Field gate problems

[holeymoley]

I think I know how to approach this, but would like a few thoughts outside the box please. My two are now in a field with others (5 in the herd in total, one pair belong to one owner, my pair belong to me and one has individual owner- who owns another few but they're in different fields. Irrelevant but just to give the picture). I was initially a bit concerned about this herd set up as the individual horse is very dominant, a clear herd leader. Which is absolutely fine but the problem then starts at bring in time. If he's at the gate, he MUST be brought in first. Absolutely fine, no problem. The issue I have is if they are all grazing over yonder, I go to get mine, individual comes behind careering full speed, legs everywhere which is quite unnerving, but what happens if he's made his way to the gate while I'm leading my two back? Am I expected to let mine loose again so I can get this individual in?! Not likely. So, out of interest how would you deal with this? It's only a problem at the weekend as we all have assisted livery which means they get brought in for us during the week. The solution with this is that the worker gets the individual horse in first every time every day to save hassle. Individual owner doesn't appear until the last minute at the weekend. Interested to hear your thoughts.

 

[AmyMay]

I’d just get the individual horse in.

 

[poiuytrewq]

Eww! what a complete and utter pita that sounds!
So If he's at the gate you take him and put him in his stable then go back to get your two? So i suppose if they are not at the gate and are grazing you still have to get that one first and hope yours are stood at the gate still when you get back.
I'd be having a bit of a whinge about it tbh. Can't it go with its owners other horses and be a her problem instead of a you problem?

 

[Horseysheepy]

Honestly, in those circumstances it would be safer and easier for all concerned (people and horses) if the herd leader came in first.

 

[poiuytrewq]

Honestly, in those circumstances it would be safer and easier for all concerned (people and horses) if the herd leader came in first.

Yes, that's what has to happen isn't it. I just don't think it should be another liveries job to sort out.

 

[holeymoley]

Eww! what a complete and utter pita that sounds!
So If he's at the gate you take him and put him in his stable then go back to get your two? So i suppose if they are not at the gate and are grazing you still have to get that one first and hope yours are stood at the gate still when you get back.
I'd be having a bit of a whinge about it tbh. Can't it go with its owners other horses and be a her problem instead of a you problem?

Unfortunately not as the others are old and can't withstand any nonsense.

I'm afraid I'm not willing to walk away over up the hill to get their horse in so that I can get mine in. In my eyes, if you have a problem horse, you should make the effort to get the thing in before any one else has to. I appreciate weekends are always busy for everyone but being the last up every single weekend is becoming a joke. I work shifts and can sometimes start on a backshift, there's no way I'm taking another half hour out my day to get someone else's in that's miles away. Completely different if it's at the gate or near it then by all means I'll grab it.

 

[Polos Mum]

Perhaps raise your concern with the YO and ask that the dominant horse be bought in by the YO / YO staff at the weekends (same as they do in the week if I understand correctly) at a 'reasonable' time.
Rather than you and the other owner having to bring him in.

 

[cauda equina]

TBH it sounds like an accident waiting to happen - definitely speak to the YO and ask what can be done to lessen the risks to the other horses and their owners

 

[holeymoley]

Thanks, no yard staff at weekend, it's all diy. YO's normally away too so it everything's down to us.

I intend to have a chat with YO about it but just looking for any solutions outside the box. I was thinking along the lines of asking to install some kind of secondary gate and pen at the main gate like electric tape with a gate and handle , that way he could almost be corralled in there if he ended up at the gate while I was leading mine back. Then I could at least shout on someone to grab him in.

 

[equinerebel]

Mine is a problem horse, not because she’s particularly dominant but because she’s an anxious mess who can’t stand being alone. For that reason I pay extra to have my YO bring her in before I am able to get up there. It’s not my fellow liveries job to deal with her and I’d hate to hear they’d been inconvenienced by my horse!

The horse needs to be bought in first, but it shouldn’t be up to you to sort out. Definitely talk to your YO and see what can be done.

 

[expanding_horizon]

An electric pen coral at gate would solve your problem.

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

If YO can't offer any sensible solution I would go with the electric (live) corral positioned slightly along and a few feet away from the main gate. Put the obnoxious one in the corral. Then catch yours up and bring in or if yours is a polite sort perhaps tie it somewhere just outside the gate whle you quickly go in and let the bully out of the coral and back into the field?

I have always used a coral at the entrance to every gate for years and years for safety until I didn't have so many horses. Then I became very blase about it all when I got down to just two horses and donkeys who got on very well together. Putting very large and well built 17.3 gelding back out, much smaller and older 16 hand stroppy mare standing in gateway, lunged at the big fellah and bit him on the bum they both ploughed straight through and over me. I ended up about 10 feet away unconscious with the gate still open, both horses happily in the yard grazing next door to each other and the poor donkeys looking on not sure what was happening.

Really please do not take any risks, it just isn't worth it, 3 years later and I still cannot ride and never will and I am in constant pain daily. Please be careful in the notoriously dangerous gateway area all of you, no matter how experienced and confident you are around and handling horses.

 

[pistolpete]

Couldn’t manage without our electric fence corral.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

I would want an electric fencing corral installed pdq. Here, our horses always come in, in the same order, even if we actually want to do something with a lower order horse. But ours are at home and we are only dealing with our own horses

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

Speak to yo and what about if you and the other livery speak to the other owner with the pita horse about it do you think they are unaware of the issue?

 

[Tiddlypom]

An electric pen coral at gate would solve your problem.

Any electric pen at a gateway is an accident waiting to happen. Horse gets accidentally zapped and chaos ensues - person flattened, horse kicked. It needs to be a proper post and rail corral.

Electric gates are the work of the devil, whether you have one horse or several.

 

[Identityincrisis]

I have been in this situation a couple of times over the years and I have always made it clear to the owner of the problem horse it is THEIR responsibility to make sure the horse isn’t a nuisance. I get fed up of people not making provision for their horses and relying on others to just get on with it. My current yard has a HUGE hill to walk up and down to get to the field, there’s no way i’d tackle that twice unless it was pre agreed

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

If it's any consolation when Arabi was on livery he was the pita horse that wouldn't let anyone out the gate with thir horse, if I was there I often got calls and would run down the field and just hold him out the way, or some would take another livery down with them to hold him or the staff did it or brought him in if I wasn't there.

I know it can be a real pain and although Arabi never really was that aggressive, alot of the horses wouldn't go near the gate when he was there all 14.3 of him it has been highly embarrassing at times.

Some owners don't care and can be quite awkward about it and some horses are plain evil at the gate.

 

[Caol Ila]

Any electric pen at a gateway is an accident waiting to happen. Horse gets accidentally zapped and chaos ensues - person flattened, horse kicked. It needs to be a proper post and rail corral.

Electric gates are the work of the devil, whether you have one horse or several.

This.

I liked the idea of the 'lock,' what my friend and I called the electric corral at our field gate at a previous yard. It would definitely have been a better idea if it had been post and rail and not electric. In reality, it was kind of terrifying. The five bar metal gate only swung one way, into the lock. The lock wasn't huge -- there wasn't a horse or even human-sized gap between the gate at the apex of its swing and the danger rope when the electric gate was shut. That meant you had to do a dance where you led your horse into the corral: closing electric rope gate, then opening the five-bar gate while polka-ing with your horse so you didn't squash yourself and horse between the metal gate and the electric fence. Hated that gate with a passion. If the other horses were far away, I would open both gates at the same time. My horse could then stand outside of the field on the end of a long lead rope, safely out the way, while I shut the electric gate. No polka needed, but did kind of negate the point of the lock.

That's obviously a digression from the OP. Sorry. LOL.

If the other owner can't change her schedule and get there earlier, the YO (I know it's a big ask!) needs to try to sort something.

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

Any electric pen at a gateway is an accident waiting to happen. Horse gets accidentally zapped and chaos ensues - person flattened, horse kicked. It needs to be a proper post and rail corral.

Electric gates are the work of the devil, whether you have one horse or several.

I have to disagree, I have never had a problem with an electric corral. I always make it big enough for the biggest horse to have plenty of room to move around in and have 'escape' gates on two sides The only electric fence gate I have ever had an issue with is the spring type ones, when a horse flicked it's tail and it caught up in the spring coiled wire. Absolutely mayhem ensued. I just make the gateways into and out of corral out of plain tape with a gate handle on either end so you also always have the choice of which way to open or close the corral gateway.

 

[The Xmas Furry]

OP, you def need to get YO & owner on board with this.
Currently the horse is being brought in 1st on 5 days because he's a pushy sod, then gets miffed on the other 2 and chucks his weight about 'because'.
The horse (would drive me nuts) is only doing what he is allowed to do all week.

Owner needs to make an effort or employ a freelancer to bring this horse in at a set time every weekend if she cannot be there.

 

[SDMabel]

If i was the owner of the horse and i couldn't get there early enough, no yard stuff to bring in - would be looking at getting a freelancer to grab horse.

It's extremely unfair to rely on others getting doing it- Especially if it's a bit of a walk to and from field.

YO should really be speaking to the other livery, but if not could you approach them and just explain your concerns ?

 

[expanding_horizon]

OP, you def need to get YO & owner on board with this.
Currently the horse is being brought in 1st on 5 days because he's a pushy sod, then gets miffed on the other 2 and chucks his weight about 'because'.
The horse (would drive me nuts) is only doing what he is allowed to do all week.

Owner needs to make an effort or employ a freelancer to bring this horse in at a set time every weekend if she cannot be there.

I have seen various versions of this situation play out. It will depend whose customer of the two horse owner's is more important to yard owner, IME.

I was at a mainly DIY yard, where the only rules were horses in at night, and no single horses left out.

One field (not mine) had a vicious 17.2hh horse that would lunge violently at the other owner trying to bring her horse out of the field. It was caught on video camera and shared with the yard owner, who did nothing. The horse was teeth bared lunging over other owner’s head in the footage. The yard owner’s perspective was that it was the horse’s owner’s responsibility to bring her horse in, and nothing to do with them.

Same yard a number of years later, I was bringing my two horses in from a large field and group turnout situation. There was a bully horse in the field, but it was below my two and not normally a problem for me. Bully horse started chasing a lower ranking horse round field as I was bringing my horses in. Bully horse chased the lower ranking horse right into the back of my two horses as I approached field gate. I only just climbed over gate to avoid being trampled. I phoned yard owner from other side of gate and left a message saying I’d nearly been trampled, and X horse’s behaviour in the field was unsafe. YO found it very funny! Though horse did get moved out of field a few days later (as chasing horses and risking injuring horses, injury to people was not important!!)

Other yards I have seen change the turnout group or the yard bring in the problem horse.

It seemed to depend on how much the yard owner valued which horse owner as a customer! Where you are in the yard political hierarchy, and how much your custom is valued. If there is a yard waiting list, and you are not popular with yard owner, your welfare doesn’t rank very highly, IME. Yard owners dont always do the morally right thing by their customers. Sometimes they do the easiest thing.

 

[cauda equina]

Blimey, I wonder how YOs stand re their insurance cover if there is a known hazard and they refuse to do anything about it?

 

[expanding_horizon]

Blimey, I wonder how YOs stand re their insurance cover if there is a known hazard and they refuse to do anything about it?

If the yard is DIY at weekends, I dont think they would be liable for over seeing for in what order the owners bring the horses in.

 

[Bobthecob15]

We were at a yard like this, it was so unbelievably dangerous with lots of near misses for both our horse and humans…the dominant one was rarely brought in first and I refused to do it as I always had my 7yr old daughter with me and frankly I wasn’t paying decent livery to get other people’s horses in for them.

We moved, couldn’t stand it

 

[expanding_horizon]

I think I know how to approach this, but would like a few thoughts outside the box please. My two are now in a field with others (5 in the herd in total, one pair belong to one owner, my pair belong to me and one has individual owner- who owns another few but they're in different fields. Irrelevant but just to give the picture). I was initially a bit concerned about this herd set up as the individual horse is very dominant, a clear herd leader. Which is absolutely fine but the problem then starts at bring in time. If he's at the gate, he MUST be brought in first. Absolutely fine, no problem. The issue I have is if they are all grazing over yonder, I go to get mine, individual comes behind careering full speed, legs everywhere which is quite unnerving, but what happens if he's made his way to the gate while I'm leading my two back? Am I expected to let mine loose again so I can get this individual in?! Not likely. So, out of interest how would you deal with this? It's only a problem at the weekend as we all have assisted livery which means they get brought in for us during the week. The solution with this is that the worker gets the individual horse in first every time every day to save hassle. Individual owner doesn't appear until the last minute at the weekend. Interested to hear your thoughts.

Another thought is to have a 3 tie rings outside your field. Catch problem horse, tie him up to one ring. Catch your two and tie them up outside field. Put problem horse back in field. Proceed to yard with your horses.

 

[expanding_horizon]

We were at a yard like this, it was so unbelievably dangerous with lots of near misses for both our horse and humans…the dominant one was rarely brought in first and I refused to do it as I always had my 7yr old daughter with me and frankly I wasn’t paying decent livery to get other people’s horses in for them.

We moved, couldn’t stand it

I think it is pretty common. Shared fields are okay in summer, but day turnout in winter, once grass is lacking with muddy gateways get quite dangerous in winter, when horses are cold, muddy, hungry, keen to come in and know there is food in stables.

 

[Grassy]

I’d take a lunge whip with me & keep it by the gate… I’ve been in this situation struggling to get my pony out of the field with horses milling & barging around, I brought it up with the YO & she told me to take a lunge whip down with me, so I did. Worked fine, just used it to move the barging horses away rather than hitting them before anyone jumps on me!

 

[poiuytrewq]

What actually happens if you take yours out and leave said horse behind (obviously with the other two, not suggesting leave it alone)
Does that horse just get itself in a state or does it make getting your two out the gate impossible?