Someone who knows Lori Postal and Helen Brown and their past dealings firsthand really needs to come on this thread and speak the truth. They have a long history of shady dealings.
4 Likes
All I know is that alerting the press the way this trainer did makes HER look manipulative
18 Likes
Agreed. The second I saw who the horse was I figured it was something along these lines. Not the first time owner has abruptly left a trainer. Definitely the most dramatic though!
1 Like
I’ve been at a barn where the BO let his boarders rack up some hefty bills. I would say the situation was 80% his fault. If you let someone board 7 horses without paying why should they pay? Why should anyone else feel the need to pay board? One of the reasons I left was I tired of subsidizing other’s horse habits.
When I moved, one of the first things I asked was ‘What do you do when someone doesn’t pay up?’ not because I was worried about my paying, but what avoiding a repeat of the prior barn. BO’s response was that past due bills were not tolerated, if someone didn’t pay, they would be gone. He would send out a letter required to enforce an agister’s lien ASAP. He was not screwing around. His boarders were mostly good quality Stbd broodmares in the barn to foal out; he could easily cover what was owed if they went to auction. He was pretty clear with boarders that there were consequences for not paying bills.
Having known others who stiffed trainers significant board bills, I find it hard to fault the barn owner for making it public. Odds are that if it weren’t made public, it will be made known through back channels that the owner is bad pay anyway.
The only thing I find disturbing about this situation is the people who think the $57K bill was a shock to the owner. IME owners know exactly what they are doing when they don’t pay a bill like this.
3 Likes
Once the owner stopped paying, normally the horse would go out of training, and the bills would go back to basics: board, shoeing, meds. That’s about it.
Apparently both the trainer and the owner were in over their heads. It happens…and it will be resolved.
This^^ My guess is that trainer billed monthly and month after month no payments were made. Roughly $5k per month is not surprising for a horse in full training, full care, showing regularly, etc.
2 Likes
I wonder if trainer had another customer lined up to buy the horse in the auction.
4 Likes
My gut is telling me that the Pro moved the horse, not the owner.
She has already witheld information.
6 Likes
$5/month would not be unusual for a very large training barn going to A shows every week.
However, most places would expect to get paid for the previous month before doing anything the following month. I could see this kind of thing going on for 2 months maybe but not more than that.
It’s weird.
5 Likes
APirateLooks AtForty wrote, “Someone who knows Lori Postal and Helen Brown and their past dealings firsthand really needs to come on this thread and speak the truth. They have a long history of shady dealings.”
What did I miss? What does Lori Postal have to do with this missing horse? Is this the Lori Postal from the David Rivkin - Lori Postal relationship mess/court battle? Oh la la.
Sure and maybe she planned to buy him back herself or had someone lined up to bid, but again you’d think that would come up in the interview, that oh, by the way, he was going to change ownership today, what a coincidence.
3 Likes
I actually would probably be highly sympathetic to the trainer (knowing no other details) but for the really manipulative crying wolf business about a theft. Did she stop for a minute to think how that allegation would harm the owner of the barn? Would worry local horse owners? Would waste investigative resources?
23 Likes
If it turns out the owner has the horse, those will all be valid questions.
On the off chance that the owner didn’t take him, or claims to have no knowledge of his whereabouts, and he doesn’t turn up soon, it would look very odd if she had found the horse’s stall empty one morning and didn’t contact any authorities.
Again, just guesswork on my part.
1 Like
@vxf111, You’re the lawyer not me, but with almost $60K on the line, I’d be calling the cops if the horse I was auctioning for board disappeared, even if I had a pretty good idea who took him.
Document, document, document.
If the horse is repo’d (maybe not right word) & being sold for back board, I’m not sure it’s still the ‘owner’s’ horse.
3 Likes
Unlikely as she has the local police involved. I believe it’s a felony to file a fraudulent report.
Edited to Add: I think Emily’s initial post was tactful. She attempted to find information about the missing horse without defaming anyone. Defamation = civil suit when that type of money is involved.
1 Like
I think an earlier poster has it right…what if the trainer moved the horse in order to keep it and avoid the auction; then reported the horse missing/stolen to legitimize the whole thing?
It is all too easy to simply change the horse’s identity, even though it is a pretty recognizable horse due to its markings and story.
Of course, the owner could do the same thing, but the trainer has just as much incentive to keep the horse and sell it privately for, I would assume, bigger bucks and to someone who will keep it with her for training.
I agree it should have been reported. Not mentioning that there was a billing dispute with the owner and the horse was to be auctioned is what raises my eye brows.
That is how an agister’s lien or stablemen’s lien works. You don’t get to just take possession of the horse. It has to be sold at public auction. And there is no guarantee it will sell for any amount. We had someone owe us $25,000 for a broodmare and her foal that were abandoned at the farm. I think we got $250 in the auction.
She may very well purchase the horse through the auction.
7 Likes
Tactful but also somewhat misleading, it omitted some material facts and there was a way to seek information without alarming people and without subjecting herself to defamation/libel/slander. And, she pretty quickly started chiming in on the comments on FB with more detail once people found the auction notice, so I’m not convinced tact was really what drove issuing a statement that the horse had been taken without letting on that you had an inkling of what might have led to it happening.
Fact is, the statement could have been handled better. But, that’s not to say anyone should conclude the trainer is the real one at fault here vs. the owner, as there is obviously a LOT we don’t know about what led to this situation, and what we know now isn’t enough to conclude who is or is not in the wrong. And of course the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle!
Ouch! So sorry. That stinks.
