Rider advice...Pay vet fee's or Not?

Lady_Dee

Lady_Dee

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Hi there, I was wondering if you could give me any advice? I let someone ride my pony, he pays me £7.50 for each day he rides, no set days, and if he doesn't ride, or the pony has lost a shoe etc, then I don't expect money from him at all.....he has ridden my mare for about 7 months, but in the last 4 months has only ridden 8 times, doesn't canter and only goes on quiet hacks or schools lightly.
It may be that the pony has a problem with its hip....if I have to pay any vet fee's should I be asking him to contribute towards the vet fees.
He does not have a loan agreement, as technically the horse is not on loan.
Thanks!
 
No!
His £7.50 is presumably a fee to take into acount all ongoing upkeep of the pony, of which vets fees are a part. Especially if he has hardly ridden in the past few weeks!!
 
I would not expect someone else to pay vets bills for a horse they ride on an occasional basis and actually pay for the riding anyway, even though it is very little, unless they have caused the horse to have an accident when riding but they should have insurance to cover that eventuality.
If it was a full loan that would be different but again they would be insured and as you say it is not a full loan.
 
He has never had an accident on the horse apart from falling off himself at a couple of things....
But what id he has caused some damage to the horse by not riding it correctly? Could he have to pay some of the vet fees then?
 
Lady_Dee said:
He has never had an accident on the horse apart from falling off himself at a couple of things....
But what id he has caused some damage to the horse by not riding it correctly? Could he have to pay some of the vet fees then?
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it would be almost impossible to prove the damage was done by his inorrect riding and anyway it was down to you to make sure tha he rode well enough before you let him hire your pony.
 
How could you prove he's not ridden it "properly"?

If he wasn't riding your horse properly, why would you let him carry on riding it?

And if he's only ridden it 8 times in 4 months (ie once a fortnight) then he'd have had to do a pretty good job of riding it badly to cause a problem!
 
Lady_Dee said:
He has never had an accident on the horse apart from falling off himself at a couple of things....
But what id he has caused some damage to the horse by not riding it correctly? Could he have to pay some of the vet fees then?
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This is a joke, isn't it??

You hired out your pony on a paid basis just like a riding school. He is no more responsible for your vet bills than you would be for the vet fees of a Riding School pony you rode for an hour once a week.
 
Lady_Dee said:
For example, if he was riding, with too much weight leaning forwards, could this cause strain on the horses hips or legs to cause the need for vet attention?
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It is your responsibility to make sure anyone that you are hiring your pony to is capable of riding correctly, once a fortnight is hardly going to have any influence on it assuming someone is caring for it and riding at other times.

Just to add, no he is not likely to have caused any damage to the pony, it could be anything that has caused it to become lame, trying to blame the rider and get money seems very unfair.
 
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Lady_Dee said:
For example, if he was riding, with too much weight leaning forwards, could this cause strain on the horses hips or legs to cause the need for vet attention?
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Stop trying to find an excuse to get someone else to foot the vet bills for your pony...
 
I have a sharer who pays z fixed amount. No way would I ask hercto contribute towards vet fees. Bless her, she did offer to psy half of the dentist visit recently. TBH that would be handy, but I declined.
 
There isn't any point in continuing with this thread at the moment. I had a PM conversation with the poster last night and for some reason she chose to post this way when it is not the truth. I am unsure a bit still whether she is trolling or not, because she said she was going to tell the truth but she hasn't. But she has the information she needs, and any posts telling her that she's and evil money-grubbing cow will be wasted, because she's not.

I wouldn't normally divulge that someone has PMd me an told me a different story, but I predict that this thread is, now we in the daytime with a bigger audience, about to collapse into a stream of criticism against this poster because of the story she chose to tell. Either she's a troll and that will be pointless, if fun, or she doesn't deserve it anyway so I hope she will forgive me doing it.
 
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cptrayes said:
I am unsure a bit still whether she is trolling or not, because she said she was going to tell the truth but she hasn't.
I predict that this thread is, about to collapse into a stream of criticism against this poster because of the story she chose to tell. Either she's a troll and that will be pointless, if fun, or she doesn't deserve it anyway so I hope she will forgive me doing it.
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Yes thanks, CPTrayes, I did pm you last night, and no, i am not trolling, i had no idea there was such a thing! It's actually the other way around, where, this owner may be about to ask me to pay vets fees for a horse I've only ridden a few times this year...I was wanting to see what people would say, if i posted it from the owners point of view...

In the grand scale of things, its not a big deal if ive posted this with the story the other way around, but it has helped me, so thank you all for your replies!, I am trying to see it from the owners point of view...and it's helped.
 
That makes more sense, you need to stand your ground here and the owner must accept their responsibility to the horse is theirs alone, it is one of the issues with the sharing idea that I can foresee being more common as the owners try to gain compensation when things go wrong, at the end of the day the horse is theirs and hiring it out is their choice.
 
Just a small point here, but if her horse is insured, the owner may find her policy is invalid if she is "hiring" out her horse unless she has informed them.

Hard as it may seem, I think I would discontinue the arrangement if this sort of thing is going to happen.
 
Tammytoo said:
Hard as it may seem, I think I would discontinue the arrangement if this sort of thing is going to happen.
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I am no longer riding the pony now, just looking for the advice on if she can potentially ask for vet fees or not?

There's been no accidents, or tripping or falling or any of the sort.

Thanks for the info.
 
Lady_Dee said:
I am no longer riding the pony now, just looking for the advice on if she can potentially ask for vet fees or not?

There's been no accidents, or tripping or falling or any of the sort.

Thanks for the info.
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No,she can't. Not unless it was written into an agreement at the start of a formal share agreement. Nor would it be fair to ask you to contribute given the circumstances described of the set up of you riding the horse.

If they had wanted cost sharing of the big ticket costs of the horse owning they should have looked for a sharer - but then the sharer would have wanted the horse a lot more of the time.
 
lachlanandmarcus said:
If they had wanted cost sharing of the big ticket costs of the horse owning they should have looked for a sharer - but then the sharer would have wanted the horse a lot more of the time.
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I've actually just went back and checked my dates again, i've ridden about 12 times over the last 5 or so months....
There was no formal agreement, just pay and ride really, although i did start out riding a twice a week and regularly once a week over the last few months.

The owner has had other people ride him occasionaly, and the owner has ridden occasionally themselves.
 
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