the outside track. The ones in the corners are probably the easiest for those riding to avoid an incoming horse, but the person coming in canât just enter without checking for oncoming horses.
Huh. Maybe thatâs the difference, I donât know that Iâve been to a barn where the doors open onto the track. The only one had clear sight of the arena. The rest had sliders or open-out doors.
Iâve been in plenty of arenas that have doors that open inwards, or hinged kickboards that open inwards. Some of the sliding doors can be quite loud, especially if not well-maintained, which is another reason to give a heads up before making a sudden loud noise. Theyâre all different!
I guess I am in the minority here. I come from the school of you are expected to be responsible for your own horse.
I boarded at a barn where you had to tiptoe. While at this barn, I had a young horse that was newly backed.
One day the BO came to the indoor with the tractor and harrow to groom the arena as we were finishing riding. I asked if we could follow him. He got a quizzed look on his faceâŠseemed like he didnât hear, or couldnât understand me. I finally explained to him that this was a great training opportunity to have the horse follow the scary horse eating machinery. Apparently this was a new experience for him.
Oh, I 100% agree. Every horse I was personally responsible for ended up under the bale claw, etc etc. I was just curious if it was a âtypeâ of barn thing. For some it seems like itâs the style of the actual doors, the swing of them, that requires calling door.
This. I also have unwritten rules (meaning, I tell people this is how I want things) about how tack is hung, where saddle pads and boots go, and that things are kept tidy and in their place. Granted, Iâm only 5 years into my own facility so I know I havenât met every type of client out there, but Iâve had zero issue with people doing as I ask to keep the appearance up of the barn. Everyone has been respectful and follows these unwritten rules with very, very few reminders needed.
I was at one like that too. There was about 10 feet between the sliding door and the kickboard door so you couldnât walk right out into traffic. One would assume sliding the door a couple feet would be enough warning as someone yelling door from the other side of the huge heavy wooden door? If you were at the far end of the ring, you couldnât hear half of the boarders yelling door anyway. I always heard the door opening first when at the far end. Even my drama queen couldnât have cared less.
I was first introduced to yelling âgateâ when I was taking lessons as a kid. The next group lesson would enter and mount as the prior group was finishing up. We were taught to wait until the gate area was clear and yell gate as we entered. The mounted riders were then responsible for cutting that corner to allow you in.
When I was older and boarded at places with lesson programs with little kids, it was especially important for both sides to learn how to do this safely. With beginners and some schoolies, the instructor would stop them or move them to the other end of the ring.
At current barn, there is no lesson program. 
But the indoor has a solid door and is usually closed when someone is riding to reduce dust in the barn. So yelling door and figuring out where the rider is in the ring is important. And, no, thank you, I do not need a âtraining opportunityâ provided by you suddenly moving the noisy door and blocking my path with your horse!
When we bought our place, the sellers left an old swing set. The woman told me at closing, when I asked her why, that she thought we âcould tie the horses to it.â
We gave it away asap, to a contractor who was doing some work on the house for us. Even though I did have the type of horses who probably wouldâve tolerated being tied to the swing set, due to high intelligence coupled with a strong sense of self-preservation.
Iâve ridden in small indoors with sliding doors where, if you step into the indoor, youâre essentially on the track potentially in front of the horse, though. Calling âdoorâ gives the person riding time to say âwaitâ until theyâre on the other side of the arena, or circling with enough clearance away from the door. And yes, when someone is jumping a course, it was customary to let the person finishââwaitââto avoid having the jumping horse facing a rattling sliding door with a horse coming head-first at him. Ditto someone working a green horse who just may want a moment to make sure the horse is prepared/together.
I feel less strongly about the âdoor/gateâ thing in more open setups when itâs obvious someone is coming in, but I still think itâs a nice courtesy.
Same! 
But it was ranch QHâs rather than ponies. Short ones with wide backs. That helped. (Unpapered - in those days every randomly created ranch horse was referred to as âQuarterâ.)
Same! We got an hour of riding for every hour of work. We took it so seriously, we wanted it to continue. The place looked great, thanks to that program!
The riding was through the back gate onto a thousand open acres of meadows, woodlands, gullies, streams, and lots of cattle. Unsupervised. The terrain pretty much in the condition that God originally made it, as it were.
The stuff we got into, the disasters we survived, thanks to our horses who were smarter than us ⊠what happened out there, stayed out there. No one wanted to spark adult intervention.
A note that we had previously been introduced to trail riding by someone who seriously knew how. Who believed in quiet calm rides into - interesting - terrain. Who showed us how to navigate what we needed to, how to control pace, how to find a nice spot for a nice safe canter, everything under control. How to manage horses with space and companionship. No galloping â and why not. Also, appropriate tack and bridles for the trail.That teaching was what really kept us alive once we were on our own.
Same! So much zero manual dexterity. Lack of strength closing fingers around reins.
The teenagers who canât tack up a horse by themselves. Who stop to tell the instructor âhe wonât let me put his bridle onâ. Well, sweetie, thatâs not up to the horse. Heâs not going to change his mind. So thatâs up to you.
The moms who have fun doing it for them. Mom brushing away, kid smiling and doing nothing, nothing in their hands. Donât know how, afraid to try.
I really believe that if kids / young people today can learn how to tack up a horse on their own, can become competent basic riders, this alone will accomplish what horses have done for humans for millenia. Teach them âyes I can, even if I have to learn it from scratchâ. That they can take control. Even that they can say ânoâ, to a horse or to an instructor. That they can plan a route and follow it. That they can make things happen. Things that last a lifetime.
The âdoor callâ âŠ
I learned this when I was riding in Colorado, in winter. The indoor was fully enclosed. It was attached to the barn. There were also doors to the outside.
Especially when riding at night (that was most of us during the week, with early darkness), even with the arena lights on, the sides of the arena were dark as hell. The door being opened created a sudden flash of large bright white space. Either from sunlight through the outside door or, at night, from the barn lights from the inside door. The horse/human in the doorway were indeterminate backlit moving shadows.
The âdoor!â call was followed by a short maybe half-minute wait before opening.
If the rider in the arena was prepared, the horse tended to handle it ok.
If a ridden horse in the arena got a sudden eyefull of open door bright light / moving shadow, some could react quite strongly.
The outside door was a sliding one. That sound suddenly blasting into an otherwise quiet arena could also startle unprepared horses.
A horse reaction was either a disruption to the training or a potential safety issue. Depending on the rider. Some riders just didnât know how to handle a startled / spooking horse.
Depending on the time of day or night, the doors could open frequently. To the point that riders tried to be considerate by gathering several to go through the door at the same time to cut down on the door-opens.
In a barn that included some low-skill riders and some green horses, the safety issue was real. That was the priority behind the rule.
The need for the âdoorâ call was most during the winter, with months of long dark hours, and doors closed against the wind and weather. In the summer, with long daylight and habitually open doors, it wasnât really a thing.
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