Would you help with my research please?

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Lakesidelil

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Hello all.

This is the best place for me to post a request for help with my research as I know some of you on here provide such good debate and information.

Now before I post my question I don't want to get into any trouble so if anyone chooses to submit anything then maybe it should be directly to my email or inbox as I know things can sometimes get 'heated'. Of course open thread is fine, but please don't get me into trouble by mentioning names or anything which causes offence. keestone@hotmail.co.uk


I want to hear from as many of you as possible regarding your thoughts/experiance/stories of loaning a horse or pony, and that includes anyone who has been a loanee. There will be those of you who would never consider loaning and I'd love to hear from you as to why. All comments regarding loaning and the loan procedure would be useful to me.

Thanks in advance.
 
I loaned my TB x Cb gelding nearly 8 years ago. He was advertised on a horse website and his owner was from liverpool. He was already on loan i Wrexham (Wales) so i had to travel upto see him (im in Cheshire). He was described as An excellent jumper, Forward going, Perfect manners and 16 years old. When i got to the yard i found this very thin, elderly looking gelding who was starved in a field surrounded by barbed wire while the yard owners horses were fat! She said that she didnot want him anymore because someone had fallen off him (dangerous to ride). At this stage i had still not seen the owner of him only spoken to her on the phone! I felt really sorry for him so after riding this 'Dangerous horse' who was very quiet (due to being starved), after a vetting brought him home. The owner finally showed up two weeks later at my yard and cried because he was in such bad condtion! Shortly after that i had the equine dentist out who told me that he was in his late twenties and had never had his teeth done! I rang his owner who assured me that he was sixteen not twenty six (as on his passport) and she said that the bit must have wore his teeth out! In the next 6 months i saw his owner two times for 30 mins each (still saying he was 16). i should have sent him back but he was so sweet and nice to ride. Any way the ending of this story is that his owner rang me and asked me to buy him for £850 i said no way being so old and full of arthritus! and that was the last i ever heard off her! That was in 2003 and i still have him, he is retired now as he is in his late 30's. I class him as mine now because his owner just wasnot interested in having an old horse (who she said she had paid £4000 for!) If she comes to claim him back i will tell her no chance because i have kept him, fed him back to health, paid all his vet bills and bought all his tack. The moral of this story on my part is that i cannot understand how anyone could loan out a horse and just forget about him (sorry its so long)
 
My first pony was on loan as my mum and dad wouldnt buy me my own until i could prove i didnt mind going down in all weathers to turn out, much out, ride........

he was an 18 year old arab x welsh D he was advetised on a board in a local tack shop I nagged my mum to call the lady and we went to look at him and he was a bit more forward going and liked to jump abit more than i would of liked but i wanted to have him on loan so said he was perfect. about 2 weeks after we took him on loan hes owner was going to austrailia for 2 years so left us her parents phone number in case of an emergency. It was great having my own pony we never heard from the owners but they did go down the yard every so often late at night to check on him (the yard owner would see them but you cant blame them i would do the same). then my mum went for a job interview and got the job and was talking in general about horses and it turned out her boss was the owners parents! and they were more than happy with the way beau was being looked after (small world).

We had him on loan for about 18 months but i was losing my confidence on him so my mum got me a confidence giving cob and said to beau's owners we wanted to give him back but dont be in a rush because we would rather the right people get him and we would carry on paying and caring for him like we had. Then a girl turned up on the yard on the off chance she had just moved to the area and wondered if there was a horse for loan in the area so my took her to the field and said we have got him on loan at the moment but i will show you him in the field and you will have to get in touch with his owner. But when my mum got to the field she called him andhe came walking over but had been kicked in the face by another horse and didnt have an eye! fractured skull blood pouring out of every where so we got him straight in and called his owners and the vet and was put to sleep.

so on the whole i had quite a good loan experiance but have heard some horror stories!
 
I loaned my beautiful Welsh A out - twice
He suffered from mild sweetitch, and both loanees promised to keep his fly rug on. Neither used it and both times he came home with no mane.
One was a well-known showing person, who I didn't know. The other was a school friend of my OH's who my OH promised I could trust 100%

I would never say I will never loan out again, but it would have to be someone I personally know well.
 
I've plenty of expreiences. Years ago I loaned a much loved pony out while I was away at college. First home was wonderful, and they even found him a replacement home when they grew out of him, however that didn't work well, and had a phonecall demanding we came for him in Jan snow - had to hurry round trying to find livery! Went to another home, again, great for years. Didn't visit too much, as was well looked after and didn't want to interfere. Came back from college to be told by my friend that pony had been rehomed to a local riding school and was working too hard (pony was getting on by then). Went and took pony back! No idea why they didn't tell me - there was a loan contract. Think they thought they were doing us a favour!

We had a small pony on loan four years ago. It was only young, just broken, and the owners were a bit strange. I'm a BHSAI, so quite capable of looking after a 12h pony, but they would ring up to ask if the pony had rugs on in winter (it didn't need them) and they'd then pop up an hour later. I think they thought we were mis treating the pony! Once they'd seen she was fine, they'd disappear again for a few months, and they'd pop up again. I always text them updates. We did quite a lot of work on the pony, taking it from just broken, and quite a handful to a nice PC pony. One day I had a text saying they were skint, and wanted to sell the pony, so we bought it.

We lter had another pony on loan two years ago for my son. He'd grown out of the small pony, and the second pony was agood jumper, and seemedtoo good to be missed. The owners were quite local to us. They visited occasionally. Pony was too much for my son, and we were offered a much more suitable pony to buy, so we gave 6 weeks notice to send loan pony back (definately didn't want to leave them in the lurch like I'd been years before). Still friendly with the owners when we see them out at shows etc.

We loaned our son's first pony out a year ago. The people were novice, so we insisted it was kept at our house on DIY with us feeding it in the morning, doing its hay, and them mucking out. Initially it worked well. We gave them lifts to PC and shows, and I helped girl get used to the pony (countless free lessons as I'm a BHSAI). We let her come on hacks with us. After a while, the parents started leaving the girl (10yrs) at yard alone, without bothering to ask if it was ok,and we would end up feeding her etc. They would buy lots of silly things for the stable (pommanders etc!) but never cleaned the tack in 6 months, despite me reminding them. It started to feel like we had taken on another child, not lost the burden of looking after one pony.. The child broke its wrist at school, and couldn't ride , so they stopped coming up to the pony, perhaps popping up once a week for five minutes. The ponies were out at grass, but have sweet itch and need rugs checking, and the water needed filling up in the field etc. They never even thought about that, just leaving it to us. In a very hot spell they nevercame near, leaving us to bring the pony in from the heat for a break etc. In the end, after 6 months we decided we would be better selling the pony. We gave them a months' notice, but they took offence because we wouldn't see the pony to them (we basically wanted it to go to a more experienced home where we felt it would be looked after..) and flounced off. They have since ignored us at pc! Quite upsetting really, as we did loads for their daughter!

So, after all those experiences, I would generally avoid loaning situations!! Hope that helps your research!
 
My sister and I were loaned no less than 3 ponies from the same family. The agreement was that my parents were responsible for all aspects of their care including insurance. It was a permanent loan and it worked brilliantly. when we both grew out of the 3rd one (my beloved welsh cob) the lady said she'd like to transfer ownership to us so that we could find him a suitable loan home. We found him 3 brilliant loan homes over the next 9 years and right up to the point last summer when he was pts he had a que of kids waiting to laon him! He was a truly special pony and I still miss him loads even though it was over 12 years ago that I last rode him.

My sister had a little mare that my parents bought her when she was between the 2nd pony we had on loan (who had retired) and my welsh who I was still riding. When my sister out grew her she went on permanent loan to a family who lived next door to the yorkshire riding centre. They had her for 13 years, and she was also sadly pts last year after a freak accident in the field.

Both my welsh and this little mare were nearly 30 when they died. Testament in my book that getting the agreement right and keeping in touch are the way to making a loan home work.
 
I have a permanent loan. I was supposed to have him for a few weeks over a summer as had nothing to ride, he is owned by a vet and had P2P but couldn't any longer due to injury. I've had him 5 years now, have not spoken to the vet in about 4.5 yrs and probably never will until he has to be PTS. I found out later that he's had a pretty tough life and he was very head shy when I got him, he a total sweetie now and his character has really come out.

We never had any type of loan agreement, I was supposed to get any vet treatment from owner but now just use my own vet, not that he has anything go wrong. I think to be honest if he were to go back he would just be PTS as vet owner only has so much land and he has other horses which he uses, so couldn't do that to the lad.

Edit - as for the procedure, well he had been wintered out at my yard with couple of others so when vet came to collect them, he was put in one of my stables and that was it - mine, I didn't even have a headcollar for him!
 
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I have loaned a shetland out. I had no problems, other than the irritation that the loanee's phoned me and said come and take him away tomorrow please. This happened on two occasions, so when I had the offer to buy him, I took it.

I was offered a TB Mare on loan. The owner did not have a job for her because she was not brave enough for serious eventing. Initially I did not much like the mare because she was a bit skinny. I quickly realised what a lovely horse she was. After a couple of years I persuaded the lady to sell her to me because I could not bear to think of handing her back - the owner wanted her as a brood mare. The owner never visited my home to check on her horse, and never called me. I used to call her a couple of times a year to give her an update. We had this mare for 9 years and she suddenly died a month ago from a freak illness. I am still heartbroken. She was an absolutely brilliant horse.
 
Thats no problem 'Lakesidelil'!! I had a thoroughbred on loan, arrived in appalling condition the SSPCA and RSPCA said it was a cruelty case, but then the reason you are wanting this information is because the loan horse came from you!!!

Shame on you! funny it put on weight once it had been wormed, deloused and fed food, you know that stuff that grows in the fields it always helps, folks would want to know I won the court case but now having to fight to get my money back that I spent saving this horses life. Lakesidelil is only looking for information to try and find further excuses to not to face up to her responsibilities.

If people want to get upset with this post no problem the truth often hurts, but pictures don't lie.
 
Just to follow on from what Isis has commented on really....i saw the picture's of that particular horse and i doubt i would ever trust anyone with my horses again. I know (and i thank god) that not everyone would treat horses or ponies like he was treated, but some people are just down right scum and justice needs to happen for the sake of the horses!!
 
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