I once boarded with some folks that hired a trainer psychic to read the auras of their horses. Paid lots of $$$, too.
Many barns ago, there was one particular boarder who was a compulsive liar & thief. I believe the first thing she told us when she moved in was that she had jumped 10’. On her paint cross mare that couldn’t make it around a 2’ course. :lol:
She had a habit of saying that trainer was ‘saving’ whatever sale horse she liked for her, constantly rotating the horse of her affection, because trainer would sell the horses fairly quickly. We all knew it was bull, but played along because it was rather humorous.
Anyways, I purchased a 3 y/o WB for myself who moved into the barn. His didn’t have a name plate up yet, and I don’t believe she’d seen me riding him, because while walking past his stall, she told me that trainer had bought this horse for her. I politely told her that I had actually bought this horse for myself :rolleyes:
CM, oh please … I’m too old to wet my pants from laughing so hard :lol:
I cleaned stalls for a lady on Tuesdays and Thursdays, she paid by the day and took it off of my board. One day she asked me why I shorted my board check. I was confused and reminded her of our arrangement. She preceded to tell me she only paid for 4 Tuesdays and 4 Thursdays, if there were 5 in the month you didn’t get paid for the 5th. I promptly ended our employee/employer relationship.
Ok so I now want to be the octogenarian naked sunbather when I grow up.
@AQHA4me, WTAF? Did you also end the boarding agreement or just the working off of board? Some people’s majic math :lol:
I have many tales from the past - but just a short one for tonight. I worked at a Warmblood/Standardbred farm and the 3 of us girls who did all the work complained about how unsafe the trailers were as the tires were crap and the BOs did not want to spend money on that sort of maintenance stuff. The big gooseneck trailer was the worst - I hated taking it anywhere and we finally refused to use it. The BOs were sisters and one finally got fed up with our “foolishness” about the gooseneck and said SHE would take it in to the city with some SBs heading back to the track. One of us had to go with her - and I drew the short straw. Lucky me.
So off we went, hightailing it down the highway as the trailer felt uneven and unbalanced behind us. I spent most of my time looking out the back window at the trailer, worrying. The BO was also sipping her morning beverage of choice - orange juice and a dash of Southern Comfort. The road trip from hell.
As we came into the city on the expressway, there was a sudden CLUNK! and the trailer fishtailed… and then off to our left on the inside lane of the 4 lane expressway, we saw a wheel fly down the lane, bumping off the inside guard rail… tire, rim, everything! I knew it was off the trailer but the BO poo-poohed me and said I was a worry wart and overreacting!! NOT!!! I was yelling at her to pull over - she was yelling at me to STFU. Thankfully, the tire seemed to have slowed and got into the median and no one was killed. That I heard of, anyway… 
We get to the backstretch gate and the guy at the booth walked up to the BO’s window and asked her how the trailer hauled. “Just fine”, she scowled. He then said we were missing a wheel - the outside one at the back on the left.
I was livid - well, beyond that, actually.
The BO just shrugged. We pulled around to the shed row where the trainer was and I was frantic to see how the horses had fared on that ride from hell. 3 out of the four were fine - good, sensible veteran SBs who took most things in stride. The 4th one was a 2 year old filly who was drenched in sweat and looked as if she had seen a ghost - or her life had passed in front of her eyes - which it probably had.
It took a few people to convince the BO to leave the trailer there and get it checked over and fixed. The hour and a half drive home was uncomfortable, to say the least…because the BO was never, ever wrong… so the AWOL tire became my fault.
More hilarity from that place to come. 
This wasn’t the craziest moment I’ve experienced, but the thread on “rude, spiteful barn help” reminded me of it. –
I showed up at the barn where I rode for the annual fun day/horse show, and overworked BM immediately “volunteered” me to look after a 9yo beginner whose aunt had just dropped her off at the barn. I was told her name and which pony she would ride for the day, that was all. I knew the pony by sight only. After a couple of remarks to the child – “Do you want to go bring Pony in?” “Do you want to groom or want me to?” – I realized Child had absolutely no clue how to get pony ready. So I got Pony, groomed Pony (keeping Child’s costume clean), and suggested Child go get Pony’s tack. She said she didn’t know which was his saddle and bridle. I said, “OK, is saddle black or brown?”
Child didn’t know. I said, “Which is his bridle?”
Child didn’t know. I said, “What kind of bit?”
What kind of what?
I said, “Please go ask BM to tell you.”
Child: “I don’t see her.”
“Well, go LOOK for her.”
I told Child to watch pony in grooming stall while I went to the tack room to see if anyone there knew Pony’s tack. There was one bridle left; looked Pony-size, and one pony-sized saddle, a synthetic.
Just then BM’s new assistant walked by. This was a person who had known BM previously and was starting out at this barn by assuming none of us knew as much as she did about anything. Politely I smiled and asked if she knew if this was Pony’s bridle. It was right size, but a pelham, and this was a dressage barn.
New assistant: “Yes, that’s his bridle, and be sure you put the chain UNDER his chin.”
I wanted to smile again and say, “Oh, really!? I thought it went in his MOUTH!”
But I just said thanks.
Anyway, got Pony tacked up, got Child up on Pony, led Pony through the walk/trot of their costume class.
We didn’t win, but once it was over I was free to go get my own horse, groom him, tack him up, and lead him out to the arena, where new assistant promptly started to criticize the way I positioned the mounting block, the way I held the reins to mount, and I don’t remember what else. This with my family’s horse, whom I had known well and ridden for 4 years by that time, and whom new assistant did not know at all except to bring in, feed, and turn out.
Not really a fun day!
@the jenners - I stayed as a boarder for several months after, but the cray was strong. By the time I left I wasn’t allowed to use the hose :no:
She changed the rules by the day it seemed. I’ve seen her posting looking for barn help recently and I just shake my head,
I’ve boarded at a few places, the worst moment was when I was a teen and the barn hired a hunter groom to work at a saddlebred farm, she was so nice and very knowledgeable, but she pulled and trimmed my Pleasure horse’s mane to about 3" long and banged his tail. His mane was past his shoulders and super thick and his tail dragged the ground about 3’, we were growing it out over the winter for a switch. She cut off about 4’ off his tail and a good 2’ off his mane.
She apologized to my trainer that she could only get one horse’s mane done cause he had so much hair on top of getting everyone ready and cooled down. So my trainer panicked, cause all you do is pick shavings out and a bit of oil in all the horse’s hair. She raced down to see what she cut. The trainer called to tell us and it wasn’t a huge deal for my parents, just hair, but my parents forgot to tell me, it was a shock opening his stall door. I think I gasped and stared for a bit. The reasoning why I spend so much time on my current ponies mane/tail.
I worked on a farm, the owner was cray-cray, she weighed bedding by the much bucket (horse got 1/2 buckets in stalls), rationed hay out ( she wanted them to start 1/2 flake and if they pawed they should get more), got peeved when I gave her my hours every weekend. Sorry, can’t clean/bed 10 stalls, turnout/bring in 10 horses/grain and hay 10 horses/catch the darn goat/feed the barn cat in 1 hour just not possible with her setup. I was doing it in 1hr 30. She wanted me to open the gates and just let the horses have a free for all run to the barn to save time or try leading 4 at a time. She thought that when they were fighting at the gate, they were fighting for her to give them a kiss. I lasted a month, I really liked the horses there or I would have quit sooner.
I also got turned down in a boarding situation by a farm that handles OTTB’s, they had the stall ready and everything. Then I went to drop off his records (Coggins, vaccines, copy of papers) they saw it was a hackney and said they couldn’t handle that type of pony. They were just too much to handle and they didn’t have a farrier that could handle his shoes. My ponies barefoot and my 6 y/o leads him around. Breed bias much.
I don’t miss the livery (boarder in American) who said he used to do 3 or 4 star events with his mare, which I did not believe for a minute given his understanding of ‘dressage’ seemed to entail cranking the mare’s head into a rollkur position with a hackamore, and occasionally yanking back at it with all his strength so the poor mare slammed on the brakes and stood with her head in the air and feet splayed out.
Livery in question told the yard owner he was leaving because the university’s vet hospital was offering free livery to anyone happy to let the students use their horse as a practice/demonstration animal. Okay. The strange thing was that I had a couple friends who were vet students at aforesaid university at the time, and they were doing their equine rotations. I asked if they had met a bay warmblood mare called Delta. They hadn’t. No such animal existed at the uni’s equine facility.
The barn owner who wanted me to come down to the barn while I had pneumonia to pay my monthly lesson bill that was one day late.
The lady who said that horses like the wind because it was “very natural to them.” I’ve got news for you, it’s very natural for every living thing on the planet.
I rode occasionally for a guy who owned a Friesian Stallion, Mare, their foal and a cute welsh pony mare. I could tell from the first day that he wasn’t too knowledgeable about horses but seemed willing to learn. I answered a classified ad for someone looking for an exercise rider/groom. I kind of had an off feeling before I went out there because the person who was the contact from the ad was a teen who had previously rode for him. She told me that all the horses (except the foal of coarse) were extremely well broke. In fact, she had backed the Stallion herself. But he HAD to be RIDDEN in SIDEREINS, she had lots of pics to show me for proof. Umm no. I’ll just be treating him like he had never been backed and start with ground work.
Wasn’t really sure what to expect but hey, riding a Friesian Stallion was on my bucket list. Surprisingly the stallion was just the sweetest, easy to work with fellow, especially considering the circumstances. I did ride him after I’d established ground manners etc, sans side reins, shockingly he was very BTV. I tried to show the owner some basic things to handle him on the ground as I could see he was just lucky he hadn’t been taken advantage of by these sweet natured horses. When I showed him how to get the stallion to lower his head to be haltered by placing your hand on his pole and using gentle pressure. He told me he preferred the passive method of holding a treat in your hand under his nose. I told him he was going to be passively trampled into the ground one day if he didn’t establish that he was the leader.
The beginning of the end was when the wet weather started and the mare got thrush and instead of letting her be turned out, she was kept cooped up in her stall. Not a dry stall. A large foaling stall that was, I kid you not, at least 2 feet deep with soiled, packed down bedding. He informed me he had been keeping pigs in there before and that the horse packing down the bedding way a natural way to compost. :eek:
I once advertised a mare for sale and correctly listed her as 16 hands.
Person answered the ad and wanted more details, including asking me a couple of times is she really 16 hands. I said she was every inch of 16 hands and that the potential buyer was welcome to stick her herself if she came to look.
Potential buyer made an appointment, turned up, and was shocked to discover that the mare was, yes, 16 hands. She said that was much too tall, that she wanted something 14.2 to 15. I said that the ad clearly stated 16 hands, and I had confirmed this.
Her response was that everybody lies about height in a horse ad. She was disgruntled that I didn’t follow this practice and said it was deceptive, that she had driven out here for nothing, etc. Then she gave me a lecture on how to write more accurate sales ads before she stalked off.
My 16-hand mare and I weren’t sad to see her go.
Too many to count, but one jumps out at me:
A girl in our local dressage club had a penchant for going through horses like candy. She was a good rider, but a horrible horseman. The new horse arrived - a fire-breathing, 16.2 hand young warmblood that hadn’t had much work. They decide to ship him to a local trainer - who, so it happened, was judging our schooling show that weekend. Trainer even brought her own trailer to take the horse home in.
That morning, the girl told the trainer “We couldn’t get him loaded this morning; we’ll go get him at noon. He also got tangled up the gate yesterday and he’s a little off, but the vet says he’ll be fine.”
At noon, the girl and her parents went back home to get the fire-breather. When he came off their trailer - Well, I was standing next to the trainer at the time and she uttered a series of four-letter words that mostly began with F. OMG. One knee was swelled to the size of a basketball. Maybe bigger. Horse was nearly three-legged lame.
Trainer: “I can’t take him home. He needs at least a month of rest and rehab.”
Girl: “But you said you’d start riding him this week. I have qualifiers in a month He has to be ready.”
Trainer. “We might start lunging him in a month. Maybe.”
Girl: “But I have to be able to do a 3’ course in a month on him!”
That horse didn’t last long. I think they sold him just a few months later.
Oh! I have a fun one.
Backstory: I pretty much accept anyone on Facebook who has several mutual friends and horses. I ASSUME it’s someone who shows and I’ll eventually run into, and I only use FB to share horse stuff anyway, so no huge deal.
A few weeks back, I posted a photo of my stallion. I’m still not quite sure if I’ll stand him to the public, so I always try to stay very open about him with people who ask.
I get a PM from a lady (listed below as Crazy Lady, CM), which can only be fully enjoyed if I just transcribe it from random start to brilliant finish:
CL: So do you live in Texas?
Me: I do
CL: darn
Me: Why?
CL: cause I was gonna see if I could come out and see him and maybe ride but that changes everything with you in Texas and me in Indiana
Me: Oh, yes, sorry! He’ll probably be showing this year and then, if all goes well, standing to the public in 2018. 
CL: do you know anyone in Indiana who would let me ride
Me: No, sorry. You can probably jump on Google and search for riding lessons.
CL: I don’t need lessons.
:lol:
After that, I unfriended her. I would understand if it was a young kid. However, this was a grown woman. Who had never even said hello to me. Who just wanted to come ride my stallion. Who doesn’t know anyone who has horses that will let her just come ride, but doesn’t need lessons. No big deal.
:lol:
These stories are unbelievable.
Seriously, why IS there so much crazy in the horse world?
The short story is I called a police officer to help remove a horse (belonged to a friend who was with me, I was just her ride) from a stable I had left about a month prior. BO was being difficult even though we were there within posted business hours and had a written agreement to remove the horse that day.
So I parked on the street and when the cop pulled next to me to talk about what was going on and look at the emails, the BO A) demanded that I get off her property (…then got reminded the street is not her property) and then B) told the cop she was afraid I was going to run her over with my truck when I said I’d pull off into a church parking lot across the street so we weren’t blocking the road. (like, okay, I’m going to cause thousands of dollars to my vehicle IN FRONT OF THE POLICE OFFICER THAT I CALLED.)
Apparently told everyone I stole from her too but never did tell me that. I had given my notice in writing but left early with the month paid (plus lessons and training rides I never recieved), also stating to “please contact me in writing if I still owe anything”. Got sworn at by her and her daughters via text message but they never did come back with an invoice or charges for “what I stole”.
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
I boarded at barn with a crazy boarder. She spread a rumor, behind my back, that I put nails in her horses paddock. This crazy story was circulating at a local schooling show. I found out from a friend. Thank god people that knew me put an end to it.
Crazy rationalized in her warped brain that since I expressed interest in moving my horse to a different paddock, I must sabotage another paddock to make her want to move her horse so I could put mine in the nail mined paddock. That makes a lot of sense. :rolleyes:
Trainer and BO tried to have a rational conversation with nut job that on one occasion drove the Trainer to tears of frustration. There is no rationalizing with cray, cray. CB decided that since I represent commercial building products that I was getting nails from job sites and dropping them in the paddock so my horse could be turned out there. :rolleyes:
Well, I rarely if ever visit job sites and commercial construction does not use wood studs / nails for framing. It couldn’t possibly be old galvanized nails that were from when the Indoor roof was repaired. The paddock butted up to it.
CB of course denied the whole thing and someone must have misunderstood. Yea right. Multiple people all misunderstood.
I boarded at barn with a crazy boarder. She spread a rumor, behind my back, that I put nails in her horses paddock. This crazy story was circulating at a local schooling show. I found out from a friend. Thank god people that knew me put an end to it.
Crazy rationalized in her warped brain that since I expressed interest in moving my horse to a different paddock, I must sabotage another paddock to make her want to move her horse so I could put mine in the nail mined paddock. That makes a lot of sense. :rolleyes:
Trainer and BO tried to have a rational conversation with nut job that on one occasion drove the Trainer to tears of frustration. There is no rationalizing with cray, cray. CB decided that since I represent commercial building products that I was getting nails from job sites and dropping them in the paddock so my horse could be turned out there. :rolleyes:
Well, I rarely if ever visit job sites and commercial construction does not use wood studs / nails for framing. It couldn’t possibly be old galvanized nails that were from when the Indoor roof was repaired. The paddock butted up to it.
CB of course denied the whole thing and someone must have misunderstood. Yea right. Multiple people all misunderstood.
