Chunky_Monkey
Well-Known Member
I moved my horse to full livery in October, but it is just not working out for me forlots of reasons (the final straw was YO putting prices up by 20% after Xmas!).
Until this move to full livery, I'd always been on DIY with no problems at all. I only moved to full livery cos I needed to move from old yard (been there for 4 years). The full livery place was the best yard I could find locally, but they only did full livery.......I could afford it, so I went for it!
Anyway, a friend and I have spent weeks and weeks looking for a new yard to move our 3 horses to, but everything locally is either full up, a complete dump, too difficult to get to, or too expensive.
Then last week, we were very lucky to find a wonderful little self-contained place to rent all to ourselves.......4-5 acres, 3 brand new stables and tack/feed room, mains electric and water, excellent fencing, fab grazing, great hacking area, easy to get to, new land drains installed, very cheap, secure.
This 'yard' belongs to a vague acquaintance of mine, and it's located behind his house (with access via his huge wrought iron gates). When I went to take him a deposit yesterday (just to secure the place, cos everyone I've told about the yard seems to want to snatch it out of our hands!) he said he needed to tell me something which might make me change my mind about the yard........
Turns out he's buying his (young) son a petrol go-cart for Xmas, with the intention of him driving it in the paddock. I told him no way! But he then said that he only wanted to section off a bit at the end of the paddock for his son to use. I was put 'on the spot' a bit (we were having this conversation while he was at work and he had customers queuing up and getting impatient!) so I reluctantly agreed to this. When I told my friend, she said her brother has a go-cart and moans about only having an acre to drive around.....she was concerned (as I am also, of course), firstly about the safety of the horses, and secondly about how much of the paddock he'd want to use and how much the ground would be trashed by the go-cart.
Now, I have a son, and I know that the novelty of these new 'toys' soon wears off (aparantly, the YO's son also has a quad bike, which he never uses......spoiled child syndrome, maybe?
). I also know that go-carts aren't really designed to use on grass, so that would spoil the fun. I also know that YO is a bit anal about his paddock looking 'tidy' so I'm not sure about how he'd react to his son tearing it up with a go-cart!
So we find ourselves in a very difficult position.....despite driving the length and breadth of the local area for weeks on end, we couldn't find a suitable livery yard, until we found this (apparently) perfect little set-up, so we gave our months notice to current YO, and now the YO drops this bombshell on us.
Our choices are.....keep looking for another yard (worst time of the year for that!) in the hope that we can find somewhere before the end of our notice period, move to the self-contained yard and see how it goes, or grovel to current YO and ask her if we can stay on there (and pay the 20% increased prices!)
What would you do.....take the plunge and 'suck it and see', or would you have serious alarm bells ringing?
Tracey x
Until this move to full livery, I'd always been on DIY with no problems at all. I only moved to full livery cos I needed to move from old yard (been there for 4 years). The full livery place was the best yard I could find locally, but they only did full livery.......I could afford it, so I went for it!
Anyway, a friend and I have spent weeks and weeks looking for a new yard to move our 3 horses to, but everything locally is either full up, a complete dump, too difficult to get to, or too expensive.
Then last week, we were very lucky to find a wonderful little self-contained place to rent all to ourselves.......4-5 acres, 3 brand new stables and tack/feed room, mains electric and water, excellent fencing, fab grazing, great hacking area, easy to get to, new land drains installed, very cheap, secure.
This 'yard' belongs to a vague acquaintance of mine, and it's located behind his house (with access via his huge wrought iron gates). When I went to take him a deposit yesterday (just to secure the place, cos everyone I've told about the yard seems to want to snatch it out of our hands!) he said he needed to tell me something which might make me change my mind about the yard........
Turns out he's buying his (young) son a petrol go-cart for Xmas, with the intention of him driving it in the paddock. I told him no way! But he then said that he only wanted to section off a bit at the end of the paddock for his son to use. I was put 'on the spot' a bit (we were having this conversation while he was at work and he had customers queuing up and getting impatient!) so I reluctantly agreed to this. When I told my friend, she said her brother has a go-cart and moans about only having an acre to drive around.....she was concerned (as I am also, of course), firstly about the safety of the horses, and secondly about how much of the paddock he'd want to use and how much the ground would be trashed by the go-cart.
Now, I have a son, and I know that the novelty of these new 'toys' soon wears off (aparantly, the YO's son also has a quad bike, which he never uses......spoiled child syndrome, maybe?
So we find ourselves in a very difficult position.....despite driving the length and breadth of the local area for weeks on end, we couldn't find a suitable livery yard, until we found this (apparently) perfect little set-up, so we gave our months notice to current YO, and now the YO drops this bombshell on us.
Our choices are.....keep looking for another yard (worst time of the year for that!) in the hope that we can find somewhere before the end of our notice period, move to the self-contained yard and see how it goes, or grovel to current YO and ask her if we can stay on there (and pay the 20% increased prices!)
What would you do.....take the plunge and 'suck it and see', or would you have serious alarm bells ringing?
Tracey x
