It’s easy to tell who doesn’t follow Boyd Martin on IG 
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A sign/notification of upcoming planned maintenance solves that.
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I’m sorry, I’m not going to notify someone when I’m going to do maintenance work on my property, unless it involves physically shutting down the arena or stalls. It gets done when it gets done, and anyone who thinks you can carefully plan out start and end times for things like this has never worked farm labor in their life.
And you can’t possibly be suggesting that same sign for mowing/weed whipping/etc., are you?
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I guess I am lucky 
. My barnowner told me that a previous trainer encouraged some kids to kick their soccer balls against the outside walls of the indoor while he was riding inside….
Now the trainer is an ex trainer and when I was new in the barn I was very pleased that I was asked if I minded somebody mowing Gras around the outside ring.
My horses are pretty cool with anything but the mindset in this barn is very nice 
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This is a sheer curiosity question…where is the line to just take it or leave it?
I ask because when I started boarding at my new barn in May (indoor, real bathroom, heated tack room, beach access, ample turnout time, big stalls, 11 min drive from home, self care is less than $500/month) the BO had a college girl responsible for 95% of the horse care. I was underwhelmed with how things were handled generally speaking; the girl was very lazy, lacked any semblance of time management, said things that should never be said in front of paying customers (or non really), and would lie if someone caught her missing something. This of course wasn’t obvious all at once, but it came to light over the course of a couple months. She hurt herself and was off work for most of the summer so it was less of an issue then, and then resurged after she came back.
Fast forward to mid October, I was away on vacation and had a couple minor things happen because of her that were communicated to me by other boarders. Brought this up with the BO who said she’s been having a lot of complaints about her and would be looking to replace her ASAP. What BO didn’t really realize is that most of the self care boarders (myself included) switched to self because of this girl. We were around every day and saw and heard way too much, unfortunately talked about options a lot so when the opportunity came up with BO, I suggested seeing if those of us who are already there every day could step in. We weren’t sure how it would go over, and if BO was truly ready to start pulling the plug with her as she had made some investments in having the kid there for at least a few years.
Making a long story short, the BO agreed, and was going to let the girl take the PM shift still since more people were around that time of day, but she ended up quitting two days into that. We are now running as co-op. Between 8 of us including BO, many hands are making much lighter work and everyone seems so far to be happier with the organization, communication, and consistency. Certainly not for everyone, but I don’t mind pitching in.
I totally get that boarding is a thankless job that generally doesn’t turn a profit and owners are lucky to break even. The other side of that though, in my case, is there was another option to “DONT LIKE IT JUST LEAVE”. Diplomacy, timing, and not being an a-hole were key in having the conversations that led to change. I like my BO. I have a good relationship with her. I want to (selfishly and unselfishly) see her succeed with running a boarding barn. I hope that the co-op approach continues to work; finding reliable and competent help around my area at an at best rate $15/hr for the work, is a struggle for every barn owner you talk to.
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Just to throw in there–when a barn doesn’t depend on lessons for income and people mainly use outside trainers or hack on their own, there’s less incentive to keep either outdoor or indoor in working condition. I mean, it will probably get done, sometimes, but it becomes a “I’ll get it done when it gets done” chore, versus “if I don’t drag the arena, I’ll lose an entire day of lesson income this weekend.”
Even then, I was once at a barn where all lessons were indoor (mostly beginner stuff), and the outdoor ring was literally a pile of gravel, weeds, and puddles. People “could” ride in it, but only did so if desperate.
Re: the nervous woman who only walked in lessons, well, I’m not a great rider and have nerves so I don’t want to talk too much trash… 
I don’t think that situation is necessarily stressful for the horse in the same way someone trying to ride above and beyond their level of ability on a horse is–although I will say it can be stressful for people and their horses sharing a lesson or an arena with a rider who is significantly below the ability of others.
I’ve been both–the crappiest rider in the arena–and also stuck in a terrible “mixed ability” group lesson or sharing the same space with someone who mainly walked and barely trotted, and expected me to basically ride defensively around her, and plan my entire ride around her stopping and starting. So again it comes back to finding a barn where you’re in a group that suits you and your riding needs.
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Nothing about that says the OP is a big scaredy cat who wants a perfectly quiet, sterile environment. That’s what you have decided she means, based on nothing at all except your apparent desire to belittle her. The part you highlighted simply says she doesn’t appreciate safety hazards like unsupervised kids and loose dogs, doesn’t like inconsistent horse care either, and is struggling to find a boarding barn with similar views on her area.
Sounds pretty reasonable to me! Care is very consistent where I board, no dogs allowed except for the property owner’s dogs, who are trained to stay out of the rings, paddocks and barns, and no unsupervised kids running amok either. It’s a professional environment. Is that too much for the OP to expect in her area? Really doesn’t seem unusual to me.
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Are you for real? You think it sucks for a school horse to be groomed, patted, probably given treats, tacked up, and then walked around for 45 minutes with no demands, nobody kicking, or thumping up and down on its back, or making it work? You are really are arguing just for the sport of it. Not a good look.
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Maybe the OP needs to move to Canada. Around here there are plenty of full care barns with groomed indoor and outdoor rings, hot and cold running water, wash racks, bathrooms for humans and no on site trainer or lesson program.
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Again, who here said that besides you? The OP said specifically she didn’t like loose dogs and loose children, both of which are against the stated rules of her barn.
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Or a blowing plastic bag, which she attributed to malice on a fellow boarders part.
And yes. A horse being ridden by someone who panics every time he makes a mistake sucks for the horse. It doesn’t matter if it’s at a walk, or a dead gallop. Panicking every time a horse makes a mistake is NOT FUN for the horse.
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Oh, and a sign with advance warning when any property maintenance is being done. Tooootally normal!
Here is yet another thread exhibiting why slowly but surely mid level boarding barns are disappearing. Who would ever deal with this crap for nearly no pay??
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Common courtesy says you tell people when you are jack hammering on the roof. [Edit]
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Maybe you are just used to a lower quality barn where anything goes? Where I board rules are respected and enforced, and people are expected to behave in an appropriate way. If OP’s barn has a rule about loose dogs, it’s reasonable she expects them to enforce it.
Routine maintenance / work such as ring dragging, grass cutting, minor repairs, haying, etc. doesn’t require notice. It’s a working farm and none of the horses are bothered by tractors driving around, lawnmowers, the sound of hammering, etc. But we certainly do get notified in advance of maintenance that will interfere with rider access to the facilities. That is partly why our barn is closed to boarders on weekends until 2pm. It gives the owners a scheduled block of time each week to get disruptive work done without boarders underfoot and helps them maintain the barn to a high standard.
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You have made quite a number of assumptions about me. While I no longer compete, in the not so far past I could turn in a respectable performance at an FEI level on my imported GOV gelding. So before you go assuming I am a quivering hand wringer you are wrong. I am however tired of BS at barns by some who have zero awareness, nor concern, of how their actions impact others. That is going to be the end of mid-level barns. Oh yeah, I also want to pee where I can flush and wash my hands.
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Quite a thread here!
I’ve read some lists of “must haves” in a boarding barn on here and have been very aware that it doesn’t exist in my area. It’s quite foreign to me. I am sure some look at my list and think the same.
To the OP, I would say that we are all compromising on something. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, you may have to adjust something if you want to board a horse. I think it may be hard to find what you “must have.”
I’ve said this before but I would love to find a full care barn with nearly 24 hour turnout, an indoor, and a trainer. It doesn’t exist where I am. I need a trainer, so I don’t have the turnout I’d ideally like.
Every business - whatever it is - is hard and customers can be very difficult. You can make yourself such a difficult customer that you have nowhere to go, and a business can make itself so unattractive to customers that there are none. We are all balancing this everyday.
And finally, I’m thankful that there are people willing to work with “nervous nellies.” I’ve been one since I was a kid. I wish I wasn’t! I wouldn’t want to be stupid about things, but I absolutely wish I was braver on a horse, and believe me I have worked to be able to even do what I do. It’s a constant battle, and yes I do worry about ruining horses because I am nervous and I know they know it and it’s very hard. I am
currently pondering whether it’s worth it to push myself to go to shows, or whether I’d be happier riding at home.
For me, I’ve found I do best in a busy place with lots of people talking and laughing and having fun because it gets my mind out of focusing on the “scary” in a fun way. That said, there are things that would just be too much for me right now. A busy lesson barn for little kids with tons of parents and younger siblings and ensuing craziness isn’t the right place for me because it’s all the scary without the fun. It’s a balance, and there’s no easy answers. I don’t ask anyone to change what they’re doing or walk on eggshells, but I do appreciate those who understand trying to ride with a more fearful basic temperament, and offer encouragement or advice. It can be frustrating, embarrassing, and honestly make me not like myself very much to always be so afraid of everything.
Most facilities I’ve been at notify boarders of unusual maintenance but not the usual stuff.
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I find a person who willingly drops their wrapper/bag and lets it do whatever, no matter where they are (parking lot, barn, community park, their own front yard) to be ridiculously rude. Littering is wrong, even when not at a barn and I do not get why anyone would make an excuse for it and twist it into an argument about how evil timid riders are.
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Y’all and this thread are scaring me!
I have been a boarder for all the time I have owned horses. I have lived in several places around the country. I have watched the business get worse and worse as the profit has fallen out of it; a generation of better horsemen have aged out of running boarding barns; and everyone has gotten either more entitled, more scared or more litigious.
For various reasons, the difficulty of finding good boarding being one of them, I moved to a horse mecca and am on the verge of building my own place. In theory, I’d like to have a well-chosen boarder or two because there are some benefits to having good horse people around.
But! I get my horses very broke. I buy horses I can ride and manage. I understand that this is a risky sport and I mitigate risk by trying to be as smart a horsewoman as I can. FWIW, I’d ask the skate-boarding kid in the aisle to take some time to show my horse how to cope with that. Why not? That’s just another training opportunity that I couldn’t get otherwise.
What scares me, then, is that boarders don’t share my values. Where I live, there are a lot of retirees, many of those wealthy enough to have done that a tad early. Most of them, to my surprise, are not deep, life-long horsemen as I aSSuMed they’d be here in a horse mecca. In fact, lots of them have never been on the other side of the business the way I have (working in barns for other people) nor kept their horses at home and seen the 24/7 things that you have to deal with.
IME, this set of potential boarders are not the most teachable crowd. So if you happen to share horse care standards with them, that’s cool. If not, you are in for a world of hurt. I don’t want to be scared off from boarding, but I kind of am. I do a good job for my horses. As with most BOs, if you came into my place, you’d see a clean barn, smell nothing and see relaxed horses in good weight. But you might not have your horse quite as broke on the ground as mine are. And so our difference of opinion would come from the fact that I’d want your horse to be more polite than you do. And you explicitly did not want to be told what to do. But if my body is the one getting used up by a horse who isn’t light at the end of a rope or still and polite when I’m working around his body, then that’s not the job for me. And it will frustrate me too much to have a customer not want to get their horse more broke because, in effect, they don’t value my body. I only have one! I’m not getting paid enough as a barn owner to use that up on someone else’s rude horse.
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OMG, but IME rubber-bendy rules seem to be endemic to boarding. As is ‘different prices for different people’. Horse boarding does not seem to be a place that one goes looking for justice or consistency. IME, it has not ended well when I asked why so-n-so got X and I got Y.
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Listen, this isn’t the hill I want to die on, but I don’t think @endlessclimb as wrong to point out that tolerating extreme amounts of rider fear is hard for a horse. I think that’s factually true, so it’s wrong to treat that statement as being purely argumentative.
I would assume that the school horse asked to pack around a scared rider at the walk has a broader life than that and also that the horse was well-chosen for this highly-specific work assignment. Heck, the horses used in therapy programs are very special, tolerant animals indeed!
But that all can turn bad when the horse’s sole rider and steward in this world is someone who is so scared as to make unreasonable requirements of a flight animal. That horse has a harder time. And in this thread about the well-controlled boarding barn that some owners want, this is what we are talking about: A horse who is owned by someone who is realistic about their expectations of the horse and the world around them or someone who, for reasons of their own anxiety which they consider unimpeachable, are unrealistic.
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