Its late and this may turn into a waffle..

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lauraanddolly

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Isle of Wight
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To be honest I'm after some sympathy. I made a silly decision at the beginning of the month and now my poor horse is paying the price.
My horse has a history of problems coming in from the field in winter, stemming from a period when I shared a field with a girl who used to think it ok to leave my mare on her own galloping around. Since then I have moved her to different field on the same yard and she was very settled even alone. Summer before last she shared the field with one other mare and the owner was very good and they operated as a pair when coming in or going out. This worked well. Owner then took horse back to her own field off the yard.
Dolly was then alone in the field, again very settled and happy.
At the beginning of this month, I was approached by two newish liveries to the yard, who I get on well with, about their horses sharing my field with mine. I thoroughly explained dolly's previous problems and they agreed she would not ever be left alone. So we gave it a shot, all the horses are stabled together and hack out together regularly without issue.
We made pens within my field to enable all the horses to meet individually before letting them together all seemed to go well.
However my mare has taken a severe dislike to one of the horses, there has been no fights or injury's but she cannot tolerate his presence near her at all, snorting tail swishing barging out of the gate and rearing all which is most unlike her.
The other horse had to have a few days in over the weekend and Dolly and the horse she doesn't like were out together(Dolly in a pen alone). Saturday I finished work at 4pm and got to the yard around 5pm all normal. I went out to get the horses in as I was doing both and the sight that greeted me was horrible, Dolly was beside herself snorting, galloping up and down and very stressed. I quickly caught her and took her for a calming walk around the school, while someone else grabbed the other horse. (who was fine, just wanting to come in)
I have owned Dolly 11 years and I have never seen her so stressed out, she was covered in sweat and very tucked up, over the next few hours she had colic (all be it mild) and was shaking - cue vet visit, extreme stress was what the vet said.
I can only put this down to her being out with this horse. Nothing else had happened that day.
Yesterday she was kept in and monitored with a short while out in our sick paddock. She seems to be over the experience now. Today she was also in as waiting for the farrier to come and put her front shoe back on that she took off during her antics Saturday.
I went and spoke to the yard owner today about finding the horse or Dolly another field, however he will not budge and says they are out together and will stay together. The other girl(who's horse was kept in) also wants this horse out of the field or for us to go somewhere together as she suspects this horse has been chasing hers and that is why she has hurt herself.
A couple of weeks ago I put up a pen for Dolly within the field so she can have her own space without this horse, yard owner is now telling me all fencing must be removed as it is bad for his field.
I have been looking for another yard since October they seem to be in short supply!!!
Not really sure what I hope to achieve with this post, most likely anyone reading would of got bored ages ago, I just needed to get it out. I really don't know what I am going to do, Dolly will be 20 in may this stress really can't be good for her!
 
Were the other horses in another field at the yard before sharing yours? If so the yard owner really doesn't have a leg to stand on. Go th them with the other owner who also doesn't want to be sharing with this third horse anymore and discuss it. Point out a refusal on his part would mean that in the case of an accident he would be at fault, he is taking your money and has a duty of care. Give him a copy of your vets bill, and ask him if he would like to be paying thse in future. Do you have a contract? If so what does it say re turnout? If it is a proper yard, not just a field rented off a farmer, then they do have to deal with this. A yard near where I was living had a problem which made one of the ponies ill, sherefused to do anything about it and he pony died. Upshot is the lady has now lost all her liveries, and there weren't that many yards round there either.
Hopefully a quiet word with the backing of this other livery will solve your problems.
 
Isle of Wight, worse luck. Good yards word of mouth advertising so if you don't know anyone who knows neither do you!
I have put a wanted ad up on local freeads site, going to pop something on the boards in local tack shops too. Seriously want out!!
 
zaminda, the other lady is going to see the yard owner tomorrow, we are giving him the evening to sleep on it!
Yes the horse where in two separate fields before they came in with me, but he has taken on a new livery(one field) and the other has a horse in it now too(well it doesn't but it will have so he told me).
The place is a joke one livery has her horse in one field and is resting two others and YO won't let anyone else use them as they are for this one livery's horse. We have people paying different rents depending on how popular you are with yard owner. Jan this year he brought in a £5 a week extra charge if you were not buying his hay - only there were several exceptions to that rule, a few of us wrote letters in complaint but got no where, I now feed his hay as I simply couldn't afford the extra not to.
 
Maybe post a thread on here to see if anyone knows of livery in isle of wright, sounds horrible where you are not good for you or your horse
 
You probably asked already but your farrier or vet might have some suggestions? They are likely to travel to different places and might have some inside knowledge...

Not sure if this thread would be any use: Older HHO Thread re IOW Livery

Good luck finding somewhere - although hopefully the YO will see a bit of sense with both of you approaching him firmly over the same problem...
 
That place sounds like a nightmare, I really feel for you. I hope you find somehwhere else. Can you rent a field as summer is on it's way and one of the other liveries may want to share.
 
I agree with the others - place sounds like a nightmare. When YO have favourites it causes so much trouble. Can't offer much advice apart from repeating the above. I was in similar (ish) situation a while back - not nearly as bad - moved to another yard which was bad in different ways. I then stumbled upon another yard which I moved to last week, early days but everyone treated the same, YO understands horses run around (my boy ended up in his sheep pen the first night because he saw a bucket - found him in the morning licking the sheeps back!) As others have said, ask farrier, back person, various people you meet out hacking. Good luck with your search x
 
I sympathise with the yard owner bull. Its why we moved our herd to where they are now! We had 6 horses on 3.5 acres, and another lady had 2 horses on 2 acres. Then she was given an extra paddock which had been ours and rested all winter, so that she had more space and could have sheep!
I'd talk to vet/farrier, and drive around. We found our field through a friend who knew the farmer
 
Thank you all for your replies, its an impossible situation.
The other lady has not been to see YO yet he wasn't in when she tried earlier.
One thing I didn't mention was, the owner of the horse that mine doesn't like is quite happy to move him to another field its just the YO!
I have moved the electric fencing around today so Dolly and the one she does get on ok with are one side and the other one has the other side of the field - thankfully it is quite a large field. Unfortunately Dolly seems to have a need to be able to get to the gate so she has the poached, no grass side of the field and said horse has the part of the field I had been resting, so he is getting the better deal atm. She was ok today, not totally settled but much calmer than Saturday. She spent a bit of time grazing but the rest of the day just stood by the hedge. Thankfully I'm off work this week and can be there a lot to monitor what goes on, I called in and out several times today on my way here, there and everywhere!!
I have decided not to volunteer to take out the fencing, it will stay there unless YO moves it himself which is unlikely.
Still hunting for a new yard, have a couple to look at this week so fingers crossed, one is a bit further than I want to go but has an indoor and outdoor school and nice hacking, the other I have been on previously but is herd turnout and I'm not sure this will suit her just now - she seems to want to be on her own.
 
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