No idea. As the placement was part of her program requirements I don’t know if she even graduated.
[quote=“danhelm441, post:284, topic:779877”] I mean, this is weird, right?
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Yeah, it’s super weird. Sorry! But it’s just a bathroom. I’d wonder if there are other rules about arena use etc. maybe check!
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My first barn was like this, and I was in the lower 7 stall barn. We had small tack lockers that were…very small. I happened to be there at a time that I fit in perfectly with the other boarders; I had one stall, there was a barn owned horse, a gelding/mare owned by a married couple that are awesome, a gelding/mare owned by a mutual friend of all of us, and a retired mare who’s owner didn’t come around much. We all preferred the arrangement.
With that said, the barn was a trail barn. No indoor, just a large outside and 10s of miles of pristine trails. We were still welcomed in the big barn to use the restroom and the wash-rack. At the end of the day, we were paying for smaller stalls so the price difference between the barns didn’t bother me.
Okay so the Upper and Lower barn thing is pretty normal - the bathroom and lounge rules are not. IME it was always the lower barn was cheaper because it was dirt floors/smaller stalls/farther from boarder tack room (or had a smaller tack room. Maybe not AC or whatever). But everyone got to use the lounge, wash racks, bathroom, etc, and there was no “prestige” to having your horse in the upper barn. Just more convenient.
I would be shocked, a bit pissed off, and certainly would be taking my name off the waitlist if I had such an experience. Getting told off for using the “wrong” bathroom (unless it’s the trainer’s house or whatever) would tell me there’s a culture of “Haves vs Have Nots” and I’d be OUT.
The lesson price thing doesn’t particularly bother me, but the rest of this most certainly does.
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Right? The other thing that doesn’t make sense to me is that surely it costs more money on a monthly basis to maintain and service port-a-potties than to just let people use your actual indoor plumbing. Sure, if you don’t have indoor plumbing at the barn, a port-a-potty may be a stopgap with cheaper upfront costs…but once you actually have a functional bathroom? Why? I know they host a popular show series and lots of clinics, so it makes sense they’d want to spare their septic system for those big events, but to go ahead and extend that to the handful of girls boarding in the lower barn just seems so unnecessary.
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Who confronted you? Another boarder of the barn manager?
That’s pretty high on the “how ridiculous and petty can you be” list.
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It was the barn manager. I had the day off, so I was there at a weird time and there was no one there apart from the staff. Tbh, I was a bit snarky about it. I regretted that afterward, because I know how hard it is to make any money off boarding, and if they have to resort to petty things to squeeze out that $100 profit margin, I get it. But then when I realized the weekly lesson kids and their parents don’t have the same restrictions, despite paying substantially less, that rationale went out the window.
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Wow!!! That is bananas. But, if you don’t board there yet maybe the BM had no idea who you were… Maybe ask her about it if a spot opens up for you. Tell her you were a little taken aback. Maybe they just want to keep random people out of that barn so stuff doesn’t walk away or… I don’t know, strange!
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I hate this story’s guts. Who dreams up this bathroom pettiness?
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OMG, yes! I boarded briefly at a barn where the owner’s feral children would hit the horses with paintballs shot from a paintball gun. They also thought it was hilarious to put peanut butter on the inside of the stall latches so it would get all over your hand when you opened the stall door, and to throw their mom’s car keys up onto the barn roof. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
When I left, the barn owner said, “I could tell you don’t like my kids.” Yes. This is true.
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When I used to have a barn, the worst employees were always from college (or other) equine programs.
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I’ll bet it is located in the sun, too.
Here is an idea that doesn’t solve the problem of the port-a-potty, but might help your problem. Do you have a horse trailer? It isn’t the best solution, but a small foldable stool, a plastic bedside urinal from any drugstore or Walmart, and some tp can at least give you a bit more privacy and perhaps comfort.
Plus so much time saved when trailering, all you have to do is pull off the road for 3 minutes, not do a whole highway exit to a convenience store / gas station.
Just fwiw.
I wonder if the barn is on septic and doesn’t have a large enough system. But it is interesting that they allow the non-boarder lesson students to use the “upper” bathroom. Maybe they found out they didn’t stay on the roster if they had to use the port-a-potty.
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Worst trainer I ever had fell into this category too. It’s not everyone, but I’ve met an alarming number of people who come out of school with a Bachelors degree in Equine Science or Management and think there’s nothing left to learn.
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TBH this is a pretty useless degree - a money grab for schools. So they’ll preach that their graduates will know everything there is to know (otherwise why would you pay money to go to college for it?). Then the students get into the field and find out they really don’t know anything more than an experienced groom, if that. Admitting to having wasted good years and good money is hard, but students were also heavily influenced and lied to by their schools.
(Not to say that what these programs teach is wrong or anything - just that you’re better off spending that time and energy actually working in the industry for good people and learning that way.)
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THIS!! All of the horses in my barn have Nibble Nets. Except 1, who wrecked hers in short order. I provided a Hay net. She wrecked that, I repaired a couple of times and she wrecked again so I took it out. Did discuss with owner on a couple of occasion’s, although horse get LOTS of hay, inside and out, topped up hay nets at night check, I want it to last as long as possible overnight. I’m not going to continually replace equipment for the horses to destroy and I think the owner should replace the original nibble net. Horse consumes hay incredibly quickly, and I at this point have to say no more extra hay if she finishes her second night check hay before I can even get out of the barn…. Not quite true, buy nearly 
. And she is at optimum-nearly overweight condition.
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Years ago – I got an ultimatum from a BM & head of stall cleaning re my net-destroying hay-spreading mess-making horse of the time. Who was a hay dunker (we all agreed this was good for him) who created a Jackson Pollock style stall floor every night. In the morning it practically had to be scraped to clean it.
Get a feed tub to put in the stall, and the hay all goes in there. With a bucket of water to use for dunking.
It. Worked.
It made for interesting stall decor and of course the horse lost a few square feet of space. But the horse was happy and the people were happy. I hope I have some photos and/or video somewhere of him mashing his hay and dunking water around in the tub, completely satsified with the arrangement. Interestingly not much hay left the tub.
I hauled a smaller version of this whenever the horse stayed somewhere else overnight. There was some overflow mess then, but manageable for a few days.
So I guess that wasn’t a deal breaker! It was the opposite, a deal maker! lol
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Sharing an old cowboy trick I learned along the way for this situation. Before taking the halter off or unsnapping the lead line, put the end of the lead around the horse’s neck and hold it together with the remainder so that the you have something to control the horse. Stopped mine from bolting off after 2 times.
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And, before starting the unhaltering, turn the horse around facing the gate. Not sort of leaning that way, but positioned toward the gate itself.
If you don’t close the gate but are holding it open with a body part, bring him around to the side so that he’s facing the gate itself, wherever it is physically, and the gate is between him and the opening back to where you came from.
That way they aren’t pointed straight out to the open field. Easier to do the rope-around-the-neck, etc.
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Cookies in the pocket help keep the horse’s head and attention on me when taking them out to pasture or bringing in. I also use the lead rope around the neck when removing the halter in the pasture though that can be exciting every once in a while if it is a strange horse. That last hopeful pause and look from the horse gives me time to slip out the gate before they start to play.
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Well if you are at a place where they don’t want to leave them out 24/7, then you asked for a board reduction because you’re pushing the issue and bought a shed…
Yeah, I’d be pretty peeved as a barn owner too.
You have to start with a business model that vaguely reflects your ideal horsekeeping situation. If you go to a barn that stalls for 12 hours and then expect 24/7 turnout, you’re going to have a bad time.
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