Monday, February 16, 2009

I'm Sorry What Did You Say???

Happy Monday!!

So a good friend of mine keeps her horses on a 5 acre piece of property with a little barn. It is owned by a guy and his wife who happened to have gotten a good deal on it as it was on foreclosure. These people know NOTHING about horses and they just so happened to answer her craigslist ad in regards to her finding a place for her horses a few months ago.

So everything is fine they work a deal of a $100 per horse and she'll feed and buy her own chow for the horses. Well now suddenly greed has decided to take over... it's actually beyond ridiculous. The barn itself is old and has terrible footing so she can't ride, They have a dog on the property that has killed 2 goats and chases the horses, basically the place is a P.O.S. BUT the price was decent and they seemed nice at first. OK, back to my point.

So, she gets an email one day saying that effective March 1st board is $150 per horse and there is also a boarding agreement at the barn for her. Well needless to say my Friend is a wee bit taken a back by all this and when she finally picks up the agreement she shows it to me and is just about blow a gasket. It is the most RE-god-Damn-Diculous agreement I have EVER SEEN!!!

It's 8 PAGES LONG of blather... They will supply 2 rounds of local grass per month, THEY will worm her horses and add the charges to board, her horse's are NOT allowed to wear horseshoes?? She has to clean the barn 3 times a week, and on and on and on... Now I'm OK with a boarding agreement or a use of land agreement, but this is so damn stinking stupid I just can't help but to laugh!! My friend has had over 25 years of horse experience and just moved her horses from some other crap hole that wasn't feeding her horses. Sooooo the likely hood of her just standing idly by and having some other asshat take over the feeding and worming of her horses is NOT going to happen. Especially when she has 25 years of horse experience VS. their 4 months of horse experience. LMFAO!!! I'm sorry the whole thing was so dang funny I about died!!! I mean they happen to own a HOUSE on some property and answered HER CL AD!!! They are NOT a boarding facility, not even close, and she didn't ASK to move there, they asked HER!! and suddenly they are horse professionals?*Snicker* ALSO finding a boarding agreement on Google and then copying and pasting it DOES NOT mean that it is A. Legal or B. A Good Idea

Thankfully she has a great place to go and her horses will be moved at the end of this month. BUT! I know there is a lot of you guys who have horse boarding horror stories so let 'em RIP!!!!

12 comments:

Susan said...

I only had one barn owner I really hated. Beautiful farm with a reasonable price. I should've known there was a problem when she was walking around with a cigarette dangling in her hand the whole time. It wasn't long before I found out she would leave her teenagers in charge of the barn and they would be too busy throwing parties to feed the horses. I was also paying her for a stall and she kept my horse out in the pasture. My horse got kicked and injured three times in a month. After the second kick I asked her to move my horse to another pasture. She agreed. A week later I got a call that my horse had been kicked again by the same mare. I asked why she hadn't been moved and got silence. I was already shopping for another barn when I got the call two days later my mare had finally kicked the horse that was bullying her. She said my horse was vicious and needed to be moved.

Needless to say my mare was out of there in three days.

Two months later the barn and house burned to the ground...started by a cigarette. The horses all lived thank god.

DraftsAndApps said...

LoL...Tweedle Dee must have gotten that idea from someone and ran with it....NOBODY dictates what MY horses eat & how much, and NOBODY gets wormer for MY horse and gives it to them.

If my draft mare saw them coming with a tube of wormer...oh boy, let the games begin!

Ms. Shypoke said...

I had the opposite case.. crazy boarder of "racing thoroughbreds" Lady didn't feed her horses, ran well dry.. didn't get sufficient care for her horses. Owner's of said horses (not her) who had them in training discovered that my place was NOT a training facility. I had about 4 acres and a small ring.. but not a racing facility with a track..lol. It was fine for keeping a few horses, but not what I would have considered a training facility for racehorses. I had to get animal control to helpme get her off my property because I was going broke feeding her training horses(she was just supposed to be renting the barn.. i wasn't supposed to have to do anything!)Throw in late night drunk phone calls from the lady and I was glad to see the backside of her horse trailer! Never thought to rent the barn out again after that.. the little bit of money didn't make up for the big pain in the buttocks!

kestrel said...

I sent my mare to a breeding facility with her own food and written feeding instructions. She had a new foal by her side, and I was rebreeding her. I get to the stable, she's out of water, a board with spikes in it had been kicked into her paddock by the nasty mare next door and the foal is trying to crawl through. Pulled her out that day and took her home. 3 days later she colicked and died. Tried surgery to no avail. Had to bottle feed foal. Idiot barn owner tries to sue me for mare care bill. Because I should pay her for the 10 POUNDS of grain she feeds mares. WTF!!!! Uh, I never fed her grain, she had been foundered in the past. Turns out BO had gone on vacation and left illiterate nephew to care for mares. Breeding? Oh well, guess none of the mares took that month, so she was making out on mare care. The stud was syndicated, and my vet was one of the partners. He and I had quite a go round, but when I told him I wouldn't sue but wouldn't pay the mare care bill he saw things my way.
I'm so lucky now. We have our own property, our own 2 mares, and my darling stud who is also a cool saddle horse, so everything gets done here. And no, I'm not going to apologize for breeding. The very few babies are fabulous. My vet was actually reluctant to geld the baby I've kept. I have good homes before the mare is even bred, except for the ones I intend to keep.

Merideth said...

this was at a crazy saddlebred farm

i stayed there about two months (just long enough to get accepted into much better barn) and i kid you not some lady let a RECENTLY gelded boy INTO the arena WHILE i was riding (along with her dog) and i'm telling you this horse was CRAZY he would try to run you down (and really who lets their horse loose into an arena while people are riding anyway??)we were also scared to clean off the cobwebs....the barn might have fallen down

Tricky said...

Got to love the crazy barn owners, on the other side of the fence there are also crazy agisters as well! I've had some crackers, especially the ones who will not allow me to feed their horse enough to keep them healthy, because they know best and they own them therefore I am obliged to do what they say ( and sneak them extra food whenever I can).
There are so many bad places about. I especially hate the stables around here that think they can cut cost by buying less/lesser quality feed. KNOW what you're doing with feeds, and if you don't know - ASK, if you can't ask - RESEARCH. It isn't hard!

Slave to the Horse

GoLightly said...

I'm just glad there was a happy ending, so many have a tough time finding the right fit with horse facility.

Especially when the barn owners suddenly become knowledgeable.
DANGER.
They've listened to friends who watch the TV, or read the book "everything you ever needed to know about horses, without ever getting up".

Glad she got out.

(hugs)

EveryoneThinksThey'reGoodDrivers said...

Oh God, that is a crappy situation.

I hate non-horse people that are know it alls. Who knows where they got all their information.

But I fucking love the fact they think they know what is up because they read it on the internet.

I'll bet they've got it all figured out. The fact they even copied some random board agreement is even worse. Hello dipshits, read your agreement and make sure you understand what it says!

What a crappy situation. I feel bad for her.

SweetPea said...

I rented a room from a woman who also had pasture for rent for my horse. She seems *sane* for the first few months. Then I come home from work one day and she was breast feeding her 5 year old son (he was due to turn 6 in a few weeks).

I called the authorities, gave my notice and then had to leave for a few days to help a friend move cross-country. She was calling up my family and then-boyfriend and threatening to have my horse killed.

My dad went over there personally and told her that if she did anything to my horse or my belongings, she wouldn't live to regret it.

As soon as I got home, I packed up my stuff and my horse and got the hell out of there!!

Nicole Falk said...

Well, we're in a slightly different situation. Last year, my best friends mom agreed to let me move my horse there for $50 a month which would cover her feed - we do all the chores anyway, so it seemed like a fair deal (especially since my mare was on nothing but grass for about 6 months which means she collected $300 from me alone that didn't have to towards my expenses). My best friend also pays $50 for her 3 orses, which is obviously fair because it pays for their food.

Slight problem - her mother is a serious nutjob. I don't know if she's purposely manipulative or just oblivious but it's downright scary. We do absolutely everything - including paying for any and all repairs and maintainance because she NEVER has money. In fact, we've often had to forward her next months board or buy more hay ourselves because she has no cash. We finished an entire escape proof paddock in fall paying for everything ourselves, built reinforced feeders and are busy making the large pasture escape proof. Do we get thanked? Nope, we get told how we did it wrong. The worst part? She owns two amazing mares and she DOESN'T ride (don't even ask). Dove is an obese behemoth who gains weight just looking at food - last summer she was so obese, the farrier said she was on the verge of founder. Her mom refuses to listen - she LIKES fat horses. The issue? Being extreme horse lovers, we CANNOT sit around and watch these mares eat themselves to death. The catch? She expects US to pay for HER horses expenses if we're riding them! She's basically threatened us with the death of horses if we don't pay her to ride them. As if we didn't already have enough of our OWN to ride!

Recently was the last straw. We live on the prairies and it's bitterly arctic here - 2 of our 7 wear blankets, the others have good winter coats and free choice hay. Well...sort of. When she remembers. Twice in the last two weeks we have arrived to find not one animal with a scrap of hay. That may not seem like a huge deal but in -40, horses DEPEND on constant intake of forage to maintain the body heat. They don't get watered if we don't go out - THEY CAN EAT SNOW! Her horse hurt it's leg last summer and was limping for months before my best friend got so furious she took Flika to the vet herself for ultrasounds. Nothing serious, just time off for a tendon sheath injury, but her mom flipped, told her SHE decides when the horse goes to the vet and she's NOT reimbursing the costs of the ultrasound because Flika was FINE.

We're moving as of April 1st. We just can't take anymore. We found a lovely facility with outdoor board and actual riding arenas and a coach for only $125 a month. An extra $75 is a small price to pay for the peace of mind to be able to sleep at night knowing your horse isn't on a highway or shaking uncontrollably because it hasn't eaten in 2 days.

It's just SO damn frustrating. Nobody can knock sense into this woman. There IS a reason behind it (mental instability due the death of her daughter), but HONESTLY woman. Don't make the ANIMALS suffer!!!

Nicely dun said...

During my earlier horse years I was lucky enough to keep my horses at my parents farm, where I lived. I didn't have to pay board, but I DID have to take care of farrier/vet/worming/grain/mucking (which really, was awesome because just being able to say good morning to my shavings-covered sleepyhead was wonderful).
When I moved out of town, and my parents sold their farm (:( ) I had to find a place to board! I had only ever WORKED at boarding facilites and wasn't sure about how my horse would like it. ALSO the trillium barn I worked at had a pretty blunt contract. Basically, if you miss ONE MONTH board (this place was around 800 a month) they will put a lien on your tack and then sell your horse or whatever if you don't pay up. :S
I found an affordable place, with nice enough people (really nice actually) but after the first week or so I realized that half the people that BOARDED there, let alone the owners, didn't really know anything...
These people were parelli ALLSTARS. You know, the kind that chase a horse with a carrot stick and then dont understand why the stud they are trying to ride in parelli gear rears, throws off rider then proceeds to STRIKE at EVERYONE around...
They had all the horses (about 15) in one field, except for the stud, he was seperate (THANKGOD). So we have OLD horses, young horses, mares, gelding, JERK horses, all battling it out over one bale...
I tried to ask her to maybe, divide the herd but no no its NATURAL for them to be fighting and carrying on over hay.
And this place had a three page boarding contract (if we dont have enough shavings, you must supply your own....)that basically listed a million things that they could bill you for.
Since then I've found a different barn, with an arena, owned by a vet and a trainer from Europe, with sane level headed horses. There is no board agreement, but its a fairly private barn and I feel extremely comfortable knowing my horse will be FED and be HEALTHY.
It is still difficult knowing that somebody else is looking after him in the mornings, but he sure is happy.
I hope things work out for your friend!

Golden Girl said...

Over the years of boarding horses, there has been one horror story after another! The straw that broke the 'horses' back was when my mare Ange was on full board, and I pretty much paid for the so called 'caretaker' of the barn to colic my mare not once, but twice! Of course it caused me to have two huge Vet bills. Well, I went to partial board from there, and things went much smoothly for my animals. Then I went through a divorced and I purchased my own mini farm, and since then I have taken care of my horses myself... and I LOVE it!