Word to the Wise: Lesson Reminder for Everyone

[RockinHorse]

First, I would like to say I find it telling that the OP has more than once commented that the pony owner had much less invested in the transaction than she did or nothingto lose. The pony owner probably had a lot invested in this pony emotionally not to mention the responsiblity of finding it a good situation. To me, that is more to lose than some dollars.

Second, I am curious, did the pony owner actually say “Because you won’t buy thre saddle, you can’t have the pony” or is it possible that through the negotiation, the OP said something that caused the pony owner to be concerned? Somthing like saying “I don’t think this saddle will work for us, besides after renting the trailer and buying the bridle I am all tapped out”.

[Angela_Freda]

[QUOTE=Cindyg;8100411]
You guys who are so quick to assume the OP is nuts and evil, if it happened to you, just exactly how it happened to PO, I think you’d be ticked off too. And I think you’d feel free to vent online if you were a venting-online sort of person.

I cannot understand why the giver encouraged the receiver to bring a trailer and set up the boarding situation if she wasn’t already sure about the receiving family. The time to evaluate them was BEFORE they drove down with the kids and the trailer.

The giver was in the power position. She could have checked references, or made them send a video of the pony’s future home, or made them send a video of the children around their current horse, or asked for proof of employment, or had Mom fly down without the kids (and the trailer). She could have asked for anything she wanted.

She certainly should have made the contract available before they came down.

But she didn’t. She invited them to drive down with the kids and the trailer.

If she didn’t think they could afford the pony, she should have asked about that before they came down.

If she thought the pony was too good to give away, she should have thought about that before they came down.

If she didn’t think the pony should go to a special needs child, she should have thought about that before they came down.

If she wanted to sell the tack with the pony, she should have thought of that before they came down.

I don’t get it. I think the giver is very flaky.

Regardless of what the OP might have failed to anticipate, I think the giver was very flaky.[/QUOTE]

Alll of this… plus, the PO was the one who OFFERED the pony to OP… so started down this road offering the pony for free to someone on the internet she did not know. POs eyes should have been wide open from that moment and considering all the above noted by Cindyg.

As to the pony’s value… well they are priceless… and yet you can’t give a lot of them away, because we all know how pricey they can get to keep in those later years [Cushings, laminitis, etc, etc]
So I am not falling in line with those who suggest that the tack price was a drop in the bucket of what a saint pony is worth.

Yes safe ponies are ‘priceless’… with the potential to become beyond pricey to care for in many cases.

Alas, good homes who know all this and will take them anyway, with a FRF too?
Those too are priceless.

I hope the OP finds her kids a pony they can enjoy and love for many years.

[Red_Barn]

Awesomely entertaining thread.

:yes:

I myself found the OP’s emails very pushy, and my suspicion is that the PO simply couldn’t think of a tactful way to tell her to get lost. I’m sometimes that way myself, having been brought up in that old-fashioned way that requires we be “polite” even if others are grabby or over-bearing.

My sympathy is with the PO. Absolutely.

[meupatdoes]

[QUOTE=CaitlinandTheBay;8100373]
Please stop lying to yourself and call this spade a spade. If that was what you really wanted this thread to be about, you wouldn’t have posted email after email after email after email of your communication. The reminder could have been given with a simple “Ugh. Drove 14 hours round trip with rented trailer and kids in tow to pick up a free pony for them this weekend and the owner backed out! So frustrated! Remember to get your contracts signed!” And everyone here would have said "Oh, that sucks so bad! What a rotten thing to do. -mental note about contract signing-"BA. Reminder done.

Instead you chose to post on a public bulletin board, that she frequents, all of your communication with her. Whether or not you meant to publicly out this person (and I don’t think you did), you did mean to shame her. To me, that’s pretty classless.

With that said, best of luck horse shopping, OP.[/QUOTE]

Ding ding ding.

This whole thread is a passive aggressive attempt to take the PO to internet court.
OP’s plan wasn’t to “out” the OP, no no, it was just to see if she could tell her tale of woe and have everyone else jump on the bandwagon and dedicate pages of shaming to the anonymous PO, which the PO could of course read, but OP wasn’t outing her specifically, no no.

OP, if you had handled any part of this transaction like a non 12 year old, you would either a.) have a pony or b.) have cut your losses and moved on waaaayyyy before any of this extra mess transpired.

There are people in the horse world who create piles of drama and roll it down the road with them, and there are others who, if they want a free horse, send the hauler, have it picked up, and if the owner for whatever reason won’t play with that scenario they just assume the owner isn’t serious for whatever reason and find someone else who is.

This whole internet court attempt at a REGULAR COTH POSTER who can clearly read this whole passive aggressive thread you have created is RIDICULOUS. Seriously are you 12??? The situation was already preventable if you had transacted business like an adult, but the way you are handling the aftermath is just pathetic.

Grow the eff up.

[cuatx55]

very poor taste to air dirty laundry under some thinly veiled attempt to “remind us”.

Facebook is not real life…

I never ever assume anything without a signed contract, money paid, and the horse in the trailer. Till then its anyone’s guess.

[FollowmeIhavecarrots]

I have been a lurker on COTH for many years, and this is the first I have posted :-). As an (adopted) horse owner of 18 years, 2 things really stand out to me…and I just thought I would mention them…

1. I find it a HUGE leap of faith to do everything that the OP did to take on a “free” pony that was 7hrs away. There is absolutely NO way I would have gone that distance with kids, truck, and trailer in tow without first meeting PO, the pony, assessing the suitability of said pony for kids, and having an agreed upon contract signed & dated. If I were the seller (or gifter) of this pony, you can be darned sure I would want to meet the potential owner (s) in person FIRST as well as see them interact with the pony FIRST to ensure a good match. There is absolutely NO reason to bring the truck & trailer OR make any promises until that is done. Period.

2). If the PO is concerned about the care the animal will receive, why not require vet, farrier, and boarding facility (if applicable) references…?..
and then CHECK them thoroughly. This can be done before the pony is ever seen. The whole “buy this tack or you can’t afford this pony” is just weird to me…

[babecakes]

Ooooohhhhh, I thought from the title of this thread that it was about how to remind yourself about your lesson schedule. :lol: When I saw the number of pages I wondered WTF.

I am firmly in the camp of you should have drove down there in an economical car and checked the whole thing out first. And all the detail was not necessary, that crossed the line.

[Red_Barn]

[QUOTE=FollowmeIhavecarrots;8100809]

1. I find it a HUGE leap of faith to do everything that the OP did to take on a “free” pony that was 7hrs away. There is absolutely NO way I would have gone that distance with kids, truck, and trailer in tow without first meeting PO, the pony, assessing te suitability of said pony for kids, and having an agreed upon contract signed & dated. If I were the seller (or gifter) of this pony, you can be darned sure I would want to meet the potential owner (s) in person FIRST as well as see them interact with the pony FIRST to ensure a good match. There is absolutely NO reason to bring the truck & trailer OR make any promises until that its done. Period.[/QUOTE]
   You’re absolutely right. No sensible horse person would do this in a million years.

Which is exactly why I think the OP knew full well that the deal was far from a sure thing, but brought the trailer and the family on purpose, in order to guilt-trip the PO into handing over the pony in spite of any reservations she might have.

Quite a crappy thing to do - especially for the hapless kiddos - so I really can’t imagine why anyone would feel sorry for her.

[keysfins]

[QUOTE=babecakes;8100817]
Ooooohhhhh, I thought from the title of this thread that it was about how to remind yourself about your lesson schedule. :lol: When I saw the number of pages I wondered WTF.[/QUOTE]

:encouragement: :yes:

[Cindyg]

I wish I had thought to add this to my long post above:

You guys who think the OP’s communication with the PO seem overly enthusiastic, entitled, 12-year-oldish, pushy, or demanding – the PO read all the same messages, but still encouraged the family to come. If the messages were so offensive, PO should have cut off communication before they came.

So why isn’t the PO giving us her side of the story?

I think she knows that her explanation will move sympathy from her (PO) to the OP (potential new home).

If she was simply “above it all,” she would not be following this thread.

[partlycloudy]

Im with Redbarn with this one. I’ve had people inquire about horse s I have for sale who sound a little, let’s say ‘off’ and 9.5 times out of 10, they never actually show up to look at the horse. I’m always polite in my replies (much like the PO on here). It seems like the more and longer the emails are, the less likely the person is to show up.

The PO may have been gobsmacked that they actually showed.

[Lmabernathy]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this but I have run in to this with riding lessons. OP mentions in post 11 that she has a special needs child. Maybe PO, once she met the child and saw the child ride just didn’t feel comfortable with the situation anymore. How do you tell someone in front of their husband and 3 kids that you aren’t comfortable giving them the pony because of the special needs child?
I don’t know how much the child is special needs. I have had people tell me their child has rheumatoid arthritis and she is a great rider and I have had someone tell me their child had trouble with her grip strength and she brought a child who appeared to have cerabal palsy. It was very difficult for the child to even walk, her only fully functional joints were her hips. Child had full mental capabilities. How do you tell the mother that she completely downplayed the issue and you are not comfortable anymore? Yes that really did happen to me and then I Google the moms email address to find out she was the city’s disability attorney! I was absolutely furious she put me in that situation

[CaitlinandTheBay]

@Cindyg;8100842

So why isn’t the PO giving us her side of the story?

Because there is no reason for her to participate in this passive-aggressive internet circus.

[Coanteen]

[QUOTE=Cindyg;8100842]
I wish I had thought to add this to my long post above:

You guys who think the OP’s communication with the PO seem overly enthusiastic, entitled, 12-year-oldish, pushy, or demanding – the PO read all the same messages, but still encouraged the family to come. If the messages were so offensive, PO should have cut off communication before they came.

So why isn’t the PO giving us her side of the story?

I think she knows that her explanation will move sympathy from her (PO) to the OP (potential new home).

If she was simply “above it all,” she would not be following this thread.[/QUOTE]

I admire her restraint frankly. I doubt I’d be able to merely follow a thread maligning me

I think the OP’s communication is overly enthusiastic for my taste, but that doesn’t really matter. As you state, OP and PO had been communicating for a while.
What is striking is the very reserved, “come up and we’ll see” message that PO is giving. I also think the OP misread PO’s intent; there is no “ok ok come on,. pony’s yours, just load her up” in those comms from the PO, her intent seems to be a meet-and-see.

In the OP’s very fiorst post, she quotes herself as saying maybe do a 2-week trial, and PO resplies with “we’ll talk about everything.” Regardless of what OP tells us was supposedly the deal, that the pony was understood as being hers, in the communication between her and the PO she is still deciding whether or not to do a trial, the night before driving to see the pony.

That does not scream “we all understood pony would be ours.” And from PO, not much beyond a “we’ll see and discuss” in general.

[TequilaMockingbird]

I would never drive further than I’d be willing to go and still be able to walk away at a second’s notice if necessary. The furthest I’d go is 4 hours each way. I’ve done enough horse shopping to know that things can go south at any point up until when the horse is on the trailer. Expecting otherwise is extremely naive, especially when the pony is free and the owner is clearly not in a hurry. Which is why you don’t drive 7 hours with your kids and trailer and get them all worked up.

Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjfSGPJo-cg

I think it was rude to allow the OP to come all that way if the owner had some hesitation beforehand. But for all we know the PO was fine up until the point that the family arrived. It’s perfectly within their rights to not give them the horse. It’s also perfectly reasonable for the OP to be pissed off about it.

I will say this thread comes across as an attempt by the OP to shame the PO into responding. A lot of details could have been left out if that was not the intention.

[ThatGirlTina]

details were demanded by many, and assumed when not known

-shrug-

[normandy_shores]

[QUOTE=ThatGirlTina;8100932]
details were demanded by many, and assumed when not known

-shrug-[/QUOTE]

Demanded by many who have no right to know.

OP- this comes off as very passive aggressive, trying to call out to pony owner. Regardless of who is right and wrong, good for pony owner for staying out of this circus! Bet they’re really glad the pony didn’t go with you after this!

[californianinkansas]

I’m on #teamponyowner until the OP tells us exactly how much money the PO wanted for the saddle and tack. Which the OP still has not disclosed, despite our many requests -that right there is a huge red flag to me. I’m very curious as to why the OP still has not disclosed the amount the PO wanted for the saddle and tack. IMO, choosing not to disclose the dollar amount the PO wanted for the saddle and tack is damaging the OP’s credibility in this situation.

[FalseImpression]

I still don’t understand why the PO did not state “this pony is $$$$” and not even mention the tack. This is a really underhanded way to act whether it was because she did not like the OP, was worried about the financial situation or whatever.
PO should have been upfront, period. We all know that most people take better care of animals they do pay for… not saying the OP would not have.

BUT I find the PO very deceiving and not upfront at all. There were plenty of opportunities to correct/clarify the visit was for assessment… but then if she goes on telling the kids “this is your pony”.

Yes, it is her right to back out of the deal, but it does not look like a very straight and honest person if she can’t tell the REAL reason she wants the $$$ and I am sure it is not because she does not want to be stuck with a saddle…

Sad situation but the PO is not someone I would want to work with either.

[cloudyandcallie]

I’m on #TeamPonyOwner unless and until she’s proven guilty of falsehoods.

I once left a $5,000 deposit down on a horse, and got a call later from the owner that her BM had decided that she wanted that horse AFTER I had left. I said fine, tear up my down payment. And went on down to FL and bought a horse.

And the best example I have of a person feeling that something was wrong was when I was a kid. Some family friends had 20 something cats that had been turned loose in their neighborhood and they took exceptional care of the cats. They gave me my first cat when I was a small child. But some people visiting in the neighborhood from California decided they’d take a cat or kitten back with them. When our friends met them, they did not like them and told them they had no cats or kittens available to give away. Despite the cats lounging on their dock and boat and on their porch and in their greenhouse. Sometimes you just get that feeling. And how do you tell someone that you think they are weird and not offend them?