What should I be feeling when I go the the barn? Not a physical activity, out of breath type of feel, I’m meaning emotions? I can’t tell if i truly enjoy being at the barn anymore, what are other people’s emotions when they go out to see their horses and/or ride. Thanks in advance!!
Honestly it varies day to day. Sometimes it is sunny and 50 and fun, and sometimes it is 35 with 40 mph wind gusts or wet and muddy or incredibly hot and then it’s just work (or just plain misery). But the miserable days mean that my horse is fit and ready to go on the nice days.
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Then, you don’t.
I think many of us may have days when we’re tired, it was a long day at work, now it’s late, and dark, and cold, etc. We mutter about going, and are slow to get out the door. But once I’m there, I am infatuated with pony, even if he is being kind of a stinker (he’s sick of the indoor, and so am I), and even if he is gimpy or stiff so it’s not a great ride, he does so many funny things/has so many expressions that I am glad I made the trip. And, the other people are nice and it’s fun to walk down the aisle and see all the different shapes and sizes of horses. When I leave, I’m kind of sad to turn the lights out and leave him, but I feel like seeing him gave me strength/grounding to get through the next day okay.
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It really does depend on many factors for me. I had a fabulous day at the barn today. My horse was a little bit fresh but I felt confident and really enamored with my horse. I’ve struggled with fear a lot and not every day is like today. There are definitely days when I feel afraid, but I also feel like I’ve made a lot of mental progress and really formed a relationship with my horse. When the weather is bad or it is dark or if I am tired it can be hard. Personally I think that no hobby is always fun. I think that pursuing anything in life requires discipline, and I have made the decision that I want to ride. I have found it helpful to allow myself to just groom or handwalk on some days.
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I know that I always feel better after I ride. I know that I often feel in sync with myself and the world when I am in the saddle. I know that I enjoy the feeling of being pleasantlw exercised in the open air that comes from riding and barn work.
Knowing this gives me the impetus to get out of the house and down to the barn every day despite the weather. If it stopped giving me this much, I would stop riding.
Things that might interfere could include a horse that scared me, other stresses in my life, health issues, or interpersonal stress in my life.
I have the option of doing ground work or turnout if I am tired or unwell.
I also don’t carry any expectations of progress to a timeline or worry what other people think of me.
Anyhow IME if someone has stopped enjoying riding, either something is going wrong in their life generally such as stress, health, depression. Or something has gone wrong with the horse.
When someone says they don’t know if they enjoy something they used to enjoy I tend to first think there might be a general depression or anxiety thing going on.
If you just knew you wanted to quit riding to spend more time skiing or traveling or with a new romantic partner, you’d just do it.
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I might be a bit of an oddity here. I lost my horse in October, so for me, the act of “going out to the barn” (committing to going, and then actually going/getting there) isn’t really a happy feeling. I enjoy the people, and I enjoy the horses I ride on occasion, but it’s still a lingering sense of dread. Every time I go I seem to run into someone I haven’t seen since “The Event” and they always have something to say about it, or want to ask about it, or “when will you be getting another horse?” which is not tremendously helpful in making it a place I want to be right now.
Being around horses makes me smile. Many of the ones I ride are absurd creatures who do things that make me laugh. I enjoy riding them (even if it’s freezing, or there’s horrendous shoe-sucking mud, or it’s windy and gross). That’s the reason I keep going out. I’m trying to graduate from the sense of “you’re a perfectly lovely horse and delightful in your own way for your people, but you’re not the horse I wish I were riding right now.” Appreciate each horse as an individual, and let them all charm me and find something to delight in with each one.
But I’m not sure if being there really makes me happy.
Although in my situation there’s a very clear cause for my emotional ambiguity so maybe it’s a little easier for me to go “well, today was sort of shoddy but hopefully the next time, and the time after, and the one after that, will keep improving.”
On a less personal breakdown of it: I think it’s understandable if the barn is laborious or “not fun” - if the weather is poor, or our horses are off, ill, NQR, etc. If the barn climate is wrong for you, instruction doesn’t mesh with your learning style - all of those things, I think, are completely understandable. And all of those things I would say “well it’s not really that you don’t enjoy horses, it’s the current situation you’re not happy with so figure out what you can do to address it.”
But at the end of the day, I know that I ride horses because riding horses makes me happy. I feel accomplished when things go right, and even when things aren’t going well, I’m not succeeding, or I’m frustrated, that feeling is generally overwhelmed by the sense of, well what did I learn from my mistakes, how can I improve for the next ride so I don’t have this same ride again.
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Sometimes when I take a break, like I am right now, I understand better how the barn makes me feel when I am there and riding regularly. Right now my horses are at home, so I interact with them daily to feed them and change their blankets, but I am not riding as I don’t have a place to do so in this weather. I am noticing I am less motivated and more lethargic in general, and my mood is lower than when I had my horse boarded out and rode 4 or 5 or 6 times a week. My fiance notices the same - he likes me better when I spend many hours each week out at the barn and riding!
When I have a good ride, I obviously leave the barn in a good mood. When I have a crappy ride because my horse was being difficult, but we worked through something, I still leave feeling like we accomplished something. When she was more green, I definitely had trips to the barn where I drove home wondering why I even bother trying, frustrated as heck, but I would come back the next day and we’d make a little progress and I’d be back to feeling accomplished.
Prior to buying my mare as a mostly feral 3yo, I had half leased a lot of horses, and several of them were not what I needed at the time. I arrived at the conclusion of if I was consistently, more weeks than not, leaving the barn frustrated or dissatisfied for most of my rides, then it was time to move on. With leasing you are limited to the barn and the environment and the owner that you have to work with, as well as the horse you have to ride. If one of those factors was killing my enjoyment, then I would move on, because I couldn’t change any of it.
As an owner I have more options to make changes, I can move barns if the barn is wearing on me, change my horse’s feed routine, call the vet, or hire a trainer if she needs an attitude adjustment, and nobody gets to tell me how to ride my horse. If something isn’t working, I have the power to change it. That includes moving on to a different horse if need be, but only after I’ve tried all the other things in my power to make things work.
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Going to the barn (which is in my back yard, BTW) always makes me feel better. Being around horses makes me feel like I’ve found my missing piece. I swear my blood pressure goes down 10 points at the sight of my horses.
Also, any day I get to ride is a good one. I always feel extra happy on those days. Sappy, but true. I guess i’m still Infatuated with horses - just like when I was a little girl and my mother used to assure me I would grow out of it. Since I’m about to turn 60 I’m guessing that’s not ever going to happen;)
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When I look back at OPs earlier posts, I see a story about an older gelding losing weight, with a possible kidney problem and a suspensory injury, and from last year a worry that the horse doesn’t love OP any more.
OP are you able to ride this horse at all now? Or has he aged out into a lead n feed senior citizen with vet bills?
Perhaps he just needs to be fully retired so you have time for a horse that meets your riding goals.
Oh gosh yes. There have been times where I’ve been grouchy and my husband has said to me “you need to go ride your horse” I can back in the house in a much better mood. The barn really is my happy place. It’s a place where I can forget any problems and escape the stress of life. Its where I feel at peace.
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The times when I’ve felt most ambivalent about going to the barn have been when my horse has been dealing with some kind of a veterinary issue, and there’s been the nagging worry about the actual issue and whether it was getting better, as well as the underlying fear/dread that it either would not ever get better or that it would be followed by some other problem that I’d have to deal with.
In reality this is what sometimes happens, particularly with an older horse. This kind of dread can be mixed with frustration and a sense of guilt (potentially over a host of other issues). Having said that, though, I’ve always found that actually being at the barn and dealing with the horse and with whatever was going on usually was therapeutic. Rightly or wrongly, just being there and dealing with the problems in a hands on way gave me some sense of control and helped to cancel out some of the guilt.
If you’re in a situation where you can only afford to own one horse, and this older horse is the one horse, then you have to take some satisfaction from being the most responsible horse owner you can be.
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mixed bag, to be sure. To answer your OP specifically since I don’t know your past- winter in the northeast can be awful. I also bring my work to the mix, and assorted dramas. I always feel the problems are farther away at the barn so for me it’s net positive.
It’s sort of being in the moment, even though to own horses has it’s share of responsibility and stress. (Ie- are they blanketed right, footing is bad, saddles need re-fitting). to be in complete bliss makes me think people aren’t paying attention. But I like taking care of them and seeing them become good citizens.
I feel worse when I’m away, if that makes sense, though each day it’s not the euphoria of a 13yo girl. I think that is totally unrealistic!
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I love my horses and just spending time with them, unrelated to riding, is often enough to turn around a bad day.
That said, there was a time when another boarder completely spoiled my attitude about going to the barn. I would try to plan my barn time to avoid them, blah blah blah. We considered moving, then realized that we weren’t going to find anything better and needed to stop letting that person ruin our fun. I look back at that period of time and appreciate how much better things are now. I’m very glad we didn’t move. I’m very glad that person did move.
I give myself permission to run out and just do chores a couple days/week, without making the effort to ride or feeling guilty about not riding. By letting myself have a night off, I have a much better attitude for the rest of the week.
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I think the answer will be different for all of us. A lot will depend on your age and responsibilities you have in your life.
My horses have always been my time to relax and unwind. Sometimes It takes a while until I am there depending on what life is like. Sometimes I have to talk myself into riding, but I am always glad I did!
I keep mine at home.
For me it’s peace.
I can go to the barn and loose myself in caring for a sensitive animal. For however long I am there, I can block my normal anxiety/depression.
Just a 5 minute ride has me happy and smiling for the rest of the day.
I feel almost “normal”.
I first and foremost look forward to visiting my horses, and makes me happy when I go out there (even twice a day every day when I just feed and/or groom). I also feel relaxed and “at home”. Now that is not ALWAYS the case…if I have an injured or lame horse, I can be stressed or upset of course. As we all know horse ownership is full of plenty ups AND downs
I was trying to figure out how to respond, but now I don’t have to. You’ve written it for me.
This is similar to how I’m feeling having had horses at home for years now. I started taking lessons away from home on a lesson horse and it has recharged me. I actually feel like I remember why I love horses. After years of property maintenance and feed trips and hay runs and waking up to see horse A injured, or spending a whole weekend putting up fencing only to see it stalled for another three weeks by weather, etc. etc. it can really sap your energy and motivation. Especially when your property isn’t set up for riding.
I’m thinking that outside lessons are going to be a big aspect to me finding my groove again. Also, after so many years of not riding, my horses aren’t in the kind of shape to really help me find myself so again, that schoolie helps a lot. My husband and I said we are thinking that in the future we may make some big changes that don’t require us to have a farm and we may instead spend that maintenance/feed/hay/gas costs for all the trips, water, electricity, etc. etc. towards boarding two horses for us and just enjoying them.
It all comes down to you … maybe you need to tweak your scenario. Life is short. I spent too long at a property that made me miserable and it made me almost hate horses! Find out what you need to change and have the courage to change it 
I wish I had years ago!
That said, how I felt when dealing with that property was misery. Dreading it. Feeling like I was chained to it. Feeling like my life had no meaning outside of manual labor. I was miserable. Riding a nice school horse in a lesson? The pure joy of what is freeing about horses; mentally absorbed in the task, feeling like I wouldn’t trade sitting on this nice horse for anything, feeling like the world is right again. Life will always be a mix but I took too many years with the shit end of it all 
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The barn is where I go to decompress. I worked a 12 hour day today in engineering with no time for breaks - it’s high-stress/fast-paced. I need my barn time especially after a day like that. I rough board and live with my mare - thankfully only the barn owner is around but our schedules are totally different.
I hated…absolutely hated rough-boarding at barns with other people. I never got my quiet time to hang out with my horse. I didn’t enjoy going when others were around and wanted to hang out and talk. I wanted me time with just my horse (& dogs of course!).
Nothing wrong with taking a break. Might do you some good.
I work where I board, at a fantastic barn with absolutely lovely horses and people. I spend literally the entire day there, and sure there are some mornings when I wake up feeling a little tired, or I look outside and the wind is blowing extra hard or its snowing or raining, but I still have the motivation to get out the door.
In the afternoon’s I can chat with the ladies while finishing up the day, and by the time 3:30 rolls around, the bulk of the activity is done. One or two others may show up, but I usually have an hour or so of uninterrupted alone time with my boy. He’s 23 and had some soundness issues earlier in the year that was luckily resolved with an adjustment in shoeing, and he’s now back in work. Age is nothing but a number with this guy, he has the attitude and fitness of a much younger horse, and each ride is finished with a big smile. Some days I decide to just groom, other days I just decide to give him some cookies and a neck scritch. There is never a day when I don’t leave the barn with a smile on my face.
