Not normal does not equal negligence. What you’re talking about is courtesy. The burden is on the horse owner to prove that the person creating the noise was negligent (by the way, the barn owner didn’t create the noise, didn’t operate the weedwhacker, didn’t chase down the hosre in the arena, actually “do” anything. The horse owner would be stuck suing both the individual landscaper workers and the assistant trainer, and none of them like have any resources or insurance worth pursuing.
And the HO would not be successful because when you ride a young horse has a history of being hot and I presume spooky or otherwise unpredictable in response to other stimuli, that’s on the horse owner for deciding to ride again. After asking if her horse had spooked before, and she says yes, next question will be whether the other horse(s) in the arena freak out and cause injury to their riders? I’m assuming no.
Look, I’m not saying what happened at the barn was ok. It was simply inconsiderate barn management, combined with people who didn’t understand or respect the HO’s desire (but not her “right”) for a quiet, distraction-free arena in order to train her young horse.
There is simply zero legal argument here. Just make the economic one, as the HO did, and leave
