FFS! Relative upset after children could not ride my competition horses

their mum kept insisting I let them just sit for a quick photo

Oh, and there it is right there. It was all for social media. The fact you said no ruined her plans. Lol.

They are the cheekiest fuckers of all cheeky fuckers.

I often had to say to friends and relatives, yes please come with your kids and see my horse but under no circumstances expect your kids to sit on her as it's possible she'll catapult them to the moon. She was the loveliest ginger mare but was very specific about who rode her and how 😂

I would have told her that your competition yard doesn't allow children under the age of 16 and left it at that.

I hope your parents follow up the rant with

@DoubleClearYay says you’re welcome.

We hope your parents are well.

😁

Way to minimise the actions of CF's!

OP was open and upfront about what and was not OK to do with her horses in advance.

The fact that her cousins are both ignorant and prepared to railroad others for the sake of their precious offspring's demands is not OP's problem.

I sincerely hope she tells them to fuck right off.

Why is the first post to anything always so catty or lacking in understanding of the actual point of the post. Happens time and again. 🙄

yanbu op and the absolute cheek to call you precious when it’s clearly the other way around! Have you messaged her? I wouldn’t be able to help myself.

They were clearly unreasonable and you were not.

I don’t know anything about horses (other than they’re lovely), so forgive my ignorance; how do horses know if someone is a beginner and why would that make them chuck them off?

Sympathy OP.

Years ago my neighbour got in a right strop with me because I wouldn’t drive her to her wedding in a horse drawn carriage if she paid to hire me one for my horses to pull.
They were not exactly a matching pair with one a 16.2 competition horse and the other a 32 year old retired pony.
Neither of them were broken to drive by the way.

Fortunately she started blanking me after the billionth time I explained no 👌

They won’t want to pay! Horses are expensive to buy and keep, never mind the trained staff, premises costs, insurance AND the time invested in choosing/training ponies suitable for beginners.

Also, non horsey people often don’t understand that competition horses are trained to be very responsive so are totally unsuitable for someone who isn’t a a relatively experienced rider, let alone being potentially more highly strung to start with!

I would also remind them that your liability insurance policy may be invalidated if you knowingly allow an unsuitable person to ride your horse when you believe it could cause harm to either horse or rider. Who gets to pay for the fallout?

I would absolutely go medieval on them, no mercy. I don’t have horses but I teach DC to treat animals with respect, both wild and working animals. If the kids want cute horses their mum can buy them some plastic My Little Ponies.

How ridiculous the insta photos would have looked with her hapless children sitting on a race horse with no riding gear, as though it were a Victorian seaside donkey. You can probably count her brain cells on one hand.

My DD would have been thrilled just to be in the horses presence, and then to brush them and give them an apple sounds like a dream come true!

I just can't imagine expecting more and.especially from the safety pov.

Not only that, even if it was safe, they asked, you said no, gave them alternatives. What rude and entitled people they are!

I had the same with one of my sniffer dogs, trained to track. Yes, we can go for a walk but I must hold the lead too (not wanting a four year old yanked off its feet). He was unlikely to start a random track without his harness on but when they are keen to track you don't want to risk it

Dishonest too, as it was all explained and agreed beforehand. Had she not read your emails that said no riding, etc and agreed to them? I would hit back on Facebook or whatever she used to diss you. And never again!
Did you write something similar once before OP? I remember something like this from two or three years back.

Have you posted this before? I've seen a very similar post in here a few months back,

I know nothing about horses but would have totally understood your explanation the first time and prepared my kids in advance that riding them was off the table. Sorry you had this experience. The parent was totally irresponsible as well as rude.

I would absolutely read them the riot act on this. Tell them you are disgusted that they were happy to place their kids in real danger despite being warned and that you spelled out what was possible in big block letters before they arrived. Fucking ingrates!

She has anger issues? How rude of her. Dumb and rude.

Ohhhh, I get this, mine was not a competition horse but he was retired from riding young due to kissing spine so became a much loved field ornament who loved being fussed over. Some people just couldn't understand why they couldn't 'just sit on for a photo'!. So annoying. I don't have horses at the moment but if I ever got another I wouldn't tell anyone 🤣

Have you messaged before about relatives not respecting your wishes over potentially dangerous horses? What was the outcome of that? Seems like your relatives really want to see those horses. It sounds odd parents would push their children on 'competition horses' when you've outlined the dangers - in another post as well by the looks of it.

I'm guessing that this isn't the first entitled behaviour that this person has exhibited.

No doubt if the horse had de-horsed one of the kids then it would all have been your fault.

Safety for the kids and the welfare of the horse is paramount and you did well to hold your ground under pressure from an idiot.

I know FA about horses, but I know enough to know that some are jittery as hell, and if you feed them the wrong stuff you can be landed with massive bills.

I suppose if you want to mend bridges you could arrange a day out where some more suitable horses for riding were. But I wouldn't be inclined to after that sort of behaviour.

Last time I rode (very long time ago) I was thrown off by a moody highly strung horse used to more experienced riders and jumping, it was owned by my then boyfriend’s mother who had died so was his technically but he had no idea how temperamental it was - i could ride school horses without issue, galloping even basic jumps but I knew nothing about these horses, I haven’t ridden since

She sounds bonkers.

Had similar down my rowing club when a friend of a friend wanted me to take their kids out on the water in one of our boats. She thought it would be similar to going out in some beach resort pedalo as opposed to stepping into very unstable competition racing shell that would just capsize immediately in the wrong hands. It would just be too dangerous and I said no. Cue all sorts of tantrum throwing from the mum and me being labelled as a killjoy. There are very few peopleI have just told to fuck off but she was one of them.