Other livery’s saying you should do your horse Christmas Day , Boxing Day and Christmas Eve ?

[Mary3050]

Every time I read about full livery on here I get more and more confused as to what the modern concept is.

In 1971 i used to "work for rides" in a local yard. After I had ridden out with them on Sunday mornings I would stay on to muck out, groom, clean tack and prepare teas, particulalry when the owner's wife was pregnant. One of the horses there belonged to a VERY eminent judge, His horse was fully groomed and tacked up ready for him to ride out about 3p.m; When he returned he left the horse tied up ready for untacking. In winter he would hunt said horse for a few occasions. Other than that we would never see him. He lived in London and his horse was approximately 100 miles away. No way was he going to do his own horse any day of the year, but he paid full livery precisely for such a privilege. Is that not how it works now?

Similar but these horse are there to be schooled for competition so everything is in like all the care and excises. Although my friend tacks ups her own horse when she wants to ride etc . Xx

 

[Mary3050]

Looks like such a service does sometimes exist -

http://www.rugbypoloclub.com/livery/

I suppose it depends on whether the yard is a proper professional yard or an amatuer-commercial yard type arrangement.

Supposed to be professional that’s what it’s advertised as xx

 

[Mary3050]

I was riding with our YO today and mentioned this discussion to him. He almost fell off his horse laughing and then told me that he did not think the grooms would like to spend Christmas afternoon extracting horses from the wrong paddocks and changing rugs which had been put inside out on the wrong horses, and that he did not want to spend the afternoon calling people to explain that their expensive competition horse had been kicked because it was turned out in a pack that it did not belong to. He also pointed out that they do the boxes very early, and that leaving some to be done by whichever owners wanted to do them would not really work as they would have to go back and do them if the owner failed to turn up.

Where I am is what I would call part livery, everything except for riding and owners prepare their horses themselves. There at least half a dozen horses there who are ridden by a pro and whose owners I have never seen, I can hardly imagine these owners making one of their infrequent visits to muck out on Christmas day, and YO would not welcome it if it was suggested. The yard runs to a schedule, and numerous owners wanting to use the wheelbarrows etc at the same time would be chaos!

While I am all for helping out a bit if you are there over the holidays I think that our groom appreciates more a few words of thanks given with an envelope and a bottle at Christmas.

It would be carnage but funny to watch . Yer that’s basically the same up there those owners wouldn’t know how to muck out . 100% who’s wouldn’t want an envelope and some tipple too xx

 

[Mary3050]

Any update op?

Yes she sent the other owner a message just saying I will be arranging my horse care with Yo thanks. She spoke to YO today who seemed confused as to why we where discussing Christmas in November and to remind her she will be away a few weeks before . But doing the horse as usually is no problem . Even said she will make sure the horse get to open a present and send owner a video haha ?

 

[Lois Lame]

I'm not surprised the yard owner was confused.

I'm of the opinion that the other owner (horse owner? Second yard owner?) who spoke to your friend was just being a pain in the neck, sucking up to the owner.

 

[ester]

I think they might have just thought it was a nice thing to do, without actually thinking it through.