A slap upside the head required, pls!

S

Snipe

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Ahh, where to start...

A year ago I moved away from my old yard. It was a nice yard, the only issue being no hacking. I moved because I could no longer manage the 1 hour+ commute to and from work and the £1,000+ toll fees it cost per year.

I moved to a nice little private yard. I'm the only livery, all the other horses on the yard belong to the yo. It's now a year on, however, and things have gone downhill :(. The arena surface isn't maintained, and it turns out the yo doesn't have the tools to do so, which means I can't do it myself. It's only really usable after rain (not too much rain though, or it floods!)

I've had some bad encounters with drivers who won't slow down, narrowly missing my horse being hit by traffic on more than one occasion, so I can no longer hack out. Meaning I often can't ride at all.

The grazing is terrible, and I have to feed hay in the field year round. The fencing hasnt been maintained and is now dangerous. The yo doesnt poo pick or worm her horses & my horses have to share their turnout. Jobs on the yard don't get done, damage doesn't get repaired etc.

The problem is that I have no transport, and I have a young horse that won't load. I feel like I'm stuck here :( I don't know if I should just stick it out & try and sort out some of the issues here, or pull out all the stops to get away. But I wouldn't know where to start...

Sorry for the essay! Wotsits and waffles for anyone who got to the end of my whinge :p What would you do?!
 
Get a professional in to teach the youngster to load. Get a transporter to take the horse to a new yard.
Start by calling a local transporter and explain the problem - they might know someone who can deal with the loading issue and bring them along.
Good Luck
 
Sounds to me if you did a little less whinging and ask your YO could you help in anyway You may find the answer would be yes and you may get a little more insight about keeping horses.:):):)
 
We've got an 11-horse transporter coming to our yard to take people to Somerford park and he deals with tricky loaders (WITHOUT beating them in), and will do a course individually at a different time if people require it :)
Agree with EB in a way; very entitled to your rant, I totally feel where you're coming from re; the traffic (invest in a POLITE vest, they seem to work??) and try and sit down with the YO and have a non confrontational chat.
Say you are more than willing to do your share of the jobs if she provides the tools (not as much obv if most of the horses are hers!) and say that if certain issues can't be ironed out, you will have to consider moving because its not helping your youngster and you need to be progressing.
K x
 
Thanks for the replies.
Echo Bravo - I help a lot already and have no time to do any more. Not sure what you mean about more insight - do you think it's ok to keep horses as I've described?
 
Well Snipe welcome to the real world, every horse owner/landowner has to look after their land. I fortunately own my own stables and land and yes it takes a great deal of time money and effort to try and keep it to scratch, one for the grazing/hay. It's not your YO fault about the traffic, if you are not happy being there then leave.
 
KellysHeroes - thanks for the reply. I guess I'm just a bit down because of it all atm! I could teach the youngster to load if I had a lorry, but until a few months ago he was pretty much feral, so I dont want to push for too much too soon. The yo's response is always to say that he's going to do x, y and z, but it just never happens.
 
EchoBravo - that was my point, no time, effort or money is put towards maintaining the land by my yo. If I want my horse to be worm free I have to poo pick for 10 horses that aren't mine, and worm them too! Ah well, put up or shut up, right?
 
I can't find any alternative livery, and my youngster hasn't been taught to load yet, he barely leads. I'm doing my best, but I work full time and have to put in so much work to keep the yard running that I just don't have enough hours in the day to handle him any more.

Guess I just needed cheering up a bit. Boy did that backfire :(
 
Pro transporters will know how to deal with problem loaders, and anyway unless a horse has been frightened by a bad experience in a box most loading problems are groundwork problems. You can easily get a NH instructor to help with groundwork at your present yard.
This is only a problem because you haven't got a plan and haven't initiated any action.
You have asked for a slap round the head! Just take some action.:rolleyes:

Sorry cross posted - ignore where appropriate.
 
I have moved my horse to different yards when I thought the new yard had much better facilities/regimes/fields/rides/other liveries etc etc. Believe me- whereever you go, there will always end up being a big problem one way or another, it just depends on whether you can put up with the problems or not:(
 
Digger - slap duly received :p. Don't even know what I was hoping to hear. Just something that I hadn't thought of, I suppose.

Muff - this is the conclusion I have come to as well. And I'd leave if I could, but I'm trapped :(
 
Sorry but your not trapped, just find somewhere else, your youngster if been handled right should 1) should be no problem leading?? 2) Sedalin, to calm down,when loading.
 
Unfortunately he hasn't been handled right. Not at all, in fact, until a couple of months ago when I got him. And he's big - 16.3. He's coming along well, but I seem to have less and less time to spend with him. Because he wasn't taught to lead when he was younger, it's taking a lot more time to sort issues now he's so big. And my yo, who promised to help (there was a time I thought we were friends), has instead all but given up working his own horses & just does the bare minimum to see to their needs.
 
OK Snipe, here's the good news, you're not alone, nor are you trapped. There is help out there in the form of Natural Horsemanship (NH) Recommended Associate. Find one here and make the call tomorrow.
http://www.intelligenthorsemanship.co.uk/content/view/47/116/
You obviously care about your new horse and want to improve him so you can start to enjoy what time you have with him instead of feeling so low and depressed.
Call these people, they will be able to give you a big "leg up" in getting him sorted, they might even know of other yards you didn't know about in your area.
Many of us posting to you have been in the same boat, me included. You have to take a positive step forward now, then you will be back on one of the "high times" (you will always get highs and lows with horses).
I have found in the sixteen years I have owned my horse that nothing ever stays the same. Just when you think everything is going well, something happens to spoil it, but then that problem passes, or you just become more tolerant of the problems or you find a way around it. By the way, you will not be able to keep your horse worm free unless you keep him on his own.
Boy if you think things are bad now-how on earth are you going to get through the winter???
 
Personally if you are paying livery to keep your horse there, the YO should deal with all the problems, I don't see why you should do it yourself, if YO is not prepared to keep things safe for her horses you don't have much hope being a livery. One of the biggest issues for me would be the lack of worming program.

I would move
 
Echo Bravo said:
Why do people never tell the whole story, where in your first post, was there 10 other horses. Look if you are unhappy then leave full stop!!!
Click to expand...

She said all the other horses which means multiple she might not have said 10 but implied there were quite a few, that's how I interpreted it anyway
 
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