“I saw your email about the Santa gifts, but when I came to the barn on I noticed there was nothing on my horse’s stall. I’m assuming it was a treat bag and he probably helped himself?”
That would easily and honestly open up a discussion about where the bag went if indeed it went anywhere and wasn’t being held back for you specially or something. If you’re an extra special client or do a lot of things to help out around the barn, it may be that you don’t get the generic bag, but possibly get something a little more that would make it unwise to leave it hanging unprotected.
It did not. Now, though, I feel bad that I can’t thank her. But she did give each of her training clients a nice gift, and of course I thanked her for that.
I meant to bring this up during out lesson but totally forgot. Although I didn’t actually see my pony’s gift bag, I’m sure that’s because he helped himself and destroyed the evidence LOL, so thank you on his behalf! I really appreciate everything you do for us.
I like this idea, for one thing it gets it out in the open, was it an oversight, someone swiped it, or ??, also, assuming she did give you something it lets her know you are not being rude and not thanking her. By replying to the email you are removing some potential in person awkwardness or accidental tone.
Mangled and, of course empty, bag was recovered earlier today and placed in our stall basket. Trainer and I had a good laugh about it. My horse is being all Sergeant Schultz about it: “I know nothing.”
I put treats up - tied to the bars of the stalls - for each horse one year. Went through the whole thing of sneaking into the barn late at night (which was a 30 min drive from me) and putting up the little tied sandwich bags of treats. Tied to the outside of the bar of each stall (no hooks or tack trunks to put them on). Mr. Barn Owner loudly complains the next day that his precious gelding is the only one that didn’t get a treat…that is until we saw the empty bag in his stall…yeah no, your greedy pony just managed to get the treats through the bars!
On the other note…I would have voted just telling trainer if she asked. You basically have two options:
1 - lie about getting it, followed by 25 minutes of hilarity (with commercial breaks) until you both finally figured out that had you said something to begin with, it wouldn’t have been a big deal - cue closing credits to Sillyhorse Sitcom.
2 - Be honest and either figure out what happened right away or at least know that it wasn’t intentional. Of course with this option, how are the rest of us to entertain ourselves?
If trainer asks, be somewhat honest about it… agree with the oh gosh I didn’t see that email, or just ask what all the bags are for. I say this because we had a situation at my barn where some of the gifts left for people went missing… some folks felt slighted they didn’t get a gift from a person who’d always given them something. Had we not chit chatted with each other we wouldn’t have realized what was going on.
