This is the best possible update. Thank you for updating us and happy, stress-free barn time to you! 
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I feel a huge sense of relief that you are safe again, and am so glad the political climate has changed enough that women feel more comfortable about speaking up.
Horses are hard (and unsafe enough, at times, in their own way) that it’s too much to ask women to feel constantly on their guard when they’re at the barn to ride.
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So glad this worked out for you! So glad you stood up for yourself! And remember this when you face your next wierd incident!
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Hey, glad you were taken seriously and sorry this whole thread veered so far off topic. Good for you for standing up for yourself!
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I am feeling such a sense of relief for you. Now you do not have to be the one to make a big adjustment just to make sure that you are safe.
And who knows what others in your barn who may have experienced this, or who might have experienced it in the future. You did well for all of them.
Good job to report him and see it through!
You are a hero in my book OP!
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Thank you for the update. I’m glad the BO did the right thing.
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Yay. Good for you.
As far as the 500 post mark, its a traditional marker in the life of a thread. One not needed here as, thankfully, the situation has been resolved.
IMO, this is one of, if not the most informative, helpful and timely near monster thread with no need to add anything else to increase the count. Unlike many monster threads, this one stayed on the rails, no trainwrecks. Just very good discussion and thoughtful ideas from a variety of experiences. COTH at its best.
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Thank you for the update. Your barn owner is probably very grateful that someone had the strength of character to tell her what was going on before things went very, very wrong.
Onwards and upwards!
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This thread, with two notable exceptions, represents COTH at its best.
I was gratified to read all the genuinely helpful and supportive posts, and glad that the OP’s issue was resolved.
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I’m late to this thread and see that the OP has provided a resolution, but I wanted to answer one question about barn staff.
I have been harassed by barn staff. Although not with my own barn (thankfully), but when I was a young adult probably in the OP’s age range, when working as a groom/working student and/or some stints about that time of showing my own horse via self care and also helping with my barn. I was on the road, and the harassment came from staff from barns that neighbored us at the shows.
Hissing, whistling, and vulgar mutterings in Spanish (which I didn’t speak but had learned enough words to get the gist). I was often there early AM and late at night. I held my head high, walked quickly, did my work, and avoided spending any time that was more secluded in their vicinity. I would also be silently raging every time and glared if they ever dared to do any of the above not behind my back (it was mostly behind me, but the hissing was usually as I approached/went by. The worst that happened is one stole some cash that I tried to hide in my trunk. Which was my food money. I was even more pissed that they didn’t even recognize I was actually busting my ass to be there and working as well, versus most of the riders (although I was of course more privileged than them).
I thought I was too much of a nobody to complain to the trainer of those barns. I wouldn’t have had a problem if it had been in my own barn. In hindsight, I actually was not so much of a nobody, relatively, and was respected enough I could have done something. Or I maybe should have gone to my barn’s head groom/manager who was a very good guy, who might have had private words with the guys, I dunno. I was young and introverted and shy and dumb. Lol
I also kind of shrugged it off as a culturally accepted dominance behavior that was creepy but probably nothing I was going to change, as creep 1 and 2 could probably get replaced by new creeps 3 and 4 if they even cared about a complaint from a non-customer. These were not higher ranked staff, and it was 20ish years ago.
But there were times I was definitely scared and on alert the same as I would have been in the subway or walking late at night in a city, and I often walked extra steps to avoid these guys whenever possible. Thankfully it was never with my own barn’s staff.
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I suggested in one of the Safe Sport threads that there could be a groom category of USEF membership where anyone who works on the grounds of a show has to have a membership and to have SS training. This way it’s possible to ban them.
There was a groom at a former barn, sweet guy, everyone’s favorite, who was suddenly fired and no one would say why. Two years later I asked another groom then working at another barn who told me he had been molesting the older girls in the tack room. Probably creepy inappropriate affection, and no charges filed,but I know I saw him at a horse show after he’d been fired.
So many of the grooms are basically day laborers, paid cash, no one knows their last name.
Incidentally, this groom was on wife #3 and had 11 children.
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The groom/worker/staff category is one that Safe Sport may have to address at some point.
Working non-riders, as it were, in any job assignment including administrative and supervisory, who are not association members but are very much part of the fabric of the competitions.
As you say, many are day laborers, but many are also long-tenured hourly workers at specific barns.
In my personal experience most barn workers are not a threat. In my part of the country the vast majority are Hispanic for a host of historical reasons. I’ve been told from the source, as it were, that many have had it drilled into them since early childhood “don’t mess with the white peope because they will destroy your life”. Their words. So if a worker from this tradition is crossing boundaries, it is a serious problem. Again just my experience that the vast majority stay focused on their work.
I like the idea of barns that refer to the workers as “staff”. I think that would elevate their status re the importance of the care they give the horses.
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