Yard owners - wwyd?

[SO1]

If the owner has never been on DIY before it will be a big change from being on a yard where there is always someone to help.

Full livery yards tend to have a routine & can often accommodate a horse that benefits from professional handling. Staff will often turnout & catch in & can choose the order of horses or have a 2nd person with them to shoo away the bargy horse. This horse has probably been used to a set routine for years where it has been caught in first. It is going to be hard to break that routine.

For DIY to work all owners need to be able to get their horse in when they need to. In this scenario that won't work unless there is a member of staff who is always available to get the bargy horse in so the other liveries can catch in safely. But then that would mean the owner would need to pay for assistance which they may not want to do if they have moved to DIY to save money.

The other option is to attempt to retrain the difficult horse but that will require skill & time that the owner may not have.

 

[Henry02]

On the diy yards ive been on they have never been in a mixed herd situation with a multitude of different owners. Either in your own field, or sharing with one other.

 

[Honey08]

On the diy yards ive been on they have never been in a mixed herd situation with a multitude of different owners. Either in your own field, or sharing with one other.

Ok so a completely different situation then. These are a herd of five horses on eight acres in summer and five acres in winter. And three owners, so not a multitude, but it only takes one person to get kicked. Works really well apart from the gate area.

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

I think the kindest thing to do is discuss it with the owner. You suggest she's not fully aware of the problem. Perhaps ask her to come and see how he behaves. Or video it for her. Then try to work out a solution together. Catch him first, or more feed, or different feed, or more work? Or a sharer who can come up earlier?

All suggestions you could make to her - not suggesting you do all this yourself.

If she's a nice livery, I think you should give her a chance to solve the problem with you.

^^^ Yup this sounds like a good way to proceed. I'm a YO and sometimes owners do NOT realise just what their horses get up to when they've just driven off the yard!

The problem is if you ask the livery to take her horse and leave, you are likely to be bad-mouthed around the horsey district for years to come, that's the way the horsey jungle-drums operate unfortunately, we all know that; much better, if you can, to come to a solution which suits everyone and keeps everyone safe.