How much communication for a sharer/rider?

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BigBear

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I promise I'm not a troll but I don't want to post this under my usual username! Oh, and I know it is school holidays but those days are long behind me now.
How much contact between an owner and a sharer is reasonable/normal? It's not a formal share, more of a work for rides exchange of (usually) 2 days per week on a choice of 3-5 days with some flexibility to both parties.
Should it just be confirming when the rides will be and if there is any significant things to note from either side or should more regular contact be kept, particularly the sharer/rider wanting to know how their horse is between visits if they are more than a couple of days apart?
Finally how quickly should messages be replied to? (I suspect this is a more general etiquette issue) And is it ok to chase with another message or send a whatsapp/snapchat in case they haven't seen the original one?
 
BigBear said:
I promise I'm not a troll but I don't want to post this under my usual username! Oh, and I know it is school holidays but those days are long behind me now.
How much contact between an owner and a sharer is reasonable/normal? It's not a formal share, more of a work for rides exchange of (usually) 2 days per week on a choice of 3-5 days with some flexibility to both parties.
Should it just be confirming when the rides will be and if there is any significant things to note from either side or should more regular contact be kept, particularly the sharer/rider wanting to know how their horse is between visits if they are more than a couple of days apart?
Finally how quickly should messages be replied to? (I suspect this is a more general etiquette issue) And is it ok to chase with another message or send a whatsapp/snapchat in case they haven't seen the original one?
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One of the reasons I ended my last sharer was because she never replied to emails of the reply didn't respond to new info I was sharing or queries I was raising. I felt if she couldn't be bothered to reply she then she wasn't really that committed to the share.
 
I would say it is VITALLY important that sharer and owner communicate!!! The thing cannot work if there is no communication!

There needs to be a good level of communication between the two, to include such things as how the horse is behaving, i.e. are there any issues like for e.g. napping, or anything which might indicate a pain issue such as headshaking or other behaviour which isn't "normal" for that horse?

There needs to be liaison about stuff like management, feeding, level of work, consistency of riding, what sort of exercise, how much & how often etc etc.

As an owner, you need to know what is happening, and to be able to be confident that the person riding and managing one's horse is committed to total honesty and transparency!

Speaking personally, if someone was riding/sharing my horse and wasn't communicating with me and/or messing me about, I'd give them extremely short shrift and send them packing PDQ. I want my horse to be happy and I would want my sharer to be up-front and tell me how things are.

Get rid would be my advice; there's plenty of other's out there who'd be glad of the opportunity.
 
I have shared a few of my horses and none of my sharers texted just to ask how the horse was in between, unless the horse was ill or lame. So really it was just the business side of things, for example letting me know if they couldn't come etc. If a sharer did text me on a regular basis asking how the horse was, it would seem unusual to me but I would try to reply right away. Nothing ruder than not replying to texts. If the owner doesn't want the texts then she should just say something like 'If you don't hear from me to the contrary, you can assume Dobbin is perfectly fine.' If that still didn't result in the texts stopping, I would just be honest and say 'Do you mind not texting unless it's something you need to let me know about?'

If you are asking this as a sharer regarding an owner not responding to you, then just don't keep texting unless it's something they need to know about. I hope this helps.
 
Chianti said:
One of the reasons I ended my last sharer was because she never replied to emails of the reply didn't respond to new info I was sharing or queries I was raising. I felt if she couldn't be bothered to reply she then she wasn't really that committed to the share.
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MiJodsR2BlinkinTite said:
I would say it is VITALLY important that sharer and owner communicate!!! The thing cannot work if there is no communication!

There needs to be a good level of communication between the two, to include such things as how the horse is behaving, i.e. are there any issues like for e.g. napping, or anything which might indicate a pain issue such as headshaking or other behaviour which isn't "normal" for that horse?

There needs to be liaison about stuff like management, feeding, level of work, consistency of riding, what sort of exercise, how much & how often etc etc.

As an owner, you need to know what is happening, and to be able to be confident that the person riding and managing one's horse is committed to total honesty and transparency!

Speaking personally, if someone was riding/sharing my horse and wasn't communicating with me and/or messing me about, I'd give them extremely short shrift and send them packing PDQ. I want my horse to be happy and I would want my sharer to be up-front and tell me how things are.

Get rid would be my advice; there's plenty of other's out there who'd be glad of the opportunity.
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I read the OP as it was the owner who was being unresponsive to texts from the sharer asking how the horse was. Maybe that could get annoying for some people. I didn't read it as not sharing important information. I might be wrong. Could the OP clarify?
 
I will always text my share horses owner after each ride and give a brief overview of what we did and how it went. If he has something like a show or the physio etc I'll text to ask how he is/how it went etc but we don't communicate outside of that apart from to organise what day/s I'm riding as that differs from week to week. I am rubbish at texting as she knows but usually do so the same day (sooner if it's urgent or I have time/don't forget) we have each other on facebook too so stay in the loop that way as well but don't go overboard with constant communication but we are in fairly regular contact.
 
Wagtail said:
I read the OP as it was the owner who was being unresponsive to texts from the sharer asking how the horse was. Maybe that could get annoying for some people. I didn't read it as not sharing important information. I might be wrong. Could the OP clarify?
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I'll be honest to being deliberately vague in my OP to get a spread of responses.
Yes, I'm the owner. All my previous shares have been good communicators but not needed to be overly in touch. They'd let me know of any problems or things they weren't sure of or if the horse had behaved a certain way but my current one is quite different. I get various contact through the week asking for updates on her. Sometimes I get a message while at work and if I don't reply within an hour I get a WhatsApp. It's great to.have someone keen and interested but Im finding hard to have someone take such a keen interest in my girl. Ive tried using short responses bland I don't want to politely say back off for fear of losing an otherwise good sharer.
 
I was a maybe overenthusiastic sharer before I bought my Horse off the owner. It was my first share/horse and I fell hook line and sinker. I was so worried that I may make a mistake or do something wrong that I think I may have been quite over baring. In my enthusiasm I would forget that the owner had a job and other interests and text even if the horse farted haha. We then had a Fb page set up and the owner said she would reply when or maybe just put a like. We are now good friends and I still love my horse even when she farts haha. Maybe an idea and say texts and other communication is for emergencies only?
 
BigBear said:
I'll be honest to being deliberately vague in my OP to get a spread of responses.
Yes, I'm the owner. All my previous shares have been good communicators but not needed to be overly in touch. They'd let me know of any problems or things they weren't sure of or if the horse had behaved a certain way but my current one is quite different. I get various contact through the week asking for updates on her. Sometimes I get a message while at work and if I don't reply within an hour I get a WhatsApp. It's great to.have someone keen and interested but Im finding hard to have someone take such a keen interest in my girl. Ive tried using short responses bland I don't want to politely say back off for fear of losing an otherwise good sharer.
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It's a difficult situation. It must make you almost feel like it's her horse and you're just the care taker. I get those texts but they are from the owners of my livery horses, so absolutely normal for an owner to text if they haven't seen their horse for a few days. As you say, it's nice that she's keen, but it is a little OTT. I very much doubt someone who is so keen on your horse would stop the arrangement if you asked her not to text so much. Maybe you could just say that sometimes you can't answer texts and so if she doesn't receive a reply that all is fine with the horse. Then just ignore the texts you find excessive.
 
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Just tell her you can't reply to messages during work time and you find it irritating that she is sending you messages on several mediums. Unless the horse is at death's door I'd expect the person to have the manners to wait til I had time to reply.
 
Get a book that you keep with your gear for the horse and you can write updates in that. Date, what you did, how the horse went, any other updates, food etc and just check it when you are at the yard. Takes away the need to txt but gives an outlay for questions/answers and what happened with the horse.
 
That's an awful lot of effort to faff with!

OP when I had a sharer we just communicated when we needed to, I might tell her what rug he needed, when he was hunting so would need a quieter one and she'd let me know if she had an issue. Neither of us needed a blow by blow account of what had happened every day.
 
ester said:
That's an awful lot of effort to faff with!

OP when I had a sharer we just communicated when we needed to, I might tell her what rug he needed, when he was hunting so would need a quieter one and she'd let me know if she had an issue. Neither of us needed a blow by blow account of what had happened every day.
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Yes, that's the arrangement I have with my share horse's owner. We stayed in closer contact when I'd just started riding him - I'd text her when I was going to ride, and let her know what we did and how he behaved. Two and a half years later, we just tick along together, and she trusts me to know what's best for him and to do it.

I might text her to say he was fantastic in a lesson, and she might text to say she's taken him to Somerford, but it's normally more to say that he's got a loose shoe, or to see if the other wants to share a saddle fitting appointment, or something like that.
 
I have a sharer for my mare at the moment. Communication is essentialy only if anything different needs doing. We have set days they come and they turn her back out as they find her. If I wanted a rug switched or added I'd message. I have a whiteboard her feed is written up on so they always know what she's getting if changes.
I can tell if they've ridden as the stirrups are different but don't really hear much otherwise.
I do have a fab yard owner who keeps an eye on my girl for me which is helpful :-)
 
I've two long term sharers for two horses. One rides fixed days, one flexible days. One I hack with fairly often, and one I don't.

The bloke, messages me to arrange riding and hacking times and agree when he's riding. But isn't especially chatty.

The woman who also does some care stuff for both horses, and rides both is quite chatty. And it can be initiated by either of us e.g. I send photo of horse as competition. She sends picture of horse out hacking.

She'd never chase if I didn't reply to a message that was unimportant, especially at work. And nor would I.

We communicate a fair bit about horses' behaviour / way of going / workload / management etc.

OP is your sharer young? I have found older sharer's are a lot easier. Over 35 ideally. And ones who are laid back and not trying to compete as to who "loves" the horse most etc. Ones who are comfortable horses can have a number of long term special relationships with people.
 
The right amount of communication is the amount that is necessary for share to function and that both parties are happy with.

I had an ex-sharer who would message me 10-15 times about simple things, making them complex!

Both current sharers can generally work out best rugs / fly masks / treating simple cuts etc. Its not that I mind being asked but I give them to freedom to use judgement, and ask if not sure.
 
Thank you all for the ideas and ways that you've all communicated over the years. I decided to start leaving messages on the noticeboard but this seems to have just created a new barrage of messages when she sees them.
I think I need to have a chat with her about not messaging me unless there is a real need (if I didn't trust her judgement I wouldn't have let her loose on my horse)! I don't think it helps that it's a smaller yard without much company when she comes up (exactly why I love it) and I sense she wants a social side to the horses too which I'm just not interested in. Yesterday there was a minor query which resulted in 3 texts and 5 missed phone calls in under an hour despite a text explaining I was in meetings and couldn't pick up. She is very caring and I'm really grateful for that but I can't just drop everything to answer a "which saddle cloth shall I use" type question. Fair enough if the horse is bleeding out it's earholes then call me that much (in between speaking to the vet) but not for trivial things.
 
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