Yard Woes - Abandoned Horses

[Lilwelshyrs]

Hi all,

My friend and I look after 4 ponies between us. My job is evening work so I go up every morning, chuck out, muck out, ride, do haynets and make feeds. My friend's 9-5 means that she comes up in the evenings to bring in, hay and feed. This works well for us.

We have fairly recently moved to this yard. We've been there about 4 months. The girl who was "running" it was starting up a sort of dealers yard - taking on ex racers and selling them on. Also wanting to take on unbroken horses on a breaking livery. She wanted a couple of "easy-going" DIY liveries to get a little income.
So the yard is really lovely - we are surrounded by farmland and endless hacking. It's perfect. When we looked at the place, this girl said that they were putting in a school and will be dividing up the big field so that we can have a nice bit of turn out. We could see it all needed some work - but, hey, everyone has to start somewhere and we could seen the potential for a really lovely place.
So the school thing never happened... and the more we find out from the farmers who are leasing her the yard (and house), the more lies we realise we've been spun. We made her sign a contract as she wanted a deposit for each stable - £600 in total between our 4 lads. We have signed copies of receipts for this too, so hopefully covered there.

Anyway, the abandoned bit... Almost from the first day we moved in, she would come home with yet another horse. Now they have 8 stabled 24/7 and 4 left in the field 24/7. We were uncomfortable about how little the stabled horses went out (even for a leg stretch) or even hayed and watered. Myself and my friend regularly chucked hay at these horses who were quietly stood in. Over Christmas, several got colic and we hoped this was a wake up call for her. But it wasn't.
We decided we couldn't take it anymore and went to try and find somewhere else - which with having 4 boys, is quite hard. We didn't tell her we were wanting to leave until we found somewhere for definite.

One Sunday we asked her to finish our lot off one evening and she says this is fine. The following day my friend goes up to find two still left out in the field and the one that was in with no hay or water! (One of the boys had gone to my friends for some schooling.) We made a huge fuss of this and complained to her - she says her mum was ill and she couldn't do it. I said she should have just text us to say there was a problem. She went on to say she was leaving the yard to move to Shropshire as this place was losing so much money and we were such awful liveries (we complained about the awful fencing a lot... In fairness, we are pretty horrendous people) and how they can't make any money out of us...

So this day her "mum was ill" turned out that she had gone up to Shropshire to view a yard!

Since then she has literally abandoned the horses. They are not looked after, mucked out, hayed or watered frequently. I have reported her to a local rescue centre but because the horses aren't super skinny, they can't do anything... Which I understand - I do... But what can we do?
She is going to go up to Shropshire to run a yard and do the same to more unsuspecting people and their horses! There are horses on that yard that don't belong to them and are standing for days in their own filth.

What can we do? My god I need a rant haha!

[AuntieDee]

Have a word with World Horse Welfare - they can offer advice. It's a dreadful situation :(

[trufflesnout]

Is there any way of finding out who owns these horses? Any way of letting them know? This is really awful, those poor horses.

See if you can get hold of the owners, maybe try spreading the word through local horsey FB groups and see if anything comes of that?

[Lilwelshyrs]

Ive wondered how to get hold of the owners - I have no idea how to find them... She has never mentioned any names or anything.
Until she is off the yard, im a bit hesitant to mention it all on facebook because I don't want to put my horses at risk - or myself if she gets nasty.

On my search for a new yard, I met a very sweet girl and we got chatting and I told her about our situation without mentioning names - and she guessed who it was immediately. Apparently they worked together and she was so lazy and treated the horses badly that she got fired! Her name should be mud around here.
I know the name of one of her employers - should I go that way?

[Lilwelshyrs]

Oh and ive left a message with world horse welfare.
Wish we could have some kind of license system for owning horses :(

[trufflesnout]

Oh crap, see what you mean about spreading word when your horses are still stabled there. I'm guessing you can't really do much until she either leaves for good, or if she actually harmed an animal? Do you have any contact with the people who are leasing her the land?

[AuntieDee]

OP - annoy updates?

[StercusAccidit]

I second trying the local fb groups, derby and beeston horse auction is a very popular group, posting for owners on there may prove fruitful, everyone knows someone else in the horse world.. Or tracing equines both on fb and a forum on the web, the lady who runs those is very helpful and will give good advice
Then i would look for horse groups in your area, telford horse sales is a large one, shrewsbury horse owners is another
Best of luck x

[Marmaladedandelions]

I'm in Shropshire PM me if I can help. This has really upset me x