I’ve been riding and boarding in socal for about 6 years and have yet to see padlocks on stalls. I can’t imagine a more foolish thing to do. Even taking fire out of the equation - what if the horse is colicing or gets cast or any of the other hundreds of things that can happen where humans need to open the stall to help?
All I can say if there are padlocks on a stall - get your horse the hell out of there. There is absolutely no reason for it.
I agree that in this case, the BOs were incredibly and criminally negligent.
have only once put a padlock on a stall. It was only because I was in the process of selling the horse, and the buyer had not paid for the horse yet. I was told by one of the trainers in the barn that this buyer brought their trailer and was planning to take the new horse home after dark. I said, nope. Put a lock on the stall door and left. The buyers left me a very nasty note, citing fire danger (we’re in the very wet PNW, no fire danger at this barn at this time at all), among other things and how awful I was to do it, etc. Oddly, they came up with the outstanding balance and took the horse home the next day.
That’s the ONLY time I have ever done it and I would certainly think more than twice about doing it again. But how these people could conceivably justify doing it on multiple (30??!!) stalls is just mind boggling. Not to mention just up and leaving and screw the horses if they burn up. And their puppy? They should never be allowed to have/care for animals ever again!
Updated information
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-animal-control-investigates-20171214-story.html
Quite the time lag between when they were told to evacuate and when someone called for help with the horses. I have no doubt charges will be filed … as well they should be.
Thanks for sharing that, ljc. I very much hope charges are filed.
Maybe - just maybe - this will make someone think about putting a padlock on their stall and maybe about fire safety and evacuation plans.
I’ve been here for about 13 years, from San Diego to SLO… and never, ever seen a stall with a padlock on it.
It doesn’t matter to me who put the padlocks on. The barn owner makes policy, sets the rules, and enforces those rules. At any barn there are going to be things that boarders may want to do which are harmful to themselves, their horses, or other boarders and those actions are not allowed. Smoking in the barn or on premises comes to mind as an example.
Sigh… I’m sure you believe its that black and white. Having seen some less than stellar situations over in the Moorpark area/Somis, I can promise that “barn owners” do not have as much authority as you believe particularly when it is the rental of a stall and nothing more. Not defending the owners of the exact case under attack. Just stating… that the horse world in SoCal is not all roses and wonderful and its never black and white no matter how “we” would like it to be.
I have been to, i would venture to say, the majority of barns in the Moorpark/Somis area… not keeping horses at most of them, but certainly visiting. I’ve also spoken with vets and farriers in the area. I have NEVER seen a padlocked stall.
In 12+ years of living in Ventura County, visiting many stables in Ojai, Somis, Moorpark, etc, not to mention LA County and Orange County, I never saw a single padlock on any stall or paddock. Let us please not give COTHers the impression that padlocks are common in Southern CA!
Living in SoCal my whole life, I had never come across padlocked stalls.
Weirdly enough, this week (literally right after the fire) I learned that there IS a barn in Yucca Valley (out near Joshua Tree) that ALSO requires padlocks on their stalls. Their reasoning is that they’re in the middle of nowhere with nothing to burn. As someone who lives in the EXACT same environment (desert scrub brush) who went through a gnarly fire last year, the area most definitely can and will burn in the event of a fire. Obviously the barn thinks it’s an acceptable risk.
So yes, padlocked stalls do happen (obviously!) but I don’t think it’s super common since these two are the only ones I’ve heard of in all my years here in SoCal.
If it was the boarders that put locks on their stalls, then they should be held responsible IN ADDITION TO the Barn Owner who let it happen…
I don’t understand what an owner renting a stall could possibly gain from locking their own horse in an unattended stall.
Me either. The whole locking the stall is a real head scratcher.
Tack is easier to steal, I see locking that up.
Equipment too [like quads and golf carts], but the actual horses?
That’s a no. Every time. Regardless of the ‘who’.
That is my issue with this too! There is a joke in the mid west that if you go to a horse show at the end of the season and leave your trailer open you will come back and find a horse in it. The joke is people are giving away horses this time of year. Maybe the weather in southern California doesn’t make it as shitty to feed a horse all winter and ride 5 times, but unless you have a really high end horse I doubt you have to worry about someone stealing your horse. And if you do have a really high end horse you are probably at a high end barn, not a death trap with padlocks on stalls. I’d get a security camera before I got a padlock, but I am just a simple girl who doesn’t want her horse to burn to death in a stall. What do I know.
I have only ever seen the one barn here in SoCal that padlocked their stalls. They must have close to 80 horses spread out over 20 sloping acres. Lots of beautiful, tall groves of eucalyptus trees, shrubs and plants right up next to the barns. Very lovely landscaping. Er, I mean kindling. I just spoke to someone I know who has been to that barn very recently. They still padlock the stalls, and even now, even after all the backlash from what happened with these horses, they have no intention of stopping. So between the fact that they are located at the end of a dead-end road in fire-prone canyon, have NO defensible space, and have tons of horses padlocked in stalls but spread out over hilly property… when the next fire comes through there, those poor horses are all effed. And yes, it’s when, not if. That canyon WILL burn again someday, and I just hope they have plenty of warning. 
Can they be reported to the local Animal Control authorities? Or how about an anonymous call to the largest paper n the area? The LA Times, if nowhere else, given the stories they’ve done. I’d be all over Facebook with it, as well. Publicity is the only thing that will stop such stupidity.
Even if you had, then someone would be screaming animal cruelty, hang that bas+ard! Ya’ll,this is upsetting and I would like to know why it happened too, (insurance?) but we need to remember that NO animal life is more valuable than a human life. Ever.
Then you haven’t been where I’ve been. I’ve seen them used in 3 barns for non-payment of board. 2 in Malibu and one in Moorpark/Somis and used at a couple of the “tenements” that go up in the area.
ok, I think the confusion is coming in where earlier in this thread you were saying that padlocks were not uncommon in certain types of boarding situations in SoCal.
Being used at just a few ‘facilities’ (although a tenement is hardly a facility) for non-payment of board means that yeah - this is pretty uncommon. A few bad apple, poorly-run places resort to paddocking does not mean that it is a regional trend as other SoCalers have stated.
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