fatpiggy
Well-Known Member
Hello OP. I'm not surprised that you are chucking it in. I'm the person who costed out the job of picking out hooves, but I have mitigation! You and I know that a good person does a proper job of checking the legs and hooves as part of the task, but so many yards have gofers, usually kids, who get left with these muddy jobs and wouldn't know a splint or a burst coronet band if it jumped up and bit them. Many YOs are not experienced horse owners themselves and picking out hooves to them, would be just that and nothing else. I once asked a fellow livery to bring my horse in with hers as I was going to be delayed after work - she did - but failed to tell me that my horse was ten tenths lame on one leg. Say my boss asks me to extend the appointment of one of our staff. That involves me checking the duration of the funding, that there is sufficient funding to do what I want so that means doing a cost projection, produce the required form,then I have to stick it all on our internal HR system, then transfer the request to HRs system. Once the contract is extended I have to save a copy of the appointment letter to the appropriate file. Now that is just one very small part of my job. I deal in hundreds of thousands of pounds, often millions of pounds, and peoples' careers and pay packets rely on me. I have a degree and 30 years experience but I earn no-where near even £20 an hour.
I always did my horse DIY even if it meant incredibly long days and huge petrol bills. But I completely agree that many horse-owners are absolute cheap-skates alot of the time. I'm all in favour of not wasting money, but so many people have horses that basically they cannot afford and hence they are happy to keep them in rubbish, falling down yards and rely on the free advice of other owners and people on internet sites rather than paying someone who really knows what they are doing. Hence so many horses are reported as being in a sorry state, or simply abandoned. Another poster has stated that horse owning will return to times when only the rich and farmers daughters (!) could do it. Sometimes I think that wouldn't be a bad thing from the horses point of view.
Good luck with your future plans. I hope the liveries don't give you a hard time when they find out.
I always did my horse DIY even if it meant incredibly long days and huge petrol bills. But I completely agree that many horse-owners are absolute cheap-skates alot of the time. I'm all in favour of not wasting money, but so many people have horses that basically they cannot afford and hence they are happy to keep them in rubbish, falling down yards and rely on the free advice of other owners and people on internet sites rather than paying someone who really knows what they are doing. Hence so many horses are reported as being in a sorry state, or simply abandoned. Another poster has stated that horse owning will return to times when only the rich and farmers daughters (!) could do it. Sometimes I think that wouldn't be a bad thing from the horses point of view.
Good luck with your future plans. I hope the liveries don't give you a hard time when they find out.