AIBU for stepping in when a livery horse was left unattended for 2 days?

Write the facts and nothing else, include the temperature and the state of the horse and leave it at that. She should be kicked out of the livery arrangement for neglecting her animal.

this.

if the horse owner and yard owner could not be contacted then i’d expect the girls there to do the sensible thing. I would hope someone would do that for me. Both couod have been, god forbid, in the same car accident and hospitalised unconscious. Someone needs to step up.

if i were the yard owner id do a nightly patrol anyway to make sure all were securely locked down and had water.

That poor horse. I hope he’s ok today. I’d keep an eye on him if i were his owner to make sure he’s out of the woods. Colic is a swine. But i imagine she won’t do anything as she seems like an idiot.

what did she think would happen if she left that poor animal without water at the very bare minimum? fool.

you probably saved that horses life.

on all my yards we all left our breakfasts outside the doors the night before (in lidded wood or plastic boxes of necessary due to vermin) and the first one up would chuck them over the door. (no opening indoors so no risk of accidents) That way nobody is left starving. It’s cruel to feed only some. Feed all at once. You’d also know immediately if someone hadn’t been looked after. (You leave a note instead if nil by mouth for whatever reason eg vet)

honestly i’d be considering having a word with the yard owner again and raise concerns and ask what could be put in place to prevent this happening again.

I’d also consider now phoning the rspca (or sspca in scotland) and asking advice as it’s negligent to just leave a horse effectively abandoned. she is an arse. yeah her kid was sick but wtaf.

The poll says it all OP - you were/ are most definitely in the right and are doing the best thing by venting here and remaining professional on the yard chat. I doubt anyone could know the facts and not agree with your actions. Now that you’ve got validation here, be sure to calmly put your manager and the livery owner straight, and in writing, to make sure there is a clear chronology of events and responsibilities. Feel for you though - nobody likes to see an animal suffering! X

Is the owner planning to send a unsubtle message reminding all owners that if horses are found in this state and the owner can not be reached despite reasonable efforts, the cost will be £xxx and RSPCA will be notified? Because they should.

I don’t know much about horses, but presumably if you hadn’t stepped in it would likely have been fatal for the horse to have no food or drink for that long in this heat?

Time for her to be handed her notice!

I am on a purely DIY yard. If anyone new moves into our barn, we ask that if we notice things "wrong" are they happy for one of us to rectify it.
Noone has ever said no and we all look out for each other's horses, that's the way it should be.

I'd be telling her to find a new livery yard. You can't accept bullying of staff or volunteers.

But still OP found this animal in distress. Tried to contact the owner with no luck. Poor animal would have been waiting all day with no water in a mucky stall.

You were not being unreasonable. You saw an animal in distress and dealt with it. You tried calling owner several times to no avail.

Em everyone? My cousin is an international event rider and his horses are out all day and in at night. I'm surprised riding school ponies aren't out at night and in during the day for work.
Horses should be outside in a herd type environment when possible.

Yard owner here. YANBU.
However:
Barn manager should have been aware that the horse wasn't being attended to and made sure that it had been taken care of appropriately.

Barn manager should have been the one trying to contact the owner.
Barn manager should be giving that horse owner notice for A) not attending to their horse and not organising for anyone else to do it B) being abusive towards staff who were taking care of her horse as well as possible, given that they could not access her supplies C) continuing to be abusive online.
I would give her 48 hours notice for that. She would not be permitted on site and the horse would be kept on full livery until departure, payable in full by the livery.

Is she normally reliable and this is out of character for her? Or has she done similar before? It could have been some kind of emergency. Yes, she should have informed someone, asked on the group chat if someone would bring him in/muck him out/feed and water him.

I agree that leaving a horse out on its own can cause a lot of stress and injury. Especially a highly strung one.

I think what needs to be taken away from this is that if someone notices an owner hasn’t turned up for whatever reason then they need to inform someone and post on the group chat about it. That way everyone knows what is happening with that animal and how long it’s been in/out. I understand why the first person brought him in, but had they flagged that he hadn’t seen his owner then the livery owner would have kept an eye on him themselves and made sure he was fed/watered/clean. It perhaps also needs to be a rule that each horse has their schedule and feed on a chart on their stable door, so if their owner can’t make it then it’s easy for others to feed them the right thing and know when something is out of the ordinary.

And perhaps a spare key for each person’s locker needs to be kept with a trusted person, head groom or the yard owner?

She very lucky he didn’t colic, from lack of food or water or from stress. She’s also very lucky you showed concern. If this was another livery I knew, I’d be panicking she was dead on her kitchen floor alone.

Unless this is incredibly out of character, as the yard owner, I’d probably be asking her to leave after this.

I think the lady who brought Dom in should have at least given him water. She was obviously trying to help but never got any reply from Karen (maybe she's not the sort to send a "thanks for bringing Dom in" message). Definitely Karen is at fault for not being in touch with the yard, did she expect her horse to have been left in the field overnight? (I think that would be fine for many horses but seems not your policy.)

Poor horse. You did the right thing. You didn't make any silly assumptions or interfere needlessly. You saw a huge problem and you handled it.

That she's bitching about you online just shows what a childish fuck she is.

It wasn't left without food or water by the owner, but by someone taking it upon themselves to interfere. I too would be mega pissed off if I'd decided to leave my horse out for whatever reason only to discover it had been brought in, dumped in a stable, not fed, watered, or mucked out . . .

People were not interfering, they were concerned for the animal's welfare.

The owner fucking off and completely abandoning her horse with no food or water is what caused the situation.

She is definitely in the wrong but just to give her slight benefit of the doubt, she thought her horse was in the field with access to shade and water etc

And is ‘Karen’ her real name or just another slur?

As someone called Karen I am still getting pissed off with this.

If you’re a horse owner thank god you’re not on my yard! Basic courtesy is that if the owner could not attend her horse, she should have notified the YO! If the horse has a routine to come in at night, it will get very stressed being left on its own, stress can cause colic! OP did the right thing, she tried contacting the owner, who did not respond, no one had seen her, so no one knew if she was alive or dead! I’ve a friend who had a horrific accident bring her horses in, had everyone just assumed she’d left her horses out she would have died! So think on