Thieves on yards

The day my whole attitude changed and I turned into an evil 'I will say NO now everytime you ask for the rest of my life and I don't give a stuff' kind of person was the day I saw another livery hook up my trailer and head off to fetch a new horse.

I was so gob-smacked, I couldn't respond. So I went home. It came back fine....but the new horse then infected the yard with strangles, so none of us went anywhere for the entire summer. I also had to scrub out the trailer from top to bottom, no help from thief.

....so why had they thought it OK to take trailer? Because I had lent it to another friend, they thought it was fine to just swipe it!

From that day forward, I have said NO to many, many, many things, and I don't feel an ounce of guilt about it!
 
cobsarefab said:
If the kid had been killed it would 100% have been her fault for putting the kid on her! She's got a nerve saying that!
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I know but I can't believe they didn't notice before the ride left the yard, she was a nightmare of a horse I only had her a year and I think I fell off her about 30 times, of all the other liveries horses on the yard they picked the worse one to put some poor kid on
 
Flicker said:
A livery at my last yard suspected one of the others, we'll call her 'Sue' for the purposes of this anecdote, was nicking her feed. She quietly put a note inside her closed feed bin that said, "Sue, stop nicking my feed". The next day, Sue approached her, terribly upset and asked why she had left such a rude note, accusing her of stealing feed. When the other livery asked her where she'd seen the note Sue suddenly went very quiet...
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I left a note inside my feed bin. It said 'please do not steal my food'. When I went up next day, it had 'we don't feed our horses rabbit food' written on it. So why did you open my bin then? It was padlocked next day.
 
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ycbm, the brass neck of people! And so annoying that you have to change your behaviour, hassling with padlocks etc, because of their tea leaf ways!
 
WandaMare said:
As well as livery yard petty thieving, I have also experienced a freelance groom visit my yard and help herself. I arrived home from work unexpectedly early one day to find her getting into her car with a full large bucket of my hard feed and a massive haynet of hay. She must have been doing it for months while I was totally unaware what was going on. She said it was a one-off because she had been so busy and hadn't had time to restock for her horse....I suppose you would say that when you get caught red-handed!
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We once came home early to find hay supplier taking bales OUT of our barn. Needless to say, we changed supplier.
 
Some of these stories are real eye-openers, I am stunned at the cheek of some people, bad enough pilfering food or fly spray etc but borrowing horses and trailers and saddles without permission- good lord!
 
Agreed skint. Makes me glad I have a wheel lock on my trailer. Although if they took a look inside and saw all the rugs they'd go 'to hell with that' and close the door again.
 
Our horses are at home and tbf we didn't have many problems when we were at livery, the worst was people borrowing our wheelbarrow to muck out and then 'forgetting' to empty it. So what happens to all the hoof picks here? There is never one available when you want it!
 
SEL said:
I used to keep my horses on livery at a riding school. I turned up early to find my friend's horse tied up on the yard. I knew that my friend wasn't down until later and I also knew that they had every intention of using the horse in a lesson - she was ex-riding school and pretty easy going. I smiled sweetly and said 'oh, is the farrier up?'. Lots of guilty looks between staff, then the horse got turned back out.

Horse was moved to a new yard shortly after as she just couldn't trust them not to use the mare when she wasn't there.
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I bet I know which riding school that is!
 
One yard I was on my leather headcollar with horses name on the nameplate went walkies. Pony club were on the yard about the same time so could have been anyone that took it - had only had it about 3 months too. From same yard my show cane and gel pad also went.
Another leather headcollar went missing on a different yard. I couldn't find my horses coloured headcollar one day and a livery owned up to her daughter using it but then they couldn't find it so they replaced it with a completely different coloured one. (My pony wear only purple) so I still had to go out and buy a new one. It was one that had belonged to my previous horse so I was proper ticked off.

Generally speaking I have to say most yards I have been on, I haven't had an issue.
 
The worst I've had is only some horse treats and feed swiped and a whip going missing and then turning up broken. If I caught anyone using my saddle or, gods forbid, my horse, hell would break loose!
 
Current yard is fabulous but have had lots of little bits stolen on previous yards. Two yards I had feed stolen - both times by the yo!!!!!!!

Nasicus said:
Can't believe people are cheeky enough to steal medicine/medical supplies!
It's one thing to pinch a plaster if you've cut your finger, it's another to steal a sachet of bute!

I've always been well stocked with bandages, vet wrap, poltices, salts, lotions, potions etc etc, and never hesitate to offer them out if someone has an emergency or late night abscess. Heck if it were a sudden emergency whilst I wasn't there, I wouldn't begrudge someone grabbing some supplies to prevent an injured horse from bleeding out before the vet gets there, so long as they let me know and at least offered to replace them (chances are I'd tell them not to worry about it unless they used a lot). But I do know that I'd soon lock everything up if anyone started taking the mick with it, or even stock piling out of my own supplies.
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I usually have a well stocked first aid kit, including bute etc and it's well known I'm happy for people ti use in an emergency but must be replaced - I've not been so free on previous yards tho. My current is excellent - people share or borrow but it always goes back in same condition and stuff like fly spray etc is only used if offered.

ApolloStorm said:
I'll admit to having nearly stolen somebody's horse once!! I was at a newish riding school, and was given the tack for my mount and told " he's the bay tb at the end of the row" and a vague gesture toward a barn, went in and started tacking up this (lovely) bay tb, for the owner to luckily come into the barn looking confused and asked me what I was doing, I was very apologetic and she seemed to take it in jest and showed me where the horse I was looking for was!!
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rachk89 said:
Haha least you knew and apologised. You reminded me of when at the current yard, a girls parents went up to feed her horse and started taking mine out by accident. They do look very similar though and they realised before they took him to the stable and put him back. My horse went quite willingly though, probably thinking it's his lucky day and gets fed twice!

I am so happy, my new lockable box is here to hide everything in and lock it away from the thieves. :D
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Last time ours were pulled in for worming I got up quite late so was dark and went to fetch my mare. She's pretty good and comes when called and when last out would usually be stood at the gate waiting for me so I was rather confused to not see her. I spent ages hunting round the field getting more and more freaked out at where she was.
Phoned up to the yard to ask for help looking for her and ended up with 3 of us hunting the field with no sucess. I headed back to the yard to get some bigger torches but decided to go through the gelding's field just in case for some weird reason she had jumped over. I found one of the geldings in the field who is kinda similar looking and got even more confused as I'd seen a dark body in his stable. Took the gelding up with me and looked in the stable - the gelding's owner had brought my mare in instead of his own horse!!!!!!! :D Switched my slightly confused mare to her own stable and gave her her own feed then went and made up the gelding's dinner again as obv my greddy guts mare had eaten his feed.
In defence of the gelding's owner his wife is terminally ill and he's not really up and when he is it's very brief visits (the yard as a collective is looking after the horse off our own backs so his owner doesn't have to worry about him at all)
 
Pearlsasinger said:
Our horses are at home and tbf we didn't have many problems when we were at livery, the worst was people borrowing our wheelbarrow to muck out and then 'forgetting' to empty it. So what happens to all the hoof picks here? There is never one available when you want it!
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We had a JR dog who regularly pinched hoof picks and buried them, since she died I seem to have hoof picks by the bucket load, my old farrier's dog used to regularly pinch good body brushes and hide them in his van, he was forever trying to find out *Who owns which brush*
 
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