Other people handling your horses.

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Do u find it difficult to let others, handle your horse? Are there certain people you wouldn't let touch them? I'm a diy'er in every sense of the word but my new job means I may have to put one on livery and the other make use of the job service. Not keen on this but have no other choice. So do you feel the same?
 
There are certain people who I would not want handling my horse but none of them are on my current yard. My horse is, by necessity (full time job long way from home/yard plus five year old child to get to school) on full livery during the week so it is a given that others will handle her. I also wonder that if horses are never handled by anyone else would that cause an issue in an emergency? If my horse, god forbid, was injured or unwell and needed to be handled immediately by someone I would want to know that the horse would not have an issue with that!
 
When I have had my horse on livery in the past ive always chuckled at people handling her. Children and real novices she is quiet as a mouse. But people who try and bully her get it right back :)
Echo above tho with my youngster I like to have as many people as possible handle her so that she can be handled by anyone in case there is an emergency or problem!
 
Due to baby's past and her sight i was very fussy who handled her. I had a lovely girl who cared for her when i couldnt get to yard but by heck there were some on yard i wouldnt trust with a rabbit let alone my horse.
 
I really worried with some on my old yard! Some were far too harsh and others not harsh enough. I don't know why but ned seems to baffle people!
That said, there were a few who could do it, yo (obviously, he was her horse for the better part of 6yrs!) And a 13yr old girl, I felt the most comfortable with.
Now, I don't have anyone else to handle them apart from my parents and a couple of friends. Friends I would have no issue with, they're all horsey. Mum and dad can hold while I do stuff or vise-versa!
 
I always find I am quite judgemental when someone new handles my horse I.e. new member of staff....I don't mean to be but I like to keep tabs on what they do and how they handle an situations.
Once I see my horse is happy and confident, and the member of staff is aware of how to handle the horse I'm pretty happy.
 
No, not really. My horses are easy to handle so cannot imagine that anyone would need to be rough with them. I would be particular about who handled a foal or an anxious horse, they'd need to competent and calm.

If there was a member of staff that I thought was aggressive or quick tempered, I wouldn't be happy leaving my horse on livery there, full stop.
 
I didn't used to have a problem with anyone handling him, hes actually pretty good. I just got so worried at the old yard as everyone started to demonize him. If he dared look at someone funny, I'd get yet another text that he's dangerous! Funny that whenever I was there (quite often) he was never much of a problem.
 
Im not very good at sharing to be honest so I do have to fight my demons when other people are touching my horse but being on a private yard I trust the people there to handle him and ride him if asked. Before I got him and was on a DIY Livery with a loan horse I wouldnt have trusted anyone to handle her because she was dangerous and needed to be closely and carefully managed so it was more me not trusting her to behave!

If I was on that same yard now with my boy I wouldnt let more than a couple handle him because the others on the yard are a bunch of morons who I wouldnt trust to look after a goldfish!!
 
It works both ways too. As a YO you have to be prepared to handle any livery horse competently and kindly, and in any circumstances, mundane or emergency. I think it's important that horse ARE handled by more than one person. In my own case it so happens that I have the day-to-day looking after, feeding, rugging, haying etc of my 3-5 livery horses. The liveries help too, so all the horses are perfectly happy with everyone. BUT my liveries are all lovely, true horsewomen, and I totally trust them with my own horse.

If you have morons, goldfish abusers etc on your yard then I totally agree with you. Keep them away!
 
Auslander said:
I would be mortified if my horses weren't mannerly enough to be handled by anyone I judged to be a reasonably competent person
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Ditto. I'm not precious about my horses and hope they're well trained enough to be good for most to handle.
There are idiots who I'd not want near my horse but I try not to associate with people like that and have nothing to do with them or their horses.

Just a well really when Roo jumped out and did a midnight tour of the local housing estate and was caught by a slightly drunken passerby on their way home from the pub, who wrapped their jumper round his nose and dragged him off the road before calling the police. She said he was very pleased to see her and 'walked on the lead to heel far better than her dog'!
 
When my horse was on a big livery yards, I had no choice as was on full/part livery. Generally though it was a set few people, and they always said mine was the easiest to do, except always the last to be caught when out in the field lol

When I switched to DIY I was more selective about who covered for me, but only got a call once or twice to say my horse wasn't being caught tehehe so I told them too rattle a feed bucket and all was ok.

The youngster will have different people handling (YO/head groom/OH mainly) to turnout at least weekly incase I am away/ill/emergency.
 
I do have concerns, mainly because of one of my mares knows she can take the pee out of someone, she will, its more a concern of, she can be a typical tb mare, is flighty, fast and thinks after she acts, and many people find it scary (had her 10 years know her inside out) and it doesn't matter how many times you say, let her do it stand on the spot and she will get over it, they either panic and let her go or run with her... big no no or try and argue with her, another even bigger no no! Shes 16.2 and knows she will win in a battle, so we compromise, allow her to be a tit coming out then she walks calmly to the field, (this has been the only way to safely control her spritely tendencies)

The other 2 are fine id let anyone handle them, recently cut gelding gets a bit ahead of himself, but is easily controlled.

I now resort to keeping all mine out, its too much of a risk asking someone to turn my big girl out, now we are on a quiet but fast road, if anything ever happened Id never forgive myself.

ETA - my mare isn't always like this, she may walk out fine every day for a year then one day act like this, or be like this for a week be fine for a month... etc etc.
 
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I do like to do things my own way (couldn't be on a livery yard it would annoy me) but I am happy for others to handle mine. It is good for them to be handled by others. Mine are handled by my non horsey husband, his non horsey father and our non horsey stockman. None have a problem with them although they are all competent with animals if not horses in particular.
 
I hate to admit it but i am def OCD when it comes to who handles/looks after my horse :-( He is on a DIY yard so i generally 99% of the time do him myself as i am particular about things, but if i do go away for the odd weekend i only let my 2 best friends who have their own horses look after them as i know they treat him like one of their own.
He is extremely well mannered and any one would be capable of handeling him its just dealing with me i think people have problems with !!!! hence not many volunteers when i do have the occassionaly day off. Can only blame myself for being neurotic about him :-)
 
I'm a bit funny with people who handle my horse. I do, however, have a friend at the yard who I trust to handle him and to make sure he is respectful (we had issues when I first got him with regards to personal space!).

I'd always be wary of moving my horse to assisted/part/full livery and would want to monitor the initial handling, only due to shocking amount of stories I hear on here and IRL
 
Taz can be handled by just about anyone if they are confident handling. Rio however will pick up on if they arent 100% sure and will take the P. There is a huge amount of people around who are too scared to give him a good telling off for being a git and tbh i could do without having a nasty stallion. Therefore there are very few people who handle him, as i know if you give him an inch he will take a mile.

In all honesty if you are firm with him and let him know your boundaries you shouldnt need to tell him off at all.
 
I've no worries about anyone handling the one I have now, he's pretty well behaved and not easy to upset. I felt differently about a mare I used to have, she was very gentle and sensitive and I felt very protective towards her. I was fine with people I totally trusted handling her, but would never have wanted anybody else near her unless I was there.
 
I don't mind who handles my horse so long as they work out quickly that his quick release lead rope is just that and they don't hold onto it and wonder why my horses is flying around the yard loose (I don't think this has ever happened by the way!).

I am not precious about who rides/handles my horse although I love him dearly. As far as I am concerned it is a priviledge to have a horse and I am happy to share mine with anyone (well within reason) :)
 
My horses are on part and assisted-DIY (would both be on part if I could afford it) and get turned out for me in the morning and the yard will also bring in and farrier and vet-sit for me if I can't be there. I trust my YO to only let competent staff handle them but tbh I would worry more about the person than the horses as they can both be slightly tricky from time to time (one is very nervous and the other is a mare who can be quite hormonal). That said, I hope that the manners that I expect and get from them transfers to others who handle them so I don't worry about it. It's good for them to know they have to behave for whoever is on the end of the leadrope and up until now they've never caused anyone else a problem.
 
where my mare is now I am happy for anyone to handle her and she is bought in and put out for me each day. Where I need to move her back to the woman that does weekends cannot handle her own mare! and resorts to feeding everything treats All the time in order to try and distract them from any naughtiness, so I do not allow her to handle her (have to be very firm with the fact I do not want her to feed mine over the stable door). the woman who does weeks days likes to flap at everything and do her own version of natural horsemanship, she does not arrive before 11 am either so she is a no no also.

I upset yard policies as I get friends to do mine and wont use the woman that you are supposed to use-the scary thing is that as they do not declare an income from the yard they are not covered by any insurance, the advantage to that is that is why I say I wont use them and they cannot argue with that.
 
I've never had a problem with any of the yard staff handling my horses. If they were so bad mannered as to be naughty I would be embarrassed and ashamed of their behaviour.

I sometimes wonder why some people get so precious about their horses, what makes them think they are gods gift to the horse world.

The majority f yards have more thancapable people handling the horses.

They may not do things as fuzzily as some of us but still get the job done.

If you have a problem with others handling your horse, get over yourself!
 
After having worked on yards and seeing how some staff handled the livery horses when the owners weren't there I'm very glad to be on D.I.Y livery. I've seen horses getting kicked and smacked and even punched in the face! Horrendous. I'm the only one who handles my horse and I like it like that.
 
applecart14 said:
I am not precious about who rides/handles my horse although I love him dearly. As far as I am concerned it is a priviledge to have a horse and I am happy to share mine with anyone (well within reason) :)
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That's such a lovely attitude :) And sadly not all that common. I grew up riding horses that others were kind enough to let me ride and now I have my own, I'm more than happy to let others get the same pleasure from them that I do.
 
Anyone could handle my boys they are angels, but no one can handle them the way i do including putting them to bed, so i do it all because i am over protective horse owner who wouldnt sleep at night wondering if their feet were picked out, just me
 
It depends who I suppose. I have no qualms about other people handling my horse I ride or my daughters pony now he has regained his confidence. They are both polite and easy to do.
My TB I do struggle a bit with. He can be a funny old thing and it would have to be someone confident and competent. With someone like this he will act like a donkey and people think im nuts for saying any different. However let someone nervous/novice or someone who acts hard go in with him its a totally different matter, and I would be worried he'd hurt them or get a beating for misbehaving.
It also tends to be men he dislikes quite strongly.
 
because mine is a big, TB x 4yr old who can go from being a dope on a rope to an over excited hot headed baby, putting in a buck and rear if something fires her up in hand, i have to be 100% anyone handling her was capable enough to put a lid on these behaviors without either her or them getting hurt.

Im the only one that has handles her atm, but i wouldnt be precious about her as long as i knew the other handler was competent, firm and fair.

I agree with the other posters, if you're the only one that handles or catches your horses ever,you might find you're not doing yourself or them any favors in the long run.
 
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