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

[Balloonhearts]

So, I really don't think I did anything wrong here. I'm not unreasonable. I'm pretty much just venting here instead of being unprofessional on the group chat. Sorry, its a long one.

I work at a riding school which is part school, part private livery. Yesterday, I was working with the barn rats (group of kids who help out at weekends/after school/any time their parents don't forcibly evict them)

We have 2 stable blocks, back-to-back. I was working in one block, mucking and two of the older kids went off to start the other block which is mostly livery/working livery. This was about 11 am. All the horses are out by 9. We turn out the school ones and working ones, private livery are DIY so do their own, there are 5 PL at the moment.

They came back almost immediately and told me Dom (not his real name) was still in and was weaving in his stall, windsucking and upset.

I went round to look as Dom's owner is an early bird, we hardly see her. She's in at 7, feeds him, turns him out, does his jobs and we don't see her again until bedtime.

He was indeed, in and very agitated. I went in and found that he had no water at all, his bucket was dry, no hay and there was no bucket in there to indicate he had been fed. There was also a LOT of poo and wet bedding.

I sent a child for a haynet and one for the hose and they filled his water,which he guzzled so fast they had to keep stopping him for fear he'd bloody colic.

I text the barn owner asking if he was on stall rest or something and she said no so I tried to ring his owner. No answer. I messaged the group chat, asking 'has anybody seen Karen this morning?' Nobody had. Someone asked if Dom was OK I said yes, he's OK, just trying to reach Karen.

One lady said that she was trying to text her last night as she hadn't been down at her usual time and the other lady had brought Dom in for her so he wouldn't be left out alone. Assumed she was just running late.

Established that Dom had not been fed or watered this morning or night before. No one had seen Karen.

I got him a scoop of the school feed. Didn't know what he usually eats so I went safe and just gave him a scoop of chaff and a scoop of pony nuts.

Tried Karen again, no answer, left another message. At 12.30 we still hadn't heard anything so I told one of the kids to put him out.

Now this was my fault as I didn't think to specify where. He normally goes in one of the little paddocks with one friend.

Child put him in one of the larger fields, as that's where his friend was, with 6 other horses. We have 6 pastures in total for the purposes of resting some while we use the others and being able to split up horses who don't get on or are prone to sillyfuckery.

He was fine out there, no one he didn't get along with, was peace and harmony. We mucked his stall as it was disgusting. Used the school bedding as we couldn't get into her storage cupboard, where her shavings are. Left hay in there and full water as we still didn't know wtf Karen was.

She appeared at about 8pm, half hour before we brought them in and closed for the night.

Hit the roof. How dare we interfere with her horse, demanded to know who put him in the 'wrong' pasture. Child immediately fessed up and apologised and she had a right go at her. Told her Dom could have been hurt being turned out in a herd.

I stepped in, pointed out we don't normally look after Dom so how was she to know? Also pointed out that Dom was fine and with horses he got along well with. He was in the 'Chill Field" where the calm horses go. He was a lot happier out there than stuck in a hot smelly stall.

She then saw the hay and started complaining that was the wrong hay. She gives him sweetened haylage which was, again locked in her cupboard. We do not have any sweet haylage. We teach beginners. We prefer those ponies and horses not to go absolutely nutcrackers on sweetened feed.

Most of ours are easy keepers who get far too many treats and are honestly getting a bit rotund. They do not need extra calories. They eat regular hay.

I'm afraid I rather lost my temper and told her she had some fucking nerve to criticise when she'd abandoned her horse for the last 48 hours with no food or water, hadn't even told anyone she couldn't make it so we could at least feed him.

I called her ungrateful because we'd fed her horse out of our own pockets and told her the child she was telling off had looked after her horse better than she had.

She complained to the barn owner who backed me and is now bitching about me on the group chat saying I interfered with her horse, did everything wrong and bad mouthed her on the group. I didn't. I just asked in there if anyone had seen her, trying to work out when she was last here.

She'd just vanished. Excuse me for caring if she was dead in a ditch.

Ungrateful cow.

And breathe....

I have never beaten a horse with a whip. You are referring to where I said that I was swatting at him to stop him biting the horse I was riding. The crop did not ever actually make contact with him. Do not accuse me of animal cruelty, unless you want to find yourself in court defending it.

You literally just want to find fault with anything you can. If you don't agree with keeping horses, why don't you go find another thread to be miserable and combative on.

YANBU.
You wouldn’t leave a dog in a car for two days; this is no different.
thing is, you risk her moving horse now, and that’ll mean next time you won’t be able to see or help the poor horse…
Ideally you’d want to be able to say if you do it again, we’ll inform the RSPCA.

Perhaps the manager could contact everyone and clearly say we expect all horses to be fed and watered / turned out / in every day- if this isn’t done by 7pm winter / 10pm summer, we are will provide this service at XX extra charge. That way you cover both them being ignorant / neglectful, and the horses welfare.

She sounds like a terrible owner.

Even if you didn't make contact that is still extremely shoddy and unsafe horsemanship, liable to cause an accident or make the horse headshy and so more dangerous to handle in future. As you describe it, the horse had a child on its back at the time, if it had thrown them and injured them in its efforts to avoid being "swatted" that would have been entirely and squarely your fault for such dangerous handling. However your original comment implies quite strongly you did make contact; your current version is a revision, if you were "exaggerating" for comic effect it was rather tone deaf and clueless to imagine that people would find the image of you beating a horse in the face funny rather than shocking.

Do not accuse me of animal cruelty, unless you want to find yourself in court defending it.

I'm accusing you of doing nothing more than exactly what you described doing in your own words. Contact or not, that is cruel and shit horsemanship.

If you don't agree with keeping horses,

I don't fundamentally disagree with keeping horses, however because I actually know a little bit about it I'm under no illusion that the circumstances in which horses are frequently kept are ideal for them; it's simply a fact that stabling and fencing and confinement is unnatural and many horses suffer as a result, in fact most behaviour problems you see in horses are actually down to boredom and/or stress which is exacerbated by poor management, and it isn't a laughing matter when they injure themselves as a result. In fact attitudes like yours -"that's just what horses are like, isn't it funny" - are exactly what perpetuates ignorance and poor practice in the industry.

Also, your yard manager is shit - how did they not know the horse was without hay/water?

It's really not. The post stated 'swatting at' this implies a wafting motion, much like waving away a fly. The horse in question is neither headshy or crop shy and is, in fact, the same horse who followed me to the toilet. Doesn't sound like a horse being beaten, does it?

You've had it clarified twice now that no horse was ever hit, yet you still use the phrase beating on the face. Clearly, you just want to be rude and twatty. People can describe their animals how they want. If you don't like it, that's your problem.

Please stop derailing my thread. You've said nothing useful so why don't you just go away and find a thread that doesn't irritate you.

See also Rink Rats in ice skating rinks. Nothing nasty behind that at all.

We have horses and I think it's shocking and the yard owner was way too soft in her message. That owner should be kicked off the yard.

And a horse absolutely should not be left alone in a field over night if they are used to being out with a friend! The horse will likely panic and hurt himself

If you "swat" a fly you've killed it, so no it doesn't imply wafting. If you don't want people to think you beat horses in the face, perhaps don't post "hilarious" anecdotes that imply you've been doing just that. And certainly don't post them and then expect everyone to defer to you as the most horsiest ever horsey expert in the world just because you've got a job in a shoddy stable that apparently relies on unpaid child labour to keep afloat.

I was a barn rat as a teen but we were called something different that would definitely be offensive now! It was all in affectionate good humour at the time though. Also I used to be on the livery yard and forced my mum to drop me off at 7am and she collected me again about 7pm! I would literally have lived there all weekend (and week!) if I could. Fresh air, exercise, the community were all great things as a 12-16 year old.

You did well to keep the high ground I’m not sure I would have been able to!

Zero (and I mean zilch) horse experience here but it’s clear to me you 100% did the right thing. Leaving an animal to suffer without water or food or clean living arrangements is cruelty. Especially in the heat we have been having.

Wow. You did the right thing. Why om earth did she not just message someone to sorted him out.

maybe missing the point, but

What’s wrong with water from the hose?

don’t we all do that at the yard?

no good deed goes unpunished OP.

yard owner has handled it very well. Pleased he/ she addressed it directly and with confidence.

based on replies from many knowledgeable MN you WNBU. She was. Leaving Dom in the field was not typical not routine and careless of her to assume he would be left in the field until a more convenient time for her.

its a character flaw to never admit you are wrong or accept responsibility for not handling not responding to a failure with some meekness and recognizing others have stepped in to help you. Anger directed at a child by an adult who is at fault is all kinds of wrong.

To be honest as a horse lover you had no choice when you found out the poor thing had no food or water.
Awful

You did 100% the right thing and I would have lost my rag with the stupid, negligent witch.

Yeah ok, you have bigger problems than the collective failings of the horse industry...

I've never claimed any expertise. In fact, I said specifically on the last thread that I wasn't but you don't seem too interested in facts, considering I've already stated that the kids do only what they want to do.

Dozens of other, more experienced equestrians have said exactly the same thing, both regarding leaving him out alone and horses being goofballs.

You obviously have some misplaced anger so just take it elsewhere, I'm not going to sit here arguing semantics with you over my choice of nouns.

Well done you !! Animals need a voice you should be so proud of yourself 💐

Why did OP decided to call the villain in this story Karen. Presuming it's not the actual bad horse owner's name.

Maybe you’ve found the horses owner here on MN!!

The yard owner/manager is responsible for all the animals on the yard. So ultimately it would be there decision to do whatever was in the best interest of the animal.

You absolutely did 👏🏻
Well done @Balloonhearts💐

As a yard owner this is a reason I do not offer DIY livery, I like to know all the horses are where they should be and fed and watered at all times. The only possible mistake I see in this situation is the livery who caught Dom in should have notified and member of staff or the yard owner so he was checked on the Friday evening. Not leaving a single horse out on it's own is a very usual yard rule so I can totally understand why the lady brought him in. Karen should definitely been in touch as soon as she knew she wasn't going to be at the yard and let the staff/YO know that she was intending to leave him out overnight - assuming this was permitted in her livery agreement.

No its just the first K name that came to mind. I tend to change names to close alternatives like like Sophie might become Sarah or Karen might become Kara.

I’d have a chat with the barn owner about sending a message to all DIY owners about the “new” procedure should someone not be seen/ respond for a set time without notice.

I would be inculding that you will be feeding /caring for the horse and they will be charged a fee. If 48s of no contact, RSPCA will be called.

Send to everyone.

I agree, so many happy memories as a working class kid, without easy access to riding, working at the stables for absolutely nothing but a bag of chips, simply so I could spend my day with the horses. I LOVED mucking out, leading the ponies on children's rides, tacking up, mucking out, grooming, all for nothing. I entered the WH Smith's Win A Pony every single year. What a mug I was looking back, but I was so happy, and 52 years later, still love horses and ride.

I don't shovel horse shit for free anymore, although I do take it for free for the garden! I would have been proud to wear the Stable Rat badge with pride.