Been a YO for a month Never again !

[jemmeg]

Well I have seen the otherside of the coin, I have just finished looking after my friends 20 horse livery yard for a month. It was all planned she has been in Oz for a long well deserved holiday and after this month I think I will need a year to recover ! Bad horses you may say, no horses were a dream the owners on the other hand where a nightmare. Never in all my 40 years of horse keeping have I ever come across some types of horse folk that behave like these have. Because its a friend business I have had to be tackful but in all honesty I could have turned half of them head first upside down in the muck heap. They fit into three types :
The know it alls
The show offs who parade and look down on lesser mortals
The wrap there horse in cotton wool and panic at the least thing.
Now I am just and ordinary joe nothing fancy but had horses all my life and come from a farming background so quite practical but would never say I was an expert in everthing horse related but then who is. But I have now decided present company excepted that there are horse folk out there that are not my cup of tea and its made me think that sometimes you folk that run a business like this well I take my hat off to you. Glad to be back to my two horses with not another horse person in sight !

 

[Sags_Deer]

thats amused me but i do agree with you as well. ive been riding for 30 odd years own my own neddies never admitt to knowing it all as you constantly learn about horses and advice and tips from people. as for show off that does not make you a nice person does it. Okay my horses are spolit but not massively, ie old horse worries me sometimes as she is old and has leg warmers on at night to keep the cold and damp out. but yep horsey people are possibly the worst, good job most of my mates dont like them.

 

[evsj]

"The know it alls
The show offs who parade and look down on lesser mortals
The wrap there horse in cotton wool and panic at the least thing. "


Yep, have all three of them at our yard too.

 

[SSM]

The wrap there horse in cotton wool and panic at the least thing.

Yep that describes me to a tee!!!!!!!!!!!

- well she is my baby

 

[Tia]

LOL!! It is an eye-opener I guess. I've owned livery yards for about 13 years so I am fairly used to all these things.......your examples the easy ones!

The way to get by is by keeping yourself to yourself and just letting them get on with it.

 

[lisan]

That made me smile! Have all of those on our yard too!! Generally just exchange pleasantries and stay out of their way!!

 

[Fairynuff]

And thats why all my liveries are OAps! The owners turn up once a month with a few carrots, stay about an hour and go home happy! Couldnt put up with the owners of in work horses-couldnt stick most of them when I was a groom. M.

 

[henryhorn]

Oh your post made me smile!
Nowadays my liveries are almost all long distance owners, but in the days of having 15 DIY liveries, we too saw the types you described..
You did miss out a few types though, the thieves, the ones who fought in the middle of the yard over stealing each other's boyfriends, the ones who left in the middle of the night owing money, and the ones who trooped from one local yard to another evey few months..
Joking apart, I also had some incredible liveries, who even now after 14 years of living here send me Christmas cards..
Sorry to chuckle but if I had my way I would make it a condition of livery that all clients had to run the yard for a month. Like you they would soon see why places have rules and why people like me only accept one DIY at a time!