For my personal sanity I choose to believe this was just a rumor and didn’t happen.
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@Equkelly True Story:
Friend got a horse that was shipped on a freight train from OK.
Car he was in was left on a siding for (IIRC) A WEEK
He survived, arrived grossly underweight, but gained the weight back & went on to become a trailhorse for years.
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You guys tell the worst stories.
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This is 100% true.
Horse was given to a know-nothing guy who bought & sold oil by one of his customers in OK.
When he arrived at the boarding barn - in the heart of Chgo - he was so turned off to people he spent his days butt to the door, head in the corner. Only turned when he was fed, but wanted nothing to do with anyone.
Guy’s wife was a Newb rider, horse (once he regained some of the weight) proved too much horse for her.
In a clinic (dressage with Bodo Hangen), she was told to dismount, he then put the horse on the longe, where he resisted any attempt to make him go forward by bowing.
It was something to see 
My friend bought him, moved him to a barn in the ‘burbs & made him her trail horse.
He remained quirky, once wading into a pond & staying there overnight.
Big black TB, she renamed Stormin’ Norman.
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Unfortunately, not a rumor. It did happen.
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Sadly, I actually have a worse one. The irony was that the “concerned” owner was convinced the horse was stolen, and put posters up everywhere.
It’s too gross to type out here. PM me if you want to know the details.
Ok. The people involved are actually pretty lovely so I am going to come here to bitch anonymously instead of to people I know irl. Local show series. Roughly the same course configuration year in & year out. Organizers are a little iffy on setting correct distances & I think try to reset jumps visually to the pattern the jumper course designer laid out after dismantling them to drag the arena. Outside line jumping away from civilization starts straight, and slowwwly drifts to a broken line as the weeks go by. Far jump is always a doozy of an oxer.
All of this would be fine but for the fact that they insist on parking a big, scary, seldom-used piece of ring-maintenance equipment right next to the rail about a stride out from said doozy of an oxer on drunken outside line. WHHHHHYYYYYY?!?! I’ve seen them use this piece of equipment exactly once in 4 years attending this series. Nothing else, not even the tractor with the drag, which they do use several times per show, is ever parked in the vicinity of the arena.
It freaks out otherwise unflappable horses. It even scares their own horses, who see it daily. This time, I watched 3 pony riders in a row eliminated because they couldn’t pilot their wigged out mounts past this thing.
I just…I just…have questions I’d like to ask but won’t because they’re sweet & try hard. Lol. Why is it there? Do they just not register its existence anymore? Am I the only one who sees the causation? And why can’t they set distances accurately after 40 years of doing this? Why is there a drunken broken line for everything, including the 18" SS course? Whhhhhhhhyyyyyyyy??
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Could you come up with a ruse to get them to use said piece of equipment in hopes that they park it elsewhere?
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Drunken line. I love it. 
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It has progressed past the point of a semi-challenging but well behaved Eq course question into something reminiscent of my tipsy-in-4"-heels-and-trying-to-negoiate-the-cobblestones-in-downtown-Charlottesville path the night I went to see a Tim Reynold’s concert with friends in grad school.
@SadieRidingHorses, I’ll have to think about it. I used to think it was just me who saw the connection between said object & numerous horses refusing the fence (and the entire corner, really). But I’ve since heard a few others quietly complaining, so…
Eta: Totally random & off topic idea that came to me while listening to hours of hunter classes being announced: I have decided that I need to get a big, unruly WB gelding and name it ‘Enter Sandman’ in tribute to the monster under the bed in the Metallica song. He would join my other hypothetical horse, a red chestnut mare named ‘Hell’s Belle’ in a dorky word play on the AC/DC song. I will ride them both in musical freestyles using their titular song as their signature walk out (buck, rear out?) theme, like MMA fighters do.
Can you tell that I have A LOT of time on my hands at hunter schooling shows? 
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An older guy looked at my horse as he walked past, and we had the following conversation:
“Is that to keep him calm?”.
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
“That. The blind fold”
“Err… No. That’s to keep flies out of his eyes. He can see perfectly fine”.
“Well. Now I’ve heard everything”.
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If you’re referencing Tommy Burns aka The Sandman, the joke is going to go unheard by anyone under 50.
And, remembering Streetwise end, kind of tasteless.
Just my (aged) 2¢
FWIW: I grew up in the era of the infamous Jaynes (apologies to Alex) & learned to ride at Capt. Frank’s stable. But am constantly surprised at how many horsepeople are not familiar with that scandal.
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This last week’s fun:
-
Client has decided to feed chia seeds because they think it reduces their horse’s cribbing. It doesn’t. The horse still cribs, through their collar as soon as the owner leaves. The horse is out 12-16 hours a day and will crib on pretty much anything they can get their teeth on. (No judgement, my horse also does that. He doesn’t have ulcers but most likely did at some point in his life and now he cribs like a chain smoker as a habit.)
-
A client decided they are buying an OTTB to flip. Cool. They are buying the horse from an organization that adds a mark up to the price. The facility that they are going to board the horse at (the one I work at) is beautiful but expensive. And to top it off they got the money for the horse via a loan…if it goes well, great!
But from what I and my boss have gathered is the client has never trained an OTTB straight from the track and we don’t think they have any idea how long it can take to retrain any horse. I just hope the horse is a saint and they are able to flip it quickly.
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I was thinking of the Metallica song about the monster under your bed. To match my other hypothetical horse “Hell’s Belle” , a riff on the AC/DC song. Was unaware of the association with Tommy Burns until I Googled it just now. Yuck. There goes that idea. 
Eta: Know of the scandal, but not of the specific people involved save Bernie Ward. I’m 45, so a little young unless I’d grown up in a horse family.
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Mildly dumb WTF moment, no damage done.
Barn buddy, reasonably experienced amateur, on friendly terms. We share an interest in ground work. We don’t ride together or share chores, not in my inner circle. She’s a bit inside her own head in a sweet dopey way.
Describes self as very nervous and unfamiliar with trailers, and has occasionally explosive younger horse who has also become nervous about trailers.
Barn buddy owner has been letting her sniff any trailers parked at the barn. That’s fine.
But the other day I came back from a trail ride, left my ramp down while I did chores, eventually came back with a wheelbarrow to muck out. And barn buddy had actually let her horse walk into my trailer. I was taken aback.
I told her I was always happy to lend my trailer if folks wanted to practice loading but you should never let your horse walk into someone’s trailer without asking permission first. There might be a hidden hazard, and if a horse gets freaked it can do a lot of damage (I had my trailer matting ripped off once by a horse flying backward). Plus if there’s poop at the back of the trailer that needs cleaning it makes a royal mess if you start trailer loading over it. She was all apologetic so that’s fine. I told her to not do it in anyone else’s trailer either with it asking . It was like me going and sitting in her truck.
But honestly, who does this?
I often toss my pitchfork into the trailer after the horses are out. On this day, I’d locked one of the emergency doors for transit. The divider was wide open, bars could have swing. Etc. It just never occurred to me that someone would try to load their horse into my empty trailer without asking me first. Especially as I would have said yes if I could be there to watch.
Fortunately no harm done.
But really, who does this?
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Apparently she does.
Reminds of a post on here a year or two ago; someone had a young horse who was afraid of cows and someone posted a response to the tune of find a herd of cows and have your horse chase them! Yes! Chase someone else’s cattle to teach your horse not to be afraid of them. How anyone could think that anyone would allow some random person come and chase their cows risking injury or causing death is beyond me. Here come chase my herd of $600+ a piece livestock so your horse can have a teaching moment.
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To be fair, if you can find someone willing to let you, that’s actually not a bad idea to get a horse used to cows. I have several friends that own cattle specifically for practicing team penning, roping, etc. Even know of a guy near here with buffalo, have a friend that was big into the mustang makeovers that would take his mustangs there for some REAL cow work.
But no, just going into some random person’s field and chasing their cows with no permission is a HUGE no-no.
Yes, I know some have cattle for specifically that reason - for teaching your young horse. No, this person was talking about finding some range cattle on a ranch or a farm and allowing their horse to chase them.
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Wow. I guess the positive side is that she did it with your trailer hooked to your truck and didn’t just randomly open someone’s unhitched trailer to practice loading.
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Yeah, I think she is the kind of person who wouldn’t actually open a closed door. But I have no idea if she knows you can’t load in an unhitched trailer. Or that you can’t tie up with the butt bar open. Etc. Which is why I gave her a blanket suggestion: don’t put your horse in anyone’s trailer without asking first.
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