Very strange liveries

Brill thread! I've been on plenty of yards and all have had one or two bonkers owners.. won't post stories though as there are liveries from some of these yards who lurk in these forum waters ;)
 
Chavhorse said:
Had one delightful lady on my old yard who was the sweetest person in the world but did get a tad carried away with the alternative therapists for her Arab mare, we had the Color Therapist who announced that said mare needed to see more Orange and necessitated the poor thing having to wear a fly mask painted orange inside, the next visit was she needed to see more blue and so on till we had a tackroom of painted flymasks that looked like an odd art exibition.

The next therapist insisted on both owner and horse wearing matching ribbons weaved into their respective hair and mane to bond them! this worked well till another horse (I strongly suspect mine!) ate the mares ribbon and the owner had a near nervous breakdown that their bond was shattered.

Then we had the meditating with said mare whist holding a crystal to her forehead for hours on end which necessitated in the entire yard creeping about like they were in a church so as not to disturb the flow of energy.

And finally we had the healer who used to call up via mobile phone and heal the mare .

Nothing wrong with mare at all apart from a slight sense of "WTF now" :-)
!
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Lol at the bond getting shattered when naughty horse ate the special ribbon, :D
 
One chap used to have to show his horse where the haynet was hung in a 14x12 stable if it was moved as he wouldn't find it in the dark.
Another livery was rather strange and waited in her car once when we hacked back to the stables from the school and then proceeded to photograph us from behind, not exactly my best look!
Nowt as queer as folk :p
 
Pidgeon said:
One chap used to have to show his horse where the haynet was hung in a 14x12 stable if it was moved as he wouldn't find it in the dark.
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Oh no.......I'm the livery weirdo - I've always pointed out where the haynet and feed is to my lad (and the salt lick I put in his field shelter the other day). I also tell him when I've hidden swedes and carrots round his field, and give him hints before I leave :eek::eek::D - Oh God, Im soooo embarrassed :o

Loving the ribbon story, that was hilarious :D

Also had a weird stalky lady at my yard - she used to do things to cause upset with my mum and make my mum think she was going mad just so she was a shoulder to cry on (she was obsessed with my mum and wanted to be her bestest friend) . I had her sussed and she hated me, so would try and demean me to everyone (I was 15 at the time)

She was gutted when my mum gave up Dizzy and refused to go down the yard (she caused mum to have a breakdown), and I stood up to her and moved Dizzy to another block of stables on yard. She was chucked out not long after, as she started on another livery
 
glamourpuss said:
Many eons ago when I was in my early twenties I was on a yard where another livery took a secret hatred to me.
For many months she slyly made my life hell. The whole time doing a wonderful job of appearing to be my friend. At the time I couldn't drive so she would kindly give me lifts to and from the yard so I wouldn't have to cycle, she hacked out with me, turned out/brought in when I was working. When all the horrible things used to happen she would console me and be my shoulder to cry on (in hindsight she obviously just loved seeing how upset I got :( )

She finally tripped herself up by trying to stir things up saying to other liveries I had said and done things that I hadn't in an attempt to turn them against me and, I suspect, get me thrown off the yard. Luckily for me her tales didn't stand up so they spoke to the YO with their concerns. YO had a word with her and she left.

A couple of months later she was out in our local town absolutely pissed and bumped into another livery off the yard. She thought it would be hilarious to confess to another livery what she had been doing to me whilst on the yard. Supposedly she was absolutely roaring with laughter as she told them. She confessed to :

- Calling entries secretaries and withdrawing me from several events I had entered. I obviously didn't know this until I called for my times a couple of days before.
- Calling my vet pretending to be me for an 'emergency colic' on a Sunday when my horse was fine. (Luckily this was thwarted as that vet always called to tell you when they were 10 minutes away.)
- She tipped off the RSPCA to my 'neglected' horse.
- She regularly used to puncture my bicycle tyres.

Now these were the only ones she confessed to. Whilst these had been going on there were also other things which I suspect was her but I'll never know, such as:
- feed, hay and rugs were stolen
- A few times my horse's stable bed was sodden through like somebody had poured buckets of water over it

She was an absolute looper, and thankfully once off the yard she left me alone and didn't make any more trouble for me. Either that or she found some other poor soul to torment :(
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Oh my god, how awful.
 
I knew a girl whose horse was difficult to clip so she had an obsession about rugging it all the time. I was at this yard over the summer and it was a boiling hot day when she put her mare in the field-without the rug! I thought great, its July, won't be growing a coat at the moment and it can enjoy the sun, then I watched in astonishment as she came back to the field, looked the horse, shook her head and ran back to get the rug-which was a heavyweight winter thing. I mean in July? You couldn't say anything because she was in the pocket of the YO, but we all felt so sorry for the overheated horse.
 
Me and a friend were on a lovely yard, really friendly no bitching. Or so we thought
My friend has 2 beautiful horses that she competes on always coming home with rosettes after a morning out ect. There were 3 women on the yard who were just happy hackers (fair enough on them thats what the wanted to do)

They got so jealous us my friend (and me because i normally went with her) that they stated making our lives hell i was 19 and she was 22 at the time and these are women in their 40's who should know better.

They told tails that we had hit their horses, that our mums had hit them. Her horses had their rugs taken off the field, water tipped out hay taken away at night. YO was convinced the horses were just being naughty (getting own rugs off, tipping own water out and just guzzling the food) untill one day she saw them taking rugs off mine her horses.

They were kicked out =)

Just dont understand how someone can do that to a horse, now i generally just stay out of yard politics and if i have a problem with someone i will tell them
 
horsemadmum1 said:
I knew a girl whose horse was difficult to clip so she had an obsession about rugging it all the time. I was at this yard over the summer and it was a boiling hot day when she put her mare in the field-without the rug! I thought great, its July, won't be growing a coat at the moment and it can enjoy the sun, then I watched in astonishment as she came back to the field, looked the horse, shook her head and ran back to get the rug-which was a heavyweight winter thing. I mean in July? You couldn't say anything because she was in the pocket of the YO, but we all felt so sorry for the overheated horse.
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That's just cruel. YO should have stepped in. :mad:
 
had a very odd girl on our yard who I am now fairly certain left the following in my nice clean stable on various days:

pyramids of sweepings from the stable corridor
a tampon
a horse shoe

I am also certain she stole some of my tack, a fellow liveries high energy feed for her show stallion to give to her lami mare, lost of other stuff as well.

she has gone now and unlikly to be back as a family member assaulted the y/o before leaving as she felt y/o had no right to ask her to leave....
 
These are great stories.

I don't think I've met anyone quite as mad as some of these but as always, plenty of weirdos such as:

The yard manager who claimed she had "invented" natural horsemanship and that people like Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt had all learned from her. She also had an unhealthy obsession with EPM and swore blind that most horses had it. When I was away for two weeks, I had told her to ride my horse a couple times. I phoned halfway through my holiday, just to see how my horse was getting on, and the woman told me the vet had been out to draw blood for an EPM test. When I asked wtf was up with that, she said that the horse was stiffer on one side than the other and that was a symptom of EPM. I said that all horses are stiffer on one side, and she responded, "More horses have EPM than you think." Her other fun habit, if she saw you doing something she didn't like such as riding bareback or holding your horse's foot the wrong way, was to regale you with a story about how someone she knew had been doing that exact thing (whatever it may be) and had a horrible accident as a result and died. She was a repository of these stories. Is that weird?

The pathological liar. A fellow boarder who would tell you these wild stories of crazy adventures she'd had with her horse and none of them were true. My favourite one was how she was on a trail ride going past the lake near the stables, and the horse took her out for swim, right into the middle of the lake, and she clung on as the horse swam laps around the lake. The thing was, this girl NEVER went on trail rides. She was far too afraid to take that horse out of the arena. She also would whinge that some of the other hunter/jumpers at the barn hated her and her horse because the horse was a leopard appy. I'm pretty sure people could not have cared less.

The unexpected DQ. A lady at an old yard of mine had a lovely appendix QH mare for years. Nice horse and the owner was a good friend and good boarder; always got on with the barn owners and other boarders. Then the QH died of old age and the owner bought a Friesian. Somehow new horse = new personality and she gradually became a wild eyed demanding dressage queen, always whinging to the barn manager about something. It was never right. She moved to a posh dressage barn a year later.

Gary Tank Commander. Yes, a guy EXACTLY like the character in the sketch, except horsey and not military. Look it up on You Tube if you don't know what I mean.

Dances with horses. A woman who claimed she and the horse were exploring energy fields by dancing together. Essentially she would round pen the horse and wave long colourful ribbons around. Like join-up, except weird. She never rode her horses.

Too alternative for comfort. In my hometown, alternative therapies for people and animals are somewhat normal and fine if not taken too far. It was taken too far when a boarder's horse colicked and the woman did not "believe in" standard veterinary medicine and would not call a vet. The barn owner was shouting at the vet, who would not treat without owner's permission, and shouting at the owner. She finally arm-twisted the owner into calling a vet by saying that she was going to kick her and her horse off the property RIGHT NOW as she would not have a suffering horse like that at her stable.
 
We use to have one on our yard. She use to spend an hour a day dusting the weaving bars, on 3 of her stables. Then she would spend ages in making sure her beds were completely level, so that there wasn't a single shaving out of place. She spent more time doing this then she was in the saddle! Now we have the YO who is completely clueless that's brought a 6yr old shire. She turned round to me the other day and told me that her horse can count to 4. :rolleyes:
 
Wow, some of these are really funny stories! Others make me go :eek: and the rest make me worry that I'm going to be the 'strange one' on the yard! I was well known as a teenager for indulging in a game of follow the leader with my horses in the school; I saw it as bonding, and my horses always seemed to enjoy it. Someone did think I was trying to dance with my gelding when they saw me playing with him, but there were no ribbons involved, honest! I also talked to my horses, and still talk to any horses I'm around at the moment. I have a habit of carrying on one sided conversations, though thankfully I haven't yet reached the point where I expect an answer back! :D Of course, if it is between being the strange one and the crazy, psycho nut-job of the yard... I'll go with strange!

I grew up in a very rural area and we didn't have livery yards, but I have seen people do some very odd things with their horses, including a girl at a four day try-outs event who seemed to think her horse was a petrified bundle of nerves which must be handled with extreme delicacy. She babied it and fussed over absolutely everything. I was there as a groom for my best friend's horse, so I got to see a lot of the different ways the horses were treated by different people, but this girl took the cake by far. I don't know how many times she told her groom she was doing her job wrong and shouted at her that her horse didn't like something and the groom was frightening the horse... funny, the horse looked fine and relaxed to me every time apart from when it was ridden. The sad part was everyone there chose their own groom and brought us with them, so this was a friend of hers she was shouting at several times a day! If that had been my friend doing that, I'd have told her to sort her own dang horse if she thought I was distressing it so badly!
 
Caol Ila said:
These are great stories.

I don't think I've met anyone quite as mad as some of these but as always, plenty of weirdos such as:

The yard manager who claimed she had "invented" natural horsemanship and that people like Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt had all learned from her. She also had an unhealthy obsession with EPM and swore blind that most horses had it. When I was away for two weeks, I had told her to ride my horse a couple times. I phoned halfway through my holiday, just to see how my horse was getting on, and the woman told me the vet had been out to draw blood for an EPM test. When I asked wtf was up with that, she said that the horse was stiffer on one side than the other and that was a symptom of EPM. I said that all horses are stiffer on one side, and she responded, "More horses have EPM than you think." Her other fun habit, if she saw you doing something she didn't like such as riding bareback or holding your horse's foot the wrong way, was to regale you with a story about how someone she knew had been doing that exact thing (whatever it may be) and had a horrible accident as a result and died. She was a repository of these stories. Is that weird?
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What a funny yard owner. Really made me laugh.
 
These are brilliant :D


I've been lucky I think.. only had some harmless nutters to contend with not any of the scary-ass stuff that has been described :eek:

There was one particular woman who sticks in my mind. It wasn't directed at me though so it's not really the same. She was one of these stealth enemies. Pretended to be friends with another livery but was always either somehow present, involved or doing things which would cause trouble for that livery (one early memorable one was 'testing' her car alarm was on and setting it off while another livery was riding her just backed youngster passed the car) but they were 'accidents' or just 'coincidence' .. she seemed really nice too. Very helpful when these things happened...

Eventually was caught out secretly giving other horse (belonging to other livery) racing mix - was chucked off yard then.

Other horse had been behaving insanely for a while, so much so that owner was scared to ride it. FreakyWoman had been ever so helpful, offering to ride/school it, spending hours discussing what might be wrong with it etc etc. Mental.

About 2 weeks post racing-mix horse returned to it's usual calm self. Horse had been getting steadily more bonkers over about 6 weeks. We guessed that's how long it had been getting the mix.
 
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She has a serious mental health issue and needs therapy. How awful for you to find that out about someone who pretends to be your friend.
 
Then there was the summer I spent as a working student at a dressage barn and the trainer I was working for only ever called my horse "your mare." He didn't use her name once in three months.
 
The man is harmless, his just very strange, he has no respect for peoples personal space and pratically stands nose to nose with you, if you back up he will take a step forward! he is nice though, he noticed I didn't have a waterproof jacket (broke the zip on mine) so he went out and bought me one!!

Just thought of another,

When I was at school doing my work experience. I went to work at a livery yard. Another girl from my school also worked with me, although she had never been around Horses. When we first showed up, the livery owner said to me (before she knew, if we had experience) "your going to be the better one as your skinny" then pointing to the other girl "your a bit big to be working with Horses, so your going to be lazy!" First day, she gave me 6 stables to muck out, I mucked them out and she said I had wasted too much good bedding as I had used tools. So next time I needed to use my hands like she did. I asked if I could wear gloves and after insisting that I wore them, she gave in. So girl and I wore gloves (found some washing up gloves!) and mucked out by hand, she then sent us on lunch and we took our gloves off and washed our hands, before we ate. She storms in calling us weird for washing our hands, she didn't bother (never wore gloves either) and she never got ill. She took us to pick up a new livery one day and shouted at me, when I went to get into the front, she said her dog sits there, so I had to sit in the back (fair enough) On the way back, there was too much stuff in the back, so one of us had to sit infront, but she made me squidge right over so her dog could sit comfortably. Before we left she said "your too skinny and weak to ever work with Horses" and to the other girl "because your fat, your strong which is good"

We did have a great time there though! :D
 
I find all these stealth frenemies really bizarre... I just can't get my head around why someone would behave like that, there must be something wrong with them...

Scary thing is, they are seeming quite common!!
 
Met lots of typical yard b**tches and weirdos, some of these on here really take the biscuit though!
One livery I know used to grate her horses carrots 'to stop his teeth from wearing out' :)
 
Good grief....think I've got off lightly only having the gentle nutjobs....the one who told me my horse goes out too early cos they saw him yawning in the field and probably needs bringing in now to go to bed.....

Theres only me now at my place so I guess that makes me the resident nutjob....if wandering around the field in the rain stamping divvots and 'skid-stop turf' back down because it makes the field look messy counts.....:o
 
Kitty B said:
I also talked to my horses, and still talk to any horses I'm around at the moment. I have a habit of carrying on one sided conversations, though thankfully I haven't yet reached the point where I expect an answer back! :D
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Ahhh, I'm guilty of that too :D. With my old boy, the first thing I'd do as I walked into the yard was shout 'Hello Gorgeous!', to which he'd whinny back. Poor farrier once thought I was talking to him, bless :D. Always call the pone 'Mrs' and instructor's horse who I'm riding cause he's saner and safer than my own whilst I'm trying to avoid re-breaking myself 'Mr Handsome'. I rabbit away to both of them, whilst I'm riding too, and the last thing I say every night to her is 'night night' :o

There was once a woman at a yard who was nicknamed The Poison Dwarf because she'd do the rounds sl@gging off all the liveries in turn to anybody who would listen (funny, she never did ride much, I think she used to run out of time ;-) ) and at another, one who would take great delight in galloping off on hacks in front of you without warning which would invariably lead to havoc behind her (people would only ever hack out once with her). Totally nuts she was and given she was a police officer and kept failing her promotion exams I can only guess that she sought excitement in other ways :rolleyes:.
 
Ah yes, I had a livery once who told me the reason the boss horse bit hers in the field was because he was jealous because his owners hardly came to see him, where as she came every day.
 
Hippona said:
Theres only me now at my place so I guess that makes me the resident nutjob....if wandering around the field in the rain stamping divvots and 'skid-stop turf' back down because it makes the field look messy counts.....:o
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I do that too:o i talk to the horses quite a lot too, poo picking often involves me telling them that it would be much appreciated if they could poo in one place or nearer the much heap:D they've not taken any notice though so perhaps i need some colour therapy or some crystals:D:D
 
We have a small scale freak on ours now. She speaks in a real baby voice to her horse & says stuff like he's scared of the dark. After me getting bored of constantly trying to explain basic heard behavior I found the chapter in a monty Roberts book about mustangs interacting in the wild. In my defense I was sick of explaining that my horse wasn't a bully for pinching the bucket feed she tried to give hers in the middle of the field. She has now decided to pick & choose the bits of nh that fit with her thoughts. Every sentence starts with either Kelly marks or Richard Maxwell. I wouldn't mind but its not actually anything I think they've actually said. Apparently they say-
Any horse who's not done join up is dangerous
Not letting your horse have a lie in at wkends is cruel
All horses need a heavyweight combo in winter
Various untrue rubbish to fit with her own loony thoughts. Best was when she told me Kelly marks had told her not to muck out work days & that when she did she didn't have to throw it to the back of the muck heap.
 
Ours was a lady who shared a horse with her daughter (we rarely saw the daughter).
Her methods were buying 5 or 6 bales of straw every week and making a bed almost 3 feet high, poor horse couldn't actually get on it to lie down. It had three heavyweight duvet type polywarm stable rugs on and whenever she took it outside and removed them the poor thing shivered.
One night at midnight the girl in the next stable to her received an irate phone call accusing her of beating said livery's horse round the head. The girl denied it asking what on earth made her think she would do such a thing? The reply was simple.
"I know you did it because God told me!".
We did eventually ask her to move on as she fell out with several more people, but even now I go cold thinking about her..
 
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