I am interested in others experiences and thoughts. In my barn, there are training horses. My BO is a trainer and her trainer also works from the barn. For perspective, this is NOT a fancy training barn that is willing, able or even set up, to cater to every whim/need/want of the HO’s.
The problem has become that too many people come in and instantly say ‘Dobbin must have 24/7 forage and 10,000 supplements’, or other along those lines.
The BO feeds good quality orchard and/or bluegrass (when available), alfalfa to a couple who need it. She does not have room to store or buy several types of hay nor does she have space for people to bring their own in. She also will not cater to an all you can eat buffet (aka, expensive bedding).
Which brings me to the question: If you send your horse out for training, what’s “normal” in this circumstance? How do you handle those clients who want to be ‘special needs’?
I am not talking about necessary medications (prescription stuff) - that’s a different subject. I am just referring to general feeding.
My personal thoughts in this situation are if you send your horse out for training first off know what you’re getting into and secondly if that’s not something you can live with, then don’t do it.
What say COTH?
This is boarding, plus training. The double whammy of psycho clients.
I say your BO tells them how the farm runs. If they don’t like it, they can find a new place.
that has been my response when the BO gripes to me about this.
Mmmkay, so - full disclosure, i have only sent a horse out for training once, and it was only for 1 month, so we came to an agreement where i provided his feed in exchange for a slight discount on training board.
When I meet with a potential trainer at their barn, one of the care issues that is discussed, along with turnout schedule, is feed. If I determine that what the barn feeds is suitable/close enough to what my horse is presently getting, then i would provide enough to do a gradual switch and they would just get the barn feed for the duration, along with 1-2 supplements as needed. I have seen training situations where the horse was on lots of extras/supplements, and the arrangement was that the owner would ensure there were pre-made meals a few days at a time to save the barn manager/trainer the hassle. Obviously this is only doable if the training barn is close-ish.
As for hay, i can’t imagine expecting hay to be tailored. I’ve never heard of anyone expecting that or offering it. That’s nuts - a logistical nightmare.
The bottom line is, a good training barn won’t want to mess with what works for the horse, but a good client will also need to be reasonable in their expectations and be willing to compromise. If they’re not comfortable with what is offered by the training barn, then they simply will have to look elsewhere.
Board plus training attracts a different clientele; usually more money and higher standards when it comes to standard level of care – because they are paying extra for these services. Some of those horses are future competition horses ($$$$$) and many of them were five figure horses before they were ever broke.
Find out what is in the contract and enforce that. Some BOs have outrageous ideas of what constitutes as ‘quality’ food and/or are still stuck in the 1950s when it comes to equine nutrition. Some owners have their heads in the clouds when it comes to the overhead cost[s] and huge manual labor burden associated with providing full choice hay or additional food/grain/services.
A competition horse has higher nutritional demands than a pasture puff. Someone operating a training barn needs to understand not every horse is going to be fine with just hay.
There is a reason I keep my horses at home. What is industry standard in terms of horse care does not align with my own animal husbandry, and I have – and will – butt heads with longstanding equine professionals over this. I don’t find 16 hours in a stall or 3-5 flakes a day a program I want my horses in. Some people do, some horses don’t care.
I am that nightmare client that wants my horse to have hay in front of him 24/7 (and I MEAN that), no stall time, and 24/7 turnout. I care less about kind of grain being fed, and more about the hay/turnout availability. That is very hard to provide in a boarding operation for several reasons: logistics, space, time, and costs. That’s why my competition horse is at home and not in a competition barn.
As with everything horse related, what the horse truly needs is somewhere in the middle.
For me it might depend on length of training and of course what the trainer is willing to do. If I am sending my horse for a short period (a month or less), I might prefer to keep them on their current feed for ease of avoiding multiple diet transitions in a short period of time. I would consider this more important for grain than hay, however if I typically feed a much different hay than what the trainer does, I might ask to feed mine instead of theirs. I have also had very hard keepers that I have asked to be able to provide SUPPLEMENTAL hay, since the amount or quality provided by trainer was not sufficient.
Yep, 100% this. I have learned over the 3+ years that I have kept my horses at home, that I don’t think I could ever go back to boarding, and if I did board plus training again, it would have to be a special situation and for a short period. There are always compromises to be made when boarding, and most I am not willing to make lol. I have sent my young horses out a few times for training board, and thankfully most of the trainers have been willing to work with me on my individual horses’ needs, but it still wasn’t the standard of care they are used to and I prefer, so the time spent with the trainer was very short (90 days or less).
Beowulf, you are preaching to the choir. I get it. Not my monkeys, not my circus, but the BO is a very dear friend so she leans on me to be the…voice of ‘no’, I think? LOL. She’s strapped for time since she works full time +, and honestly IMO she does not charge enough, which brings us back to not running a 24/7 buffet. The horses are well fed and the food is quality, don’t get me wrong there, it’s just not… ummm…COTH standards… LOL.
And yes the nightmare of labor when cleaning stalls like that. The stall cleaner is already overwhelmed, let’s not make it worse.
This in of itself is why I don’t own a boarding operation, either. I get both sides, truly. 
I will say I have never sent a horse out for training BUT the 2 barns I worked at did offer training and my expectations mirror what they both did.
If I sent my horse out I would expect them to get adequate, good quality forage to keep them at the weight they came in at even with a higher work load( training).
If the barn did not feed my feed of choice or I did not like the feed they provide I would supply my own and any supplements as well.
Piggybacking a bit to @beowulf comments. A lot of the barns in my area are… not so up to speed with best practices around feeding. While I’ve not been in the position to send my horse to a training barn, that could be a deal breaker for me as I have an easy keeper. All the boarding barns Ive been at have been very accommodating to me prepping his dry food for the week (beet pulp/forage balancer/flax) that needs to be soaked. We also aim for first cut hay, doesn’t have to be the best quality nutrition wise.
Anyways! I would say that if owners are particular about the feed, to require them to prep the horses meals in a clearly marked ziplock or something. One of my barns had a lot of self care boarders, and they each had a little plastic container on wheels they had to store their horses feed in ziplocks. The only PITA with that was making sure anyone who had liquid supplements got them at time of feeding.
Not in my case - admittedly a Once Only.
Sent 2yo VSE to a young Amishman, for a set fee for the training. That was a very reasonable $125 for the expected 90 days.
When bad weather extended the time - at his request - trainer refused when I offered more money, saying he wanted the extra time to finish the training.
I provided oats as his grain, because that’s what I feed. 1 50# bag when I brought mini there, another when he asked for more time.
I asked about hay & when I was told it was grass hay, that meshed with my choice at home.
When I was told mini was ready, I made 1 last trip w/trailer, test-drove, took him & his family out to lunch & gave them a $100 Aldi gift card & small amounts of cash* to the pre-teen sons who’d helped train.
*on the advice of an Amish-savvy friend who said Amish kids rarely have their own money to spend.
My horse is goi g out for training end of this month.
He will be there for 3-4 months so his diet will be changing. They feed nice orchard hay and Purina grain.
He’s currently on California Trace, Vitamin E, magnesium, msm, beet pulp, alfalfa pellets all soaked. Plus 15 lbs alfalfa and unlimited grass hay.
He will be moving back to Ultium Gastric, his supplements, which he did fine on prior and orchard hay.
I’d like to keep him grain free but that’s not their program and the quality of training he will get is worth switching feeds.
Conform to the program or find one that fits your needs better.
I don’t think the answer changes for a horse in training vs normal full-care board. Most of what you’re describing sounds pretty normal to me, especially if the training program is aimed at those looking to show even at the lower levels. There’s also a big difference between clients making requests and making demands; as long as the ask is made respectfully and they respect the BO’s answer I don’t think there’s many things that would be unreasonable to at least ask about.
24/7 forage (or close to it) is a pretty reasonable ask. If a horse is truly wasting it then you can re-evaluate whether that animal needs a different approach, but 24/7 forage does not equal “expensive bedding” unless there’s something else going on. I wouldn’t expect to have a different hay for my horse unless there was a medical reason he needed it, in which case I’d expect to pay extra or find another barn that would accommodate that need. I also might ask about bringing in my own if the provided hay wasn’t good quality; I don’t think the request itself is unreasonable.
Supplements are also very common and are going to go hand-in-hand with the full training crowd, but I think the barn is within their rights to insist on SmartPaks or something like that to make it easier to feed. Refusing to feed supplements at all would be unusual.
Everything you’re talking about should be addressed in the contract and discussed ahead of time, which your BO can point to to push back on any requests they aren’t willing to support. It doesn’t sound like the BO is actually communicating very well with clients and is just complaining to you about it instead, which is unprofessional and not going to solve their problem. Your BO can set whatever ground rules make sense for their business, and being transparent about those rules will make things easier for everyone. There are unreasonable boarders out there, but there are also BO’s who will insist they can cover a prospective client’s needs and then never follow through.
I’d say BO/trainer needs to be clearer about advertising the terms of the ‘boarding’ side of training up front, probably - before agreeing to train and definitely before the horse is moved in.
If I were sending a horse out to be started, fixed, whatever - on a short term arrangement, I would expect hay and ration balancer or similar at most. For a long term training board situation I’d expect a more adjustable program.
Well, all of you are more or less saying what I already have tried to communicate.
I do know last month BO got so fed up she finally emailed everyone applicable and said look, I am not able or willing to keep 5 different types of hay on hand, don’t have room for everyone to bring their own in, this is what I will do and do have, this is my private home and barn, stop pushing the issue. Not only that but it’s very confusing for the stall cleaner who also feeds lunch.
BO talks with me, yes, we’ve been friends for 25 years, I am generally a no nonsense voice of reason. Bottom line it’s up to her to draw a line and maintain it. I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t something more I could say. 
I have two youngsters in training for an extended period…I go with what the BO/trainer does and let them handle the feed. They know that the yearling should stay leaner (but no ribs) so we don’t have OCD issues…my other one was actually getting a bit fat so I did ask they cut him back! LOL
They feed whatever grain they use…not what I like or will feed, but I can live with that. When the one was fussing about his feed (ulcers/EPM) I did buy a bag of what I use and they fed that. Once he got on meds, his appetite came back. For him, they do give him his vitamin E, omeprazole and EPM meds. Those are all must have meds and they are great about feeding those. They feed whatever hay they use (usually a grass mix). But they are also out on grass most of the time…so they really don’t need a lot of hay/grain.
When I did boarding we offered a senior feed, a general pellet, and a ration balancer. We also did beet pulp or alfalfa pellets. The only time we made an exception was a horse that came in and needed a special feed due to a medical issue. Owner provided that feed. We also only fed a timothy mix hay.
I’ve only been in this situation with racehorses, but I don’t know why it should be different with show horses. I drop them off—young horses getting started, older ones coming off a lay-off, or fit ones needing overflow stabling—and it’s the trainer’s job to feed them. Of course I’d vet the place beforehand—good reputation, horses look healthy and happy. I expect the trainer to increase or decrease grain as needed and provide enough good quality hay and clean water. They should look good when I pick them up 30-60 days later. If they were nearby I’d pop in every now and then to see how they were doing, and my vets were usually around about once a week too. Other than a supplement an owner of mine wanted all of his horses on, which I’d drop off with the horses, I wouldn’t presume to tell the trainer how to feed them. That’s part of what you’re paying for, IMO. I might say if somebody looked a little heavier or lighter than I’d like, but that’d be about the extent of it.
I’ve got 2 in full training/full board. My trainer feeds them, I don’t tell him how to do his job. Strangely enough, I think the horses in the barn that are boarded & not in training or showing tend to be on more supplements than the show horses. It’s kind of funny how that works.
Part of my research when I was finding a place to get my young horse started was not just “do I like them as a rider/trainer” but “how do they keep horses”. I expect my horse will be on their barn’s schedule - that means feed, that means turn out, the whole nine yards. Even before coming to an agreement with a trainer, I asked what kind of hay they had, what grain did they feed, what were their turn-out hours, et cetera.
At the end of the day, when you send a horse away for training, you are not just vetting the riding/training, you are vetting the program which includes feed, turn-out, handling, et al. If I did not like the horse management, no matter how much I like the trainer, I wouldn’t send a horse away to them.
This was pretty much reflected in the attitude at the barn I had my young horse at to get started. There were some clients who rode/trained with the gentleman as their “home base” so to speak and were just standard boarders, but there were five or six training horses at any given time. While some owners absolutely had it in them to try to be persnickety, the gentleman shut it down pretty quickly. I’m not sure how well it would have gone over in other places, but his reputation as a breeder/trainer/rider/horseman made it such that he’ll never really be hurting for clients, clients have compete for his limited number of stalls. Don’t like his program? Totally fine. Don’t use him.
