If you truly care about their daughter you would be doing everything in your power to make sure your horse has good manners / the daughter is set up for success. This could mean leaving a halter on the fence for the daughter to use for blanketing, paying for her to have a lesson with your trainer or working with her so that she knows how to handle your horse . It takes time for people to gain the experience they need to safely handle horses and hopefully she will get better as time goes on. So Instead of putting all the responsibility on the inexperienced handler you might want to be asking yourself what YOU can be doing to help the daughter out .
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Did she get your horse blanketed during the situation in question? I think I’ve missed the answer to that question.
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I see this as well. There are also lots of ads that ask if anyone wants to come groom and handle horses for free and how this is such an amazing opportunity to gain experience. And my response is always to think “handling horses, especially random poorly-trained horses, is a skill that deserves compensation”. Hell, the “ehh” pay and unpredictable nature of horses is why I found a job that DIDN’T involve working with them on the daily. I never had to deal with an absolute monster on the ground, but I quickly got tired of having to deal with horses who thought they could spin away and kick out when I took them to turnout. The pay was not good enough for me to be okay with being permanently injured. Working with horses is hard and most people quickly tire of it, especially if conditions aren’t ideal.
I come from the land of pipe stalls and pipe fencing so not many obvious wood chewers in my neck of the woods. I guess if any of them were stalled with wood boards, you could see whose being the biggest beaver?
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I think this is the best approach if you want to stay. Eating humble pie goes a long way.
My 2 cents, Ive been looking after horses since age 11, now in my mid 60’s. Horses are horses and Ive ha some pretty serious injuries over the years. One thing I refuse and refuse to permit is blanketing/unblanketing in the padock without 2 people with halter and lead. No matter what horse it is.
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This EXACTLY! Blanketing has become the bane of my existence. I’m very much getting to the point of having people do all of their own blanketing. This type of customer would be given notice effective immediately. What kind of qualifications does she expect exactly?
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Here Here!!! Thank You
Beautiful response. so practical and kind
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Thank you. The halter/lead rope is on the hook outside the run-in. All of the horse halters are similarly accessible.
Good point. I assumed that if the BOs had her taking care of the horses, they’d have had her work with the trainer. Good point that maybe I can purchase her a session with the trainer.
Thanks so much!
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I’ve gotten actual good advice from this forum, not from posters like you. It’s pretty simple and obvious.
Blanketing is a skill that ground people have to master. Period. The skill of the ground person when a horse hits the hot wire is very important to the outcome of the situation. Do you not recognize that? If that happened when I was blanketing a horse versus my next-door neighbor blanketing a horse, the outcomes would be very different. Do you disagree?
Horse experience is key to actually working with horses. I’m surprised you’re arguing against that.
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What was the outcome of the situation? Did she get your horse blanketed in the end or no?
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Was that the point of the outcome? To you?
No one is arguing against “experience.” Just your expectation that your boarding situation should be staffed with “experienced” handlers 100% of the time.
And, people are saying that even the most experienced handler might still have a bad blanketing situation, because a) horse; b) life = shit happens.
The odd thing is how hard you’re digging in on this. Your horse might have been the dick in this situation. Or, every possible precaution was taken, and it still went (slightly) wrong. You weren’t there.
Going forward - if you don’t trust this barn to staff appropriately, you need to move. There really isn’t any other option here. It sounds like your horse has field board, which typically is less expensive because it offers fewer “services?” (I would assume if your horse had a stall, they would be fed and blanketed in it, at least, even if they had nearly full turnout.)
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If a horse hits hot wire while attached to a human/being handled by a human, it’s too late. No amount of skill is going to prevent a reaction.
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Did she get the blanket on the horse or not? You say she “tried” to blanket your horse in the original post. Does that mean she never got it on him? After he hit the wire and spooked did she give up? Or did she eventually get him blanketed?
And I’m seriously asking because I have either missed that bit of information or it was never shared.
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Getting a straight answer from OP is like trying to nail jello to a tree.
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The main advice I gave you was to stop arguing with people you didn’t like and stop being so nasty to people you disagree with. Oh, and that your horse is capable of doing things you would not expect (note I did not say your horse DID things you did not expect). If you consider that to not be good advice, well there isn’t anything I can do.
Blanketing is not a skill that takes ages to master. You seem to believe that basic groundwork and handling takes some unidentified long time to get the hang of it. I disagree but that is your prerogative. I know people with 20+ years of horse experience who handle horses worse than people I started training 5 months ago. Additionally, being a master at blanketing is not a skill related to “what to do when the horse hits hotwire”.
I don’t find experience, as in time spent around horses, to be the end-all for working with horses. There are people with GOOD experience, some people with BAD experience, and a whole lotta people with MEH experience. My former barn job put me in contact with a lot of the latter two category. Had to tell the 45+ year old former trainer “don’t use that crosstie since the bungee cord is showing” and was then told that was fine (it wasn’t). Good experience is invaluable, put I’ll take solid feel and the ability to listen and follow directions first.
Your entire gripe this thread has been that Inexperienced Person handled your horse and then your horse hit hotwire. This has little to do with blanketing from what it sounds like. It sounds like you’d be as aggravated if your horse touched the wire if Inexperienced Person was trying to catch him out of the field or fly spray him. I’m still unclear why your horse touched the wire (did she chase him into it?) but it’s perfectly rational to be upset your horse had an unpleasant experience.
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I don’t believe she ever answered and I’d bet its because the answer is “despite all my complaining, my horse and the other horses are blanketed and fine”. Her ire really seems to be that her horse touching hotwire not the blanketing itself.
Well if she answered everyone’s questions instead of selectively responding to half of them (and changing the story) then we wouldn’t be here. This would have been sorted out ages ago.
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What skill? A horse accidently hitting hotwire because an experienced person decided to blanket it right there is going to end the exact same way as an unexperienced person.
I think paying for a trainer to teach someone how to put on a blanket is pretty ridiculous. It’s a skill that can be taught in 5 minutes or less.
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No time in my close to 40 years of working with horses have I been “trained” in the event of a horse hitting a hot wire. Common sense has always been, don’t feed and handle horses near a hot wire when at all possible. Or IF YOU MUST, turn off the darn current! I don’t want to get shocked, I don’t want a horse to get shocked. In my case that I posted above when I was turning out and both horse AND I got shocked…thats called an accident and that can go wrong even with the most skilled handler. Thankfully in my case, we were both just…a little shocked it happened…if you will!
I would also think offer to pay for a lesson from the trainer would be immensely inappropriate after all this time and the confrontation with the parents, or the dad or whoever and their response to the whole thing. That and the kid has little interest. Its been what, close to a month now this is still going back and forth?? Time to let it go or move to greener pastures.
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