Nightmare YO & Nightmare liveries

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micramadam

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After reading some bits and pieces on here about nightmare yard owners and nightmare liveries,I thought I'd give everyone the chance to tell us their stories.

I have found a fantastic YO who is very laid back and have been at this yard for 41/2 years now and have no intention of leaving or doing anything that will jeopardise that.

Anyway this is my nightmare story of first yard.

I thought that we had no worries. Horses had lovely stables with plenty to see and lots of turnout. OK, arena was crap in the winter but whenever I asked for things it didn't appear to be a problem. Did loads to help YO. Feeding liveries morning and night as I lived very close and was usually 1st at yard. (Small yard 8 horses max). Often mucked out her horses when she was pushed for time,turned them out,brought them in even though I also worked full time. OH did loads of maintenance work for her and helped her when she had computor problems etc. We never asked for anything in return. i.e. reduced lesson prices etc.
My horses started to have a problem with one of the other liveries and although their horse was the cause of the problems, mine were the ones that ended up suffering as a result. Her attitude towards me started to change even though I was always honest and upfront with her about things. To cut a long story short, went to feed the horses one morning and noticed that the food was running low. Enough for 1 more day and no more. Food was usually delivered on time so they never went short. Mentioned this to her and was told not to worry food would come. Fed that night, still no delivery. Next morning, not enough food to feed them properly and was really worried. Rang her and she said it was going to be delivered that day.
Went to stables after work and OMG NO FOOD! (or hay or straw!). Horses had been without all day. Furious is not good enough to describe how I felt. Tried to ring her,no reply. 1 of the other liveries was there and she had some food at home so went and got that while I went to the local hay merchant and bought enough hay for a few days.
Fed ALL the horses (incl.her 4) and thought no more about it as expected delivery to turn up.
Got a phone call later that night with her ranting raving about how dare I feed the horses :confused: WTF - horses needed feeding! Told her I was too angry to discuss this over the phone and hung up while she was still ranting and raving. Had to do this otherwise I may have said something I would later have regretted or could have been used against me.
10.30pm she turned up at door. Refused to answer as I was still too angry to face her and she would have ended up on her back:mad:
Very upset and angry about whole situation and couldn't sleep. 4am got up for a cup of tea and found a letter on doormat from her telling me I had to have my horses off her property by 10am that same morning. (Still have it!) No more sleep for me. By 8am horses had been moved to a yard very close by (present yard) I had been on waiting list for this yard but after explaining situation to YO she let me use the isolation stables. She's my heroine:D
By 10am there was no sign we had ever been on the other yard. Don't think she expected me to do that but rather go crawling to her to ask her forgiveness. No way! My horses come 1st and the lack of food was totally unacceptable. I paid for a service which I didn't get yet she seemed to think that she was doing me a favour by letting me keep the horses there. She even told other people I had been stealing stuff. Would still like to know what I stole. Have always paid my way and never borrow other people's stuff.
There were loads of other things that happened in the last couple of months before I left including her falling her out with 2 other liveries who both left very quickly.
I still get very angry about this. She no longer has the yard and has moved away as she ended up losing all her liveries and having to sell the yard.
Iroinic thing is we are now using that grazing as current YO has taken over that yard as well and we may be going back there this winter as there is more turnout.

Sorry it's so long but I imagine other people's stories will just be as long or longer.

Please note there are fantastic YO's and liveries out there as well so don't think that all YO's or liveries are bad.
 
Flaming Heck was this in Holland?

My horror story;

OH bought Vardi for me when he was 3 (Vardi not OH!), he had always had an issue with being a bit headshy but I worked on it slowly and it got a lot lot better.

I was working long hours so asked YO to groundwork him for me (obviously she was paid) to help me out a bit and keep him moving forwards in his training. I noticed from about 2 weeks in that he was getting headshy again and mentioned it to her, she told me she never had a problem and it must be me!!!.

Anyhow one day I was down at the yard and she offered to lunge him for me to show me what she was doing, as she went to put on the leather lunge cavesson he put his head up and she belted him round the face full force with it, poor little guy you could hear his teeth rattle and he shot to the back of the box quaking! she looked at me and said "he knows it is wrong and will let me put it on now" too right poor little sod was terrified. I did manage to say lets leave this for today shall we?.

I am ashamed to say I did not lay her out on the floor of the stable, or shout at her.....(too British) I rang my OH and cried for 20 mins then got really angry, called another yard, called the transporter and got him collected an hour later. I even paid her a months notice in cash! wimp huh!

I found out later that this was a regular thing, he misbehaved he got whacked! or perversely she offered him a treat to put his head down...poor confused little lad. I was also told that a few times he had put his head out of the box as she walked past to say hello and got belted for that as well....and all the time I thought I was doing something horribly wrong.

It has taken a lot of very gentle handling but he now lowers his head as soon as I walk towards him with a headcollar or bridle.

Absolute Cow...... Every time I see her advertising her Livery I have a 5 minute rant to myself.

Oh and she tells everyone she has no idea why I left but then I am a stupid Brit so it is not a surprise.
 
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micramadam said:
Yep, unfortunately. Yours also?

Peeps please don't think that all Dutch YO's are the same. My current one is one in a million!
Click to expand...

Yep mine was in Holland too and my first experience of a Dutch yard, told OH unless it improved I was off!

Ditto the above my current YO is fantastic, professional, caring, and gives a fantastic service. I arrived down there on Thursday to be told "he's mucked out and his hay is done, you only have to brush, tack up and ride" This is a DIY yard:-))))) YO got a bottle of wine today to say thanks!
 
We were on a small yard - 6 stables in total. There were just the 5 of us, myself with my loan, my loan's owners other 3 horses and their friend. It was a 'new' yard and we moved in, painted all the stables, black at the bottom, white at the top, painted all the other areas, green at the bottom, white at the top. We put all the tack racks up for them, did all the fencing for them, my loan's owner was an electrician so laid them electrics to the yard for nothing.

We'd been there about 3 months and they said they were closing and we had to leave.

Surprise surprise after we left the stables got filled.

After all the hours and hours of work we put in for them they just effectively chucked us off. We still don't actually know why...
 
Inky and Sunny you must know why, you did all the work and they are reaping the benefits. I also many years ago were in Diy liveries never again. the firsy one was at a riding school, and I could never understand why my gelding was so tired and slow and getting nappy, seems they were using him in the school behind my back and our agreement (Thats why I don't believe in working liveries) wasn't till some kid said he'd been belted by instructor for misbehaving that I found out the truth, so moved him and my pony mare who was in foal. 2nd livery yard I was their 1st and treated like the family, only my gelding wasn't going out everyday and as I was working full time, didn't know, when they started getting more liveries in mine were push to the back and put in worse stables, because at that time I'd gone on to DIY. Mare and foal going out gelding not after 6 years had enough and moved to 3rd yard and that was even worse, as my horses didn't go out at all in the winter (still DIY) but the horses YO looked after did, stayed there 3 years, but luckery we found our stables and land not far from home. I've helped several friends out when they have been stuck and have treated their animals the same as mine,till they have found somewhere more to their needs.
 
one yard I was on, the YO was stealing our feed and hay, caught him one day in some-ne elses bins and he said he was cleaning up what was on floor, also he used to take bedding out of our stables to bed his own down (had to many horses and couldn't afford to bed them properly), I used to look after friends horse and she would fill massive haynet at night fr morning bthat time was nearly empty. our feed/hay etc went down so fast!

I used to compete regularly against them and thier horse nice horse often didn't win get placed, so they said nasty stuff bout me behind my back, then my horse started getting out of control/fizzy-galloping off on main roads etc, found oats in his trough one day and YO used to feed his horses oats and then other livery saw him giving my horse 1 and half scoop f oats to make him fizz up. also used to only have part year turn out:mad:, but then he used to turn his horses out in paddocks and not let us have turn out till june or later.

on sub of other liveries, I had to be told once that another livery was abusing my horse hitting her etc when asked she said she 'wanted us out' and basically told us she was jealous cos 'she could have been at olympic level if she had that horse'...:mad:

I now have own place as thier are nice liveries but too far from me with work commitments!
 
I have been both a YO & a livery & have seen the picture from both sides. Re YO horses getting winter turn out & liveries not, what does it say in your contract / agreement? It is the YO land they can do what they want with it & if that means saving it just for their horses that's their decision.
 
Nightmares have included (not all at same yard):
- so many horses per acre (grass livery) that there was no grass left at all. Other livery (friend of YO) wouldn't contribute towards hay, then when she finally did, it was left up to us to put it out and make sure everyone got some. Left before the winter!
- nothing being done about a rig mounting my mare leaving huge scrapes down her sides. Once rig's owner found out the poor thing was mortified and moved him sharpish.
- aggressive YO (that was horrid)

Been at current yard for years now and love it. :)
 
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