This is an interesting article:
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How lucky are the BNT who can afford to marry a US citizen, then stay to train horses. Smart folks know how not to get deported.
Then, there’s the Olympian who paid the barn manager to marry the “illegal” nanny! ICE is chasing the wrong people 
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I’m way behind but just wanted to comment on this.
This is the frustration of being in a service business. Customers don’t say when things go well, they generally only say when they don’t get the service they expect.
I used to manage a number of departments that offered services to the other areas of the organization, e.g. facilities, hr, finance. My staff would get so frustrated because, no matter how hard they worked, all they heard was complaints.
I did some research to see how I could support them. One of the descriptions of this has always stuck with me - it related service provided by a person to that provided by an elevator. When we use an elevator, we don’t notice when it does what we expect it to do, only when it doesn’t meet our expectations. When was the last time you got off the elevator and thought, Wow, it took me to my floor, great job elevator? But you might remember complaining when the elevator was slow, smelled, was dark, made scary noises…
It’s the same with running a barn or any other service, especially one that the recipient pays for directly. While it would be wonderful if your boarders let you know they appreciate you, and they probably do, it is less likely they will comment on it because you are simply providing the service they expect. While it gets demoralizing, silent customers are happy customers.
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I hope these situations were reported.
Oh for sure. I program for a living. People don’t notice the millions of lines of code or the nights spent up migrating databases, but if the button color changes from orange to blue, all heck breaks loose.
Maybe I should have more accurately said - most people don’t appreciate the people who do the work for them very well. Barn work is particularly expensive, hard, often in miserable weather, with horses who are either trying to kill you or kill themselves. Everyone in that chain, from groom to barn owner, is sacrificing a fair amount to bring you those services. And now I don’t even remember why I brought it up LOL But I do know that many many people dream of having their horses at home that would never be able to handle the work, expense, or anxiety 
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I know somebody who has owned horses and ridden and shown all his life. He’s had some very nice horses, he’s won in the amateurs at some very nice horse shows, and he’s always really enjoyed every part of the process.
The one dream he had always had for years and years was to have a place where he could keep his horses at home and take care of them himself.
And finally, a few years back, he found a property that he thought would be perfect, and he bought it and got it all fixed up and ready for his horses to live there, and he was so excited.
That lasted for about a month. And after that, he was ready to go back to just paying the board bill somewhere else and bringing the carrots every day. Lol.
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On days like today, when it took me nearly 3 hours to get 3 horses safely out the door in this crazy weather, I almost feel the same way.
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I must be a glutton for punishment but I have been at it for 43 years. Originally a boarding, training, lesson barn. I backed, trained, fox hunted, coached ponyclubbers and showed. Now down to three retirees, one boarder and two of my own.
I still do all the work and right now with several snow storms behind us it has been tough but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Coffee has never tasted as good after finishing morning chores and getting the horses out safely.
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I have to say that the guy I mentioned who brought his horses home and got over it in about a month was doing that in the middle of the summer.
If it had been in the middle of winter, he probably would not have lasted for a week. Lol.
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When I was younger I wanted my own place but now that I’m older it is nice to just sit in the house in really bad weather. My sis-in-law was talking about a former coworker that retired and THEN bought her own farm to keep horses at home…were I younger when I started, sure I’d have horses in retirement, but not starting that now!
My horse is only about 5 miles away and on 90 acres. I’m there almost every day but sometimes if the snow is really bad or if it is pouring out my friend will text and say she already fed, don’t worry about coming out. Then I stay in the house all warm and dry and happy.
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^^
I have my horses at home, too, and in this crappy weather, it sucks all the fun out of horse ownership.
This blog post was recently posted here on Chron. https://www.chronofhorse.com/category/blog/?_gl=1f20nav_gaMTA3NDk5NDM0OC4xNjYzMjQ0NzUz_ga_3Q593VP376*MTczOTk5MTY2My4xNTE1LjEuMTczOTk5MjU4OC4wLjAuMA…
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I loved having my horses at home. But I was only doing about one percent of the work. DH did nearly all (he was a stay at home dad), and I only needed to cover if he was out of town, or once when he was trapped on the floor for several days with a bad back. Wouldn’t you know that was when we got a huge blizzard. My job was far easier–I just earned the money to support all of us.
Rebecca
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Last year (January 2024) my husband went to visit family across the country for two weeks - and while he was gone we got 3 storms of wet snow (up to 15") topped by rain (which soaks in and makes the whole mass much heavier). I can’t run his snowblower and my father’s 1980s Bolens seems to finally be beyond repair. So I hand-shoveled the bank the plow threw up, plus enough of the drive to get cars in & out, and was also carrying hay up the hill to the horses (which we do on foot, don’t plow a track). I tweaked my bad SI joint (usually quiescent) and it hurt the rest of the winter.
He is no longer allowed to leave home in snow season!!!
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Yep, that would definitely make me veto winter travel plans!
I could run our plow and actually enjoyed plowing the driveway. What’s not to love about zooming up and down a long steep driveway on a small John Deere? It felt like a sports car, until I’d accidentally bump the brick on the front of the garage with the plow. That would reverberate throughout my body. Somehow I always ended up doing it on sunny days, which was a world of difference from DH being out there in a blizzard. This pic was taken from the second floor deck, with the first floor windows completely covered in drifts:
I don’t think he misses plowing, or maintaining that land.
Rebecca
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I always had horses at home and occasionally one stayed at the trainers. But once I sold the property and bought a house in town I realized how nice it was to have my horse at a full care stable. No more frozen water buckets, no longer stressed about bad roads if I needed to get my horses to the vet, no more frozen face. The older I got the less fun it was to have them at home. I do really miss having a horse, I really, really do.
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Me, too. I tried taking driving lessons for a while to get my horse fix, but it just wasn’t the same. I was OK when I had to retire each driving pony as the relationship was the most important part to me. But when the last one died, it was truly the end of an era for me.
Rebecca
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I tried a grand experiment in horse care this year. My sis and I bought out the family farm from the other sibs. I board my horses at a very nice local boarding barn - whose only fault is that they keep the horses in muddy sacrifice paddocks during the winter. I got the bright idea to bring the boys home for November - March 1 so that they could have a real pasture and no mud for the winter. We even had hay made last summer so that I didn’t have to buy it.
Now here it is, a week away from March 1 and how would I rate the experiment? I really do enjoy taking care of them even in spite of the fact that we’ve had the worst winter in a long time. They enjoyed their pasture. Except for a few snags, everything has worked out great. But! They are definitely going back March 1 because a) I want to ride (can’t do it at the farm as I don’t have a ring and also would have to deal with one horse in the barn being an idiot while trying to ride the other) and b) I do want a bit more flexibility in my schedule which is kinda hard to have when the boys have to eat.
So back to the boarding barn and I’m pretty sure they will come back to the farm again November 1, assuming we have a decent hay year and my body is still somewhat functional 
But I cannot imagine how hard it would be to do the work for 25+ horses. It’s a young person’s job. I always respected our barn help but I have a new appreciation for them now.
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Unfortunately, the reality is that in immigration (and other RW places) “skill” is equated with level of education (formal) required of the job. It’s actually skilled/professional/unskilled. With professional have a degree that related to the job they do and unskilled job require less than 2 years of experience or training. The nuance of what makes a groom amazing may take years, but it doesn’t take years or special school/training to do stalls etc. I am pro groom/pro immigration but people on here aren’t realizing the legal classification of immigration.
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I see that the comments on this post stopped in late February. Things have changed quite a bit since then.
I’m out of the industry now… What is going on at the shows in? Is there a movement to protect our workers and friends?
Have people contacted their senators and representatives preemptively to let them know there could be an issue? Are attorney is being hired?
How are things going?
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More here:
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