I needed to vent, so here goes…
For some context, I was an equine professional, but recently closed my equine business to pursue other career paths. I was the head instructor (instructor A) Earlier this year, I brought in some help by recruiting another instructor to teach under the barn (not my business, Instructor B). She has been wonderful for sure! The barn owner held an adults only camp for handling horses, grooming and lunging. It was well attended, I volunteered my time to be there to help supervise and instruct… The barn owner acquired two lesson students from this camp that she passed onto Instructor B. Well one of these students has been riding my person horse in lessons, and just presented interest in leasing. This got back to the barn owner, and she has now made new rules that all students must ride her horses, unless they board there and then they can ride their own horse, or if the instructor owns the horse. She also made a comment about how I should pay back those fees to her because it’s her program. I flat out refused.
The lease has gone to the wayside too. She says it’s “too complicated” for liability reasons, and it’s “not fair” for her to lose out on the lesson commission and lease money she would get if this student leased one of her horses. She did also say she wanted to figure out how to “handle leasing personal horses out of her barn.” Due to the “additional liability” and how the owner of the horse giving directions on how to ride the horse can be considered instruction… I fail to see how this is any different than me bringing in a guest and having them ride MY horse after signing a barn waiver. This happens quite often through all boarders in the barn. I have a really bad feeling she won’t allow us to lease our horses out, make it so incredibly difficult to lease, or charge the horse owners to lease their own horses out…
It seems like she won’t allow anything that she cannot profit off of, even if it doesn’t affect her negatively. It just seems like a sour way to think…
Edited to add: I’ve boarded here for 5 years. I ran the barn for 3 years, and was the head instructor from 2017 until now. I know the owner well. I worked for both her small businesses. I was with her 40+ hours a week… This isn’t the first time something like this has come up… Frankly it’s tiring.