How would you handle this? Unqualified peeps blanketing horses at barn

[SoCoPony]

@J-Lu

They just don’t leave a property because the “can”"

Well this old Pony is just going to laugh at you on this because just the other week I managed to slip away from my human while they were re-latching the paddock gate and I took a nice trot all the wayyyyy back down the lane through the hay fields, with humans on foot hot on my heels.

For no other reason than. I FELT LIKE IT.

Oh yes, I am 36+ years old and I have been there and done that show wise and more. I have excellent training and on occasion I have even stepped on a humans foot. Why because horse crap happens.

I call phowey on you silly human, and stop acting like the nasty little pony that pins it’s ears and snaps out at everyone walking by their stall, because no one likes that pony.

[smoofox]

@J-Lu

Are you freakin’ kidding me?

???

About what?

What on earth would I be “kidding you” about? The guidelines/rules we had at the boarding barn due to some boarders thinking they could do whatever the hell they pleased as their Precious was a freakin’ unicorn who never nevered? One Precious even took off down the driveway to go exploring when his owner was escorting him to the arena by walking to the arena door and calling him to come out of the barn and march 50 feet to her. He opted out and had a grand frolic off down the dead end road instead as the front gate was open during the day. Why? Because he could.
#shrug

That Never Never saying was even posted on the wall of the boarding barn’s tacking/grooming stalls - a friend lettered it in gold calligraphy and flourishes on a navy background on a 2’ x 3’ board… and it was a big hit and a great reminder. The new owners loved it, too.

[IPEsq]

@J-Lu

Sorry, your meme is inappropriate and not reflective on the situation. Horses are herd-bound. They just don’t leave a property because the “can”"

You’re wrong.

I’m guessing I know more about horse behavior than you do.

You can tell that to a lady in my area who’s entire small herd went on a walk about when a contractor visiting the property left the gate open. They had nice grass fields but left nonetheless. I passed one of her horses lying dead on the side of the road the next morning.

When I was a kid, some supervised free grazing happened in the barn area after lessons from time to time when it was quiet. But the gates around the property were always closed at the time, and the rules were the owner had to keep an eye on the horse (and the gates). And it was not multiple horses at a time—in that case, each of them were on a lead.

[cayuse]

2DogsFarm, you just gave me a horrific flashback with your post. I have never shared this, ever. When I was 12 my mother was lunging my pony, pony turned and bolted and went over a berm type situation along our road, just like what you described. My mother ended up with a broken hand and the pony fractured her shoulder and was euthed on the spot.
You are right. Horses do in fact leave the property. And sometimes they don’t come back.

[Halternatively]

As a COTH psychiatrist, and having consulted with the other COTH psychiatrists, I must recommend that you get some rest and then re-read your own responses, which are copious, to review what you have set out as facts.

Whether the human blanketing the horse is referred to as a worker, volunteer, fellow psychiatrist or resident of crazy town is irrelevant. My point is that she accomplished her task of blanketing. Did your horse not go on living its life?

I am not distorting facts or being mean or piling on. I am pointing out that all is well that ends well, and perhaps you would feel better if you let this all go while focusing on the positives of life going on just fine.

[FjordBCRF]

Peeling those onion layers back only to find that the horse got its blanket on and simply spooked in the process. As horses do. Especially when you add the hot wire into the mix. What a mountain out of a molehill.

On the “free grazing” thing, we had a mini that was allowed to roam and she regularly would go exploring and the BO would get a call from any number of neighbors. Once a neighbor called the police and BO had to deal with that. (BO was speshial). It’s lucky she’s not gotten hit by a car. Call me a big meanie, but that’s just a dumb concept and one I have never seen anyone in my circles do in 40 years outside that BO who ran the danger barn Ive posted about on, so par for the course with them. Put your horse out in the pasture if you want to watch it graze. 100% not worth the risk.

[Maria]

I didn’t think this thread could get any weirder, but it has, tremendously.

How many of you own horses that horse?

I DO! I DO! I DO!

[2DogsFarm]

Sorry for bringing back that memory
Honestly, my pony is the 1 of my 3 LEAST likely to come when I call.
I think we were both surprised his Born Free moment ended up as it did

[Alterration]

In high school I owned two horses that lived in a beautiful lush grass field. When I was away on vacation, and a friend of my father’s was watching the house and barn, one got out. After much panicking she was found 2 miles away, at a neighbor’s farm. It seems she was in heat and went walkabouts to find a better boyfriend than her current sterile friend.

We routinely had equines of all sorts visit our farm. And cows. And farm dogs. Seems none of them got the memo that they were supposed to be homebodies.

Many horses will not leave the others, this is true, but some will. Never say never, with horses.

[sparkygrace]

@Alterration

Many horses will not leave the others, this is true, but some will. Never say never, with horses.

So true! I had a newish horse boarded at a farm with a small river that crossed the pasture. One day, a farmer up the road called the BO and asked if she owned a horse wearing a mask. My horse swam up the river and got out in a cow field. He was happily grazing with the cows. He was more than happy to leave the herd.

[cayuse]

No worries about the memory!

[candyappy]

@J-Lu

Maybe you are fine with inexperienced people working around your horses. Maybe you are fine if your horse knocks down an inexperienced person. Will you pay for their medical bills? This situation could have gone badly, but it didn’t. If it went badly, my horse could have been injured and/or this young woman could have been injured. Just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean it can’t in the future. Are you so hung up on the fact that nothing bad happened and not the probability that something bad could have happened? The family has had horse injuries.

People with decades of handling horses get hurt too. The only way you can be certain that nobody will get hurt blanketing your horse is to just be there to do it yourself.

This whole incident is just ridiculous. The horse moved forward , touched the hot wire and spooked in place and the blanket was put on. It could have happened that way with anyone blanketing ( any horse).

If horses are not routinely tied when the blanket comes on and off then you risk them being able to move however they wish at that moment. Even if they have been blanketed for decades.

Yet here we are 700+ posts later ( supposed adults) going back and forth like elementary school kids?

[RhythmNCruise]

@J-Lu

Sorry, your meme is inappropriate and not reflective on the situation. Horses are herd-bound. They just don’t leave a property because the “can”"

You’re wrong.

I’m guessing I know more about horse behavior than you do.

I’ve personally watched loose horses run hell-bent away from the farm and other horses. One of them was a stallion that was scratching on his pasture’s wooden fence and literally laid his entire weight against it and flattened it. He got up, realized he was loose and took of running like a maniac. There was literally nothing we could do, as none of us can run as fast as a horse. He wound up running down the middle OF THE HIGHWAY, putting himself and everyone on that stretch of road in terrible danger. It all turned out okay, but it could have been very, very bad indeed. And it was just a freak thing. He was safely in his pasture one minute and galloping down the middle of the highway with cars screeching to a stop and pulling off the side of the road the next while we all watched and swore out loud helplessly.

Second time I’ve seen this almost happen was just a little over a year ago. A woman at the neighboring farm (where I’d once boarded, but honestly couldn’t deal with the lack of common sense over there) was letting her pony graze out in the open. She did this all of the time, and even just went back into the barn to socialize while the pony was…who-knows-where. It was really delightful when you’re trying to work a horse and the damn pony is trotting here and there loose. Anyway, I was riding with a friend on the other side of the farm and we could see that the pony was getting closer and closer to the main gate of the farm and the very busy road that runs in front of it. His owner was nowhere to be seen, so we had to call her (thankfully had our phones on us while riding) and tell her that her pony was about to get out onto the road. She came on a golf cart and managed to herd him away from the gate and back towards the barn and finally caught him.

I’m sorry, but you come across as seeing things as black and white and that’s just unrealistic. Horses are big, fast, and unpredictable. Loose horses are a liability. Your BO’s are crazy to allow it to happen. If someone gets hurt due to a loose horse, that will not be good.

ETA: And by “pony” in my second story, it was a 3-year old Fjord gelding. Lest anyone think this was some little old yard ornament being allowed to mow the yard. He was a spunky, sizable pony.

[jvanrens]

@J-Lu

@Halternatively

@RhythmNCruise

This young woman didn’t force your horse to touch the electric fence. He touched it by accident. He didn’t overreact, she gave him space in case he did, and the blanket got put on. It sounds like she did a good job. I would feel confident having someone like her blanket my horse anytime.

This is the entire situation in a nutshell. Emotions, judgments, assumptions, preconceived notions and conclusions removed, these appear to be the facts as they are known.

OP seems very fixated on fault (seems common with kids and really a lot of people, actually). But fault for what, exactly? What are the damages? Horse got blanketed. Horse resumed life. Worker blanketed horse and moved on. All seems right with the world, no?

Are you a COTH psychiatrist consulting with the other COTH psychiatrists?

What a distortion of the actual facts, which seems to support the Mean Girl narrative. You are so incredibly wrong although you are rewriting what I originally said and you’ll get support from the Mean Girls and will support them. None of you seem to recognize the actual situation that happened, because now the young woman is just a worker at the barn.

Horse just resumed life? Are you kidding? Worker just “moved on?” She’s not a worker. You don’t know what your’e talking about but you’ll say it anyway. If you read the thread, you’d know better than to post such BS. I’m sure you and others will post what you can to keep blaming me and feeling some kind of bonding in doing such crap. I’m not surprised in my decades on COTH.

So many of you are so wrong but can’t admit that. What a pile-on thread. Mean Girls on COTH. Such a perfect example.

QFP

[RHdobes563]

This reminded me of my OTTB that I owned long ago at a previous boarding barn. Around the barn itself were several small enclosed areas, a couple of paddocks, a couple of ‘aisles’, and teeny-tiny ‘pass-throughs’, all created when the barn was built bigger, and fences were installed or moved.

I was taking Khan through one tiny gated area to go through another tiny gated area to get to the gate that would open on the geldings’ pasture where he was usually. Suddenly, in the process to close one gate before opening another, there was a commotion, and I felt Khan move abruptly. Turning around, I saw that the next gate had been damaged; it could be fixed, but Khan had definitely hit it.

I didn’t know why. I DID see a flock of turkeys, but Khan had seen turkeys before. I let him go into the pasture, and I went up to the house to tell the BO what my horse had done. The BO came down to look at the damaged gate. I told her I would pay for it, but the only explanation I could think was that a turkey had done SOMETHING that startled Khan. The BO said ‘nonsense, the horses are USED to the turkeys.’

Almost as soon as she said that, the flock of turkeys flew out of the trees and landed in the pasture. ALL of the geldings (including hers) suddenly took off, bucking, snorting, and running like crazy through the pasture.

Yup. You can rely on a horse ‘NEVER’ doing something…

[cayuse]

I got flattened by my mini thanks to wild turkeys this summer. I was leading him and the next thing I know I was airborne, he spooked sideways and took me out at the knees and I landed flat on my back walloping my head. When I opened my eyes, I was eye to eye with a bunch of teeny baby turkeys who were wandering through. They were shorter than the grass and all you could see was the grass moving in a long line like a snake. No idea what my mini thought they were when he spotted the rustling, but he was absolutely horrified.

[J-Lu]

@RhythmNCruise

@J-Lu

Sorry, your meme is inappropriate and not reflective on the situation. Horses are herd-bound. They just don’t leave a property because the “can”"

You’re wrong.

I’m guessing I know more about horse behavior than you do.

I’ve personally watched loose horses run hell-bent away from the farm and other horses. One of them was a stallion that was scratching on his pasture’s wooden fence and literally laid his entire weight against it and flattened it. He got up, realized he was loose and took of running like a maniac. There was literally nothing we could do, as none of us can run as fast as a horse. He wound up running down the middle OF THE HIGHWAY, putting himself and everyone on that stretch of road in terrible danger. It all turned out okay, but it could have been very, very bad indeed. And it was just a freak thing. He was safely in his pasture one minute and galloping down the middle of the highway with cars screeching to a stop and pulling off the side of the road the next while we all watched and swore out loud helplessly.

Second time I’ve seen this almost happen was just a little over a year ago. A woman at the neighboring farm (where I’d once boarded, but honestly couldn’t deal with the lack of common sense over there) was letting her pony graze out in the open. She did this all of the time, and even just went back into the barn to socialize while the pony was…who-knows-where. It was really delightful when you’re trying to work a horse and the damn pony is trotting here and there loose. Anyway, I was riding with a friend on the other side of the farm and we could see that the pony was getting closer and closer to the main gate of the farm and the very busy road that runs in front of it. His owner was nowhere to be seen, so we had to call her (thankfully had our phones on us while riding) and tell her that her pony was about to get out onto the road. She came on a golf cart and managed to herd him away from the gate and back towards the barn and finally caught him.

I’m sorry, but you come across as seeing things as black and white and that’s just unrealistic. Horses are big, fast, and unpredictable. Loose horses are a liability. Your BO’s are crazy to allow it to happen. If someone gets hurt due to a loose horse, that will not be good.

ETA: And by “pony” in my second story, it was a 3-year old Fjord gelding. Lest anyone think this was some little old yard ornament being allowed to mow the yard. He was a spunky, sizable pony.

@RhythmNCruise

@J-Lu

Sorry, your meme is inappropriate and not reflective on the situation. Horses are herd-bound. They just don’t leave a property because the “can”"

You’re wrong.

I’m guessing I know more about horse behavior than you do.

I’ve personally watched loose horses run hell-bent away from the farm and other horses. One of them was a stallion that was scratching on his pasture’s wooden fence and literally laid his entire weight against it and flattened it. He got up, realized he was loose and took of running like a maniac. There was literally nothing we could do, as none of us can run as fast as a horse. He wound up running down the middle OF THE HIGHWAY, putting himself and everyone on that stretch of road in terrible danger. It all turned out okay, but it could have been very, very bad indeed. And it was just a freak thing. He was safely in his pasture one minute and galloping down the middle of the highway with cars screeching to a stop and pulling off the side of the road the next while we all watched and swore out loud helplessly.

Second time I’ve seen this almost happen was just a little over a year ago. A woman at the neighboring farm (where I’d once boarded, but honestly couldn’t deal with the lack of common sense over there) was letting her pony graze out in the open. She did this all of the time, and even just went back into the barn to socialize while the pony was…who-knows-where. It was really delightful when you’re trying to work a horse and the damn pony is trotting here and there loose. Anyway, I was riding with a friend on the other side of the farm and we could see that the pony was getting closer and closer to the main gate of the farm and the very busy road that runs in front of it. His owner was nowhere to be seen, so we had to call her (thankfully had our phones on us while riding) and tell her that her pony was about to get out onto the road. She came on a golf cart and managed to herd him away from the gate and back towards the barn and finally caught him.

I’m sorry, but you come across as seeing things as black and white and that’s just unrealistic. Horses are big, fast, and unpredictable. Loose horses are a liability. Your BO’s are crazy to allow it to happen. If someone gets hurt due to a loose horse, that will not be good.

ETA: And by “pony” in my second story, it was a 3-year old Fjord gelding. Lest anyone think this was some little old yard ornament being allowed to mow the yard. He was a spunky, sizable pony.

That is a tragic situation. Thanks for explaining it.

Our neighborhood is very quiet. The horse is somewhat herd-bound and will not leave the property. I suspect the vast majority of horses wouldn’t. Neighboring horses have gotten loose and they just cross the road and eat grass. I suspect that you like many others, are injecting your own experiences which aren’t the same as the current experiences or circumstances.

Thank you.

[J-Lu]

I guess your horses are not the horses at my place. My and the BOs horses have never strayed off the property or close to it while free grazing. Why are you trying to add more BS to this thread? Why are you willing to add BS to this thread?

[J-Lu]

You and your Mean Girls don’t seem to care about the truth of the situation, you just like to feel that you’re right despite the facts. mean girls.

[J-Lu]

@fivestrideline

@J-Lu

I’m guessing I know more about horse behavior than you do.

Absolutely not. You’re talking about letting horses graze loose with the gate standing WIDE open?? But since Pookie is so speshul and has his 3rd degree black belt in the Carrot Stick Olympics I guess it’s fine.

The more I hear about this barn the more clear it becomes that this is not a haven of safety and smart horse keeping.

Such an odd post. Sorry, anyone who understands horse behavior understands that “Pookie” will not just wander away from the herd.

Posts like this are why posts degenerate. You have no grasp of the situation but pretend that you do and post like you do. So bizarre.