Rate my yard

[Darius]

Hi everyone,

I am concidering setting up a new website "Rate my Yard" I would very much appreciate some feedback on this proposal, Ill set out below why I am interested in doing this.

I grew up with my own horses as a youngster and worked on a racing yard into my late teens, I cant remember too much about the politics at different yards except each yard owner resembled the sargent major and you were the punch bag for the head groom.
For the next 30 years I left the horse world for other pursuits and last year have returned with my wife to the horse world with 2 great horses.

As an Adult now, I never realised or believed how "catty, Bit**y, bullyish, the expert, childish, phycotic some people can be they can really make your enjoment time hell, but dont get me wrong I have also met a lot of really nice people.
What has disapointed me the most was the way some of the yards have been run, and quite often the Yard owner themselves, again I have met some really nice ones.

I have just managed to get away from a terrible yard, there was very few details about this particuler yard, very few people I came across knew anything about it, owner seemed nice enough, not the perfect yard as I wasnt expecting perfection,took in the sales spill, so i took the gamble, 2 days after moving on one lady left the yard who said to me on the quite "if you love your horse you wont stay here long", no more elabaration but within a short time there was plenty going wrong, welcome to hell began.

Ive heard of many more horrific stories worse than mine on the forums, really felt sorry for some of them, many would state "avoid, Keep away etc" but no details of the yard, from what I see of that theres going to possibly be another un suspecting person taking their place, I understand why as people are frightened to divulge more information or name names, fear of retrubution or a court case for slander.

We go on holiday, we rate the travel company "brilliant" the hotel "worst ever" the resurant "crap food" or ebay "avoid seller at all cost" etc etc, were not afraid to say what we want in these instances, but the horsey world does seem a little different, perhaps its a little closer to home so to speak.

we spend a lot of money on our horses and rightly should expect a good level of service in our chosen yard, unfortuanatly some yard owners dont see us a paying customer, their livelyhood etc, yes there are plenty of idiotic horse owners to which yard owners have a lot of hard work over, for us getting the wrong yard can become hell and take away our enjoyment, I love my horse but at my last yard I started to hate going.

I would like to take out the gamble of finding a new yard, I made some mistakes of not asking the right questions, wasnt untill i joined the last yard that winter time all fields are shut down and everyone has only one hour slots to a small mudhole, (3hr wait sometimes).
So I want to elimanate all the questions that should be asked.
I dont want it to be an oppurtunity for 5 page essays on how Fred keeps nicking Mandys wheelbarrow,or naming of people as this would not be fair and open to a slander allagation.

So "Rate my yard" website I would like it to be simple, anyone can put a yard forward for addition, or add to an existing entry, there would be a multitude of questions based on a -5 to 5+ tick box or yes or no ranging from facilitys availible, fencing, indoor school, wash facilities, for example if availible but you can never use it you might put it as a -4 etc etc right down to the yard owner, so the more entries the score becomes avarged,there wont be an oppurtunity to write something slanderourous, so as an owner looking for a yard i can see the facilities offered and what it has been rated at, just like we do with hotels.
The better the yard the higher the scores, for those that fall short theyll know the areas they fall short on, may even hopefully improve.

I dont want to see other people go through what some others have been through and go in on a contract blind, and allow a little more pre knowledge, as much as there are some hugely fantastic yards out there theres a lat a lot that fall short and have given many people hell.

If the interest is there Im happy to put the time and some cash into the project, if it gets off the ground some advertising should pay the running cost.

So the question is, good idea, bad idea, any input please let me know and if its a goer the kind of questions to be asked

Hopefully you can surf the site find out whats in your area, choose the one that you like that offers what you want, has the ratings you expect and if they have a vacancy go and view armed with a bit more information and hopefully a better judgement and get to see through some sales pitches

looking forward to your input............................Darius

 

[spacefaer]

It is open to distortion though, from ex clients putting bad scores on what is actually a good yard, but where they have had personal differences with the YO or other liveries.

Bit like antis putting bad reviews on pro-hunting pubs and other businesses.

I think a livery yard is a lot more subjective than a hotel, and what one person views as a great yard, might be another person's nightmare. I know a yard where my friend keeps her horse, and she hasn't got a bad word to say about it, as it suits her and her horse. If I kept a horse there, I would slate it, as everything she likes about, I would hate. Same yard, same facilities, same fellow liveries, same YO.

 

[Flora]

It is open to distortion though, from ex clients putting bad scores on what is actually a good yard, but where they have had personal differences with the YO or other liveries.

Bit like antis putting bad reviews on pro-hunting pubs and other businesses.

I think a livery yard is a lot more subjective than a hotel, and what one person views as a great yard, might be another person's nightmare. I know a yard where my friend keeps her horse, and she hasn't got a bad word to say about it, as it suits her and her horse. If I kept a horse there, I would slate it, as everything she likes about, I would hate. Same yard, same facilities, same fellow liveries, same YO.

Agree totally with this. I have liveries that are on my yard and have been for 3 years since I opened, so I must be doing something right, but I have had to throw off an evil, vindictive troublemaker that I bent over backwards for, only for her to do a midnight flight and then find out she is saying terrible things about thee yard that are totally untrue and unfortunately these things stick. So I would be a bit concerned people like that would go on your site and do horrible reviews and rate it badly when they don't deserve it.

 

[Auslander]

Agree with the previous posters. When I first started my yard, I had an absolute nightmare livery, who had a meltdown at me the day she left, because I was teaching, and she thought I should drop everything and help her load all her stuff. Despite being so rude to me (and stealing my wheelbarrow/tackroom keys), she started sending me messages as if nothing had happened, asking for my advice about her horse in it's new home - which I chose to ignore. This sparked an enormous tantrum, which included her slating me and my yard on a very large local facebook horsey group. Thankfully it blew up in her face, as enough people know me to know that she was just being nasty and vindictive, and there was no truth to the accusations she was making. If there was a site like the one you describe - I'm sure she would have taken great pleasure in blackening my good name on there - without the benefit of a- a right to reply, or b- people with common sense challenging her accusations.

 

[be positive]

Unlike hotels/ holidays/ restaurants a good livery yard will have a low turn over so they may only get a few reviews most likely from a disgruntled client who has been asked to leave rather than reviews from the ones that remain so a really decent place may end up with a low score, whereas somewhere with low standards could get high scores because clients cannot risk rocking the boat if they have no where else to go or they may be perfectly happy with what they get anyway, even a poor yard will have a relatively low turn over of clients compared with other businesses.

I have run a small livery yard for many years, rarely advertise, most clients have been very happy and only moved on because they needed to move away, from memory I have had 2 I was very unhappy with and both of them would have been the type to give a bad review out of spite although it was them neglecting their horses/ being difficult that made me want them gone.

 

[Equi]

I agree it's very much open to people's own interpretations and what one person thinks may not actually reflect the yard. My yard has good reviews generally because it is a nice yard, but some people think it's hell on earth usually because their horse was not suited to it (like a rescue tb who had serious social issues and was fed about five scoops of feed a day and not worked) but for those who can tolerate the rules and abide by the social structure it is lovely.

 

[Flicker]

It's not a bad idea, on the face of it. There is a very posh yard near mine that, on the surface, looks amazing. It is only when you speak to a number of liveries who have left that you hear the horror stories of weak management, unsafe practices (horses being turned out / brought in 4 at a time by one person, for example), poor bio security during a strangles outbreak and sloppy care (full livery horses being left without forage because the staff wanted to finish early for a yard social event). I wouldn't livery my horse there in a month of Sunday's, but lots of unsuspecting liveries are drawn in by the amazing facilities. A website like yours might help to identify common themes.

However, I would say it would be vital to include a right of reply, so that the real concerns identified by the other posters on this thread could be addressed. For example, if I read a poor review on Tripadvisor I am reassured if the proprietor has taken the time to either acknowledge and apologise, or to put their side of the story. This indicates to me that they take their business and customers seriously.

 

[Rowreach]

I've always said that as a YO you will have liveries who are will you for years and years, and others who are with you five minutes. There's usually a reason for that ....

 

[chased by bees]

Provided it was a bit like TripAdvisor and the yard owner could reply to claims, it's a brilliant idea. Finding a yard that suits your horse can be a nightmare. Having a site where you can whittle down the ones that definitely don't suit your horse ie limited turnout, no indoor school etc would save yard owners and liveries a lot of time and hassle looking round yards.
So long as the owner of the yard can reply to reviews it would work.
Last year there was a camp site on skye that turned a bus load of very roudy (drunk) campers away. They all promptly started giving bad reviews. However the owner could reply to explain why they were turned away and that large groups had to pre arrange. To folks reading the reviews it obvious what happened and doesnt detract from all the other helpful reviews. You can see from the reviews if you want a quiet site it's perfect, if you want a social and vibrant site it's not. So one or two bad reviews won't really hurt a good yard or put of the right folk, provided the owner can reply.