I once toured a barn that I was considering for boarding. They had two covered arenas to use, however, boarders were not allowed during lessons. Even though one was large enough to do both, nope, not allowed. The lesson schedule was on a white board so easy to check, but the lessons ran from 10 AM to 7:30 PM, non stop, both arenas. So the only time I’d be able to ride was around 8:30 PM. Not very accommodating to boarders, it’s a wonder they had any.
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Our barn had a policy that when lessons were in session that particular arena was closed to boarders. The only exceptions were if it was a highly experienced horse/rider combination who was courteous and posed no threat/ distractions to those in a lesson.
If this isn’t your barn’s policy I don’t see that you have any options. I would talk to the students and maybe try to help them see that her advice is not worth taking, but people have to learn for themselves in the end. If the BO doesn’t know any better herself you are swimming upstream in the rapids.
I can see why you are frustrated.
Not to go off topic, but I think the use of the arena during lessons is an interesting issue. On the one hand, as a current lesson student, I secretly love it when I get to ride at an “off time” when the arena is empty and I don’t have to worry about other horses. On the other hand, as a not-a-millionaire, and someone who used to compete/wants to compete, being able to ride and navigate around other horses is a necessary skill.
But here, you’re the trainer. Your students pay for your service and have just as much right to the use of the arena as the TB. If I was one of your students, I’d be highly annoyed that she kicked us out of the ring or interfered with our use of it during lesson time. Have you seen/heard any evidence that it bothers them? Not encouraging you to stir the pot, but it occurs to me that they may have better standing to address it with BO. At the very least, you want to know whether they stand in case you raise it and then BO asks THEM whether TB’s use of the arena during lessons is a problem.
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Oh lord-I’ll probably get in trouble for this. We had someone exactly like this person at our barn. No one was allowed to use the covered arena while she was in there. Her horse didn’t cross tie so she hogged the wash stall by stringing a lunge line across it. (Her horse cross tied and talk about a safety hazard)
Yeah-I made sure I rode my horse while she was in the arena. She made one comment about this is my time and I replied I pay board here to and no one has exclusive rights to the covered. She never made the comment again. I also learned when she was finishing up her ride, I would go hurry and get to the wash stall first and took my time hosing my guy off. She would say to me I need the wash stall. My reply would be I am using it, you will have to wait. Go graze your horse.
She took lessons from my trainer who owned the barn and it was sooo frustrating and painful to watch her lessons. My trainer has the patience of a saint. Occasionally my trainer would ride this person’s horse and you could see the relief in his face as she rode him. He was trained PSG and the woman claimed she rode PSG but more like First level. Horse was very patient with owner and never put a foot wrong.
She made the mistake of bad mouthing my trainer to another boarder and I happened to walk around the corner and heard her. Ripped her a new one and then told my trainer. She was asked to leave.
Sorry about the long story. hope you find a solution but I agree with telling your students that if this person comes up and tries to teach your students or give them advice that they say no thanks.
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KDW, the other thing that will not change is your decision to be nonconfrontational. You want this situation to be rectified, but not by you having to take a stand. It won’t work out that way.
You have more to gain than to lose by leaving this situation.
The BO will not change, the TB will not change, and you will not change, either. It’s your right to conduct yourself in the way that is best for you. However, none of us are going to fit into every situation. You will not fit into this one.
This terrible boarder sounds like a negative influence and impact on most of what she touches. What we used to call ‘toxic’. I suggest that you remove the toxic from your life by removing yourself from this situation. It is too bad that there really is no other remedy.
But I think you will find that a lot of things are much better for you once you have made this change.
IMO the worst thing that you could do is to be too attached to this barn and the lessons. Getting clear will open up some opportunities for you that the bad barn is blocking.
Be honest with BO about why you will no longer be associating with her barn. That it is not about BO herself. And then let it go at that.
The next time the BO says that she does not want to lose the TB as a boarder, ask her the simple question, “why?”. But don’t be concerned about her answer, it doesn’t matter to your decision. Just take it as an opportunity to perhaps get her to think a little more broadly. If she doesn’t want to, it’s her barn.
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I like your style!
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These people who don’t want anyone else in an arena while they are riding - how on earth do they handle the warm-up ring?
I’m trying to ride my horse with as many different horses and things going on as possible, just to be sure he’s as desensitized as possible when we are at a show or anywhere else off-property. He’s still going to be bug-eyed, but hopefully rideable.
This x 1,000. ^^^^
People like this make it extremely uncomfortable and costly to confront them - even to disagree with them. So most people will make sacrifices to avoid that discomfort. Never understood that because the long-term consequences of allowing the behavior are even more uncomfortable, but they do.
I’m cheering for you! 
IMO, it’s one of the few cases when it is ok to say “they started it”. Why do I have to be all polite and smooth over their insufferable rudeness? 
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Approach this as if you were working with your horse - if you don’t correct it, it continues and often worsens. Every time someone gets away with something it facilitates further bad behavior.
We know this is how you teach an 1100 lb animal to kick you. Why teach people to treat us poorly?
The correction (typically pointing out that behavior isn’t acceptable) needs to be immediate and clear. Don’t nag, be effective.
It may sound juvenile, but in some sense it is correct; they acted, now there is a consequence.
Along the same vein, I don’t appreciate those who think they are being clever when they deal with difficult people by arranging it so that the desired outcome is achieved by letting difficult person think it was their idea, or that they are getting away with something. You have now set yourself up for more of their tantrums and bullying.
I feel like this is how a lot of women have learned to deal with certain men, and it only facilitates male *ssholery. It doesn’t do anyone any favors. This may have been the best approach if you were King Henry VIII’s wife, but it 2020, and you aren’t.
I would rather be direct than manipulative.
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So true. I’ve boarded with one TB who insisted on riding in the indoor with her dog, which was then a six month old labrador puppy. It was bad enough that she didn’t know arena rules, but the loose puppy was a hazard. Since we were both evening, after work riders, my choices were to get the barn manager to leave her well earned everning time to deal with it, which would inevitably be bad for both of you, or to leave.
Another time, I boarded with a TB who rode bareback in a halter texting on her phone and letting her horse wander. It was impossible to share the arena with her.
I learned from both of these situations that talking to the TBs does not good–inevitably they end up screaming at you, or worse, doing something crazy to your stuff. The night that TB #2 moved out of the barn, she put garbage and mouse poop in the horse feed and destroyed some personal items of people she didn’t like. In my case, she cut the bottom off of my horse’s tail bag, while my horse was wearing it!
Mostly, TBs are TBs because they are narcissistic or crazy or immature or spoiled, etc., and people have been enabling them forever. You cannot change them or the situation. Your choice is to leave.
I have my own place now. I love it.
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No matter where you are in life, you will have to manage how you interact with others.
Some of those others may be like this TB, manipulative, entitled people with a mean streak that run around bullying others and love it.
Is how most species function, some individuals are just bullies, some get along, some are bullied.
Humans, dogs, cats, chickens, cattle, horses, most every one out there.
Each one of us are individuals and add our individual traits to the mix.
In most every place in life, horse barns, in horse forums too.
OP needs to figure how much of that bully in her barn she wants to live with, what to do to keep that bully contained or if to leave the floor to the bully.
All of us have to make those decisions every time we interact with others, the ones we get along well and those that make you cringe and you feel sorry for them, realizing they are really inappropriately acting up internal struggles.
Best way to handle them is, ignore when you can, keep doing your thing, confront them when you need to, or leave the scene when it doesn’t matter to you to be assertive.
The BO seems to have said it didn’t want to run that mean girl boarder off, so the choices now seem to be limited to handling her yourself or leaving, distasteful those are for the OP.
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Just went and reread the OP. As a part-time instructor with no horse at the facility you dont seem to have much leverage with the BO. And the TB seems to have gotten under your skin so much that you are critical of stuff that doesnt affect you as well as stuff that does.
I guess at this point I would try to figure out what situation (if anything) would make me comfortable to stay with the TB still there. She will not change, so you would have to ask the BO to create and enforce some rules to allow you to continue. I would make it clear, that I could not continue without the changes.
You will likely have to leave.
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I agree, and agree with Bluey that no one gets to just get along and never “confront” or better word “address” concerns.
The op has to talk to Barn manager/owner and approach them in a spirit of seeking amicable solutions, accepting that the best alternative to a negotiated agreement will be leaving. The OP only has limited leverage, which is the other boarders who enjoy taking lessons with her. If the BO isn’t moved by that, then the answer is leaving.
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I am sorry to hear about your predicament. As an instructor, I completely understand the frustration you must feel if nasty boarder is undermining your instruction and offering unsolicited advice and criticism of your students and their horses. She is toxic, and it is a shame she is allowed to get away with such outrageous demands and bullying behavior.
I taught in a program that I absolutely loved. We had a wonderful crew of volunteers and families and incredible school horses. But we had a Director who was very difficult, dishonest and constantly undermined the instructors with ridiculous group-shaming emails and caustic remarks. She was eventually fired, but before she was, she caused 99% turnover of wonderful staff and volunteers in the program. So I speak from experience when I say I’m very sorry for you, but the best thing to do when dealing with someone like that is to move on.
Eventually, the toxic boarder will push too far, or other paying clients will protest and she and the barn owner will have an ugly break-up, but until then, if the barn owner is putting her on a pedestal, it is going to be tough for you. I wish you all the best - you sound like a wonderful instructor with a great attitude about your students.
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In your situation, you have no authority in the goings-on of the barn, therefore your options are to try to talk to BO (again) and come up with some ground rules that would make you more comfortable staying, or leave this facility.
Since BO is apparently enthralled with DQ, I expect your best option is to just leave.
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I just wanted to say that I FEEL YOU. I also do not do well watching people do incredibly stupid things on the advice of “trainers” who have no business giving other people lessons, advice, or a business card. I board at a barn full of somewhat inexperienced boarders, an absent BO/BM that knows NOTHING, and barn staff that is not very experienced or knowledgeable either. For a while there was a staff member, who somehow managed to get an instructors license, giving lessons that thankfully did not cause anyone any permanent damage.
It’s just incredibly frustrating. I offer my own experiences as evidence to alternative methods, sometimes, if I see someone doing something questionable, but mostly, there is nothing you can do.
Happens every place.
In reining, everyone that is good at any other discipline watches some reining run and immediately dismisses that as, heck, anyone can do that!
Then when someone asks about reining, interested in learning more, those instant experts think they already know all there is to know about reining and offer their advice.
That advice is based on their own knowledge, which when it comes to reining is based in not knowing what they don’t know.
There are many otherwise good trainers out there just like that.
Many that have not trained and shown in reining don’t realize reining is about way more than just riding a horse around and making it do tricks any one way, that the trick is in the details, that you won’t know unless you develop an educated eye and feel for those and no, working cow horse reining is not pure reining either, has different demands to their judging.
Anky and Clint Anderson come to mind as two highly educated trainers, CA even won reining classes as a kid in Australia, that were thinking they could just start showing with little learning about what is today’s reining very technical discipline.
They were honest once they realized wow, that is a whole different level of riding.
We better get some real instruction, real reining schoolmaster horses and start at the start.
We are novices at this, but it is oh so interesting, and they learned well.
Just as in this situation here, that one pushy, clueless boarder, that needs to sit back and listen and learn first, not assume with little knowledge that she now knows it all.
I think, without support from the ones in charge, the OP may just have to leave, if that is impeding her teaching her students the proper way.
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Isn’t there one of these in every barn? 
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The TB is not only creating problems for you, but also for your students. If I were a student paying for lessons at a facility where I couldn’t use the arena I would be pissed off, especially if the barn policy is that lessons take priority.
I would approach the BO and present the problem with the TB from the perspective of the lesson students. Point out that the students are paying for lessons but aren’t able to use the arena due to the TB, the safety issues (TB lunging her horse in the arena during lessons and cracking her lunge whip, etc.) and that you don’t feel you can effectively teach your students in that environment. BO might not give a hoot about keeping you happy, but she would be a fool not to care about keeping her paying students happy.
If the BO refuses to approach the TB and establish some ground rules then you have your answer. Give her your notice with your reasons for leaving (I love teaching the students but can’t teach effectively in this environment) and leave.
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I don’t know if this has been addressed before but what if you just ignored her and used the arena for your lessons whether or not she’s using it at the same time? She’d either learn to deal with it or not.
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