What does she want? Worming issue.

[carabos]

Long and boring post alert:

My horse is at livery. Yard is full livery only, but we do pretty much DIY because DH mucks out three days a week and is there at some point every day to ride (GP dressage horse - he's a trainer). My horse has individual turnout which most of the others don't. He's barefoot and obviously at his level has quite some value, so we want him to be as safe as possible.

As part of this I manage his worming programme since we discovered three years ago that the yard owner wasn't worming and he had a burden. Since then we have worm counted every 10 weeks, poo picked religiously and done the antibody test for tapeworm. All good.

One of the other liveries has a MASSIVE bee in her bonnet about the worming. She constantly asks about my programme, wants to know when we've sent a sample for counting and what the result is. Not only that, she has stirred and stirred and stirred with the yard owner that we aren't worming properly and this is a risk to her horse. Her horse is in a separate barn and isn't in our field plus our horse is worm free.

As a result of this stirring, the yard owner has sampled all the horses and published the results - except that this woman's horse's result isn't on the list. Today, she was going over the list and commenting on each horse - all but five were clear, including mine (no surprise there). Then she started again about how her horse is at risk. I asked why hers wasn't there - she gave me this look and said that it's nobody's business what his worm status is.

Further investigation with yard owner reveals that the list was published at this woman's insistence because "some people" are a bit too secretive about what they do with their horses. She's also unhappy because mine gets four hard feeds per day, at extra cost to us because he needs more than the handful of nuts the others get.

I can't get to the bottom of what outcome she's seeking by going on and on and on about what we do with our horse. She even had something to say at the weekend because we've clipped. There are 30 horses on the yard, but she's fixated on mine. It's driving me fucking nuts.

Sorry for boring essay - I know we sound like kids!

She sounds bonkers! I think avoiding her as far as possible is all you can do. Hopefully if you just nod and smile politely and don't engage with her, eventually she will get bored and move onto someone else.

The ones that go on about things are usually the people that know the less! So it's either that or jealousy.

I suspect she's jealous that you have a GP dressage horse and is just shit stirring. No idea why she would be shit stirring but an awful lot of livery yards have someone like her!

I would keep a record of what she does, dates, what she said etc. This is probably OTT but I've been burned in the past in other situations and like to keep records! I would also have a chat with the yard owner. If worm counts are being published they should ALL be published, her horse included.

That said, so long as she's leaving your horse alone, there's a lot to be said for keeping your head down and ignoring the stupid, interfering trouble maker.

What the fuck has it got to do with her?
She's a crazy, all (larger) yards seem to have a pet crazy. It seems there's no way of appeasing them, so best to keep on as you are, keep yard owner on side and ignore (and hope they soon move on, to cause hoohar at another yard)

Well, now we have another nutter on the yard it seems. Nothing to do with worms, but today we've been off for a session with DH's trainer as we have an important competition coming up.

Got back, unloading and new nutter YELLS across the yard, "ooh where've YOU been?" .
DH answers with name of venue meaning myob.
"Ooh one day event was it?" (Meaning a horse trial) says new nutter.
"Err no, been for a lesson with " says DH.
"Oh, You wouldn't think THAT was a dressage horse" Says new nutter and gives him this look .

Is it the season or am I missing something here?

That doesn't sound particularly nutty, just someone interested in what you have been doing. It is a frequent conversation on my yard, where lots of us go out and about a lot competing, and to various clinics and lessons. Although the comment about the horse not looking like a dressage horse was not particularly nice.