Livery yard problems

[pinkpolo]

I've been on my current livery yard for over 12 months. It's a big yard but lots of people have multiple horses. Up until recently, the yard was fine, just the usual bickering but nothing major. A new livery moved on a few months ago and a small clique of young women has formed. They are dominating the yard, dictating rules etc. They seem to have the farmers ear as they never seem to get pulled up about it.

It sounds ridiculous writing it down, but it's really changed the atmosphere on the yard and it's making me not want to spend time there. They've been rude to me and my daughter.

I suppose my question is, would you move before it gets worse? Has anyone ever left a yard because of something like this?

Pros of staying are my horses are settled, I have two stables next to each other, and the facilities are great. Cons are it's miles away, which makes winter even worse, and obviously the issue with these liveries.

its a pity that livery yards dont have the equivalent of tripadvisor !

So the yard has been taken over by toffs?

Sadly this seems really common on livery yards for a few individuals to cause problems for everyone, have you seen this? so true...

www.horseandhound.co.uk/features/9-types-of-people-youll-find-on-a-livery-yard-413184

I think I've experienced all of these and worse in my time! I've never really known a YO effectively sort it out at an early stage, either the YO is hands off and just leaves the liveries to work it out amongst themselves, or in some ways worse, they take sides and often just end up making it worse. I can't say it's any better on smaller yards vs bigger ones, yes on smaller yards there are fewer people so less chance of getting a bad egg, but if you do get one then the effect is much less diluted. At least on a bigger yard you stand more chance of keeping out of their way!

Perhaps it's worth keeping an eye out for whether there's an equivalent yard nearer home, otherwise maybe just try your best (and teach your DD) to have a thick skin and avoid these girls where possible. Can you try and be at the yard at times when they are not around or otherwise occupied? E.g. if they are hogging the school or hanging around being bitchy about other people
's riding or horses, can you and DD go off on a long hack, or vice versa if they compete or hack on a saturday that is your time to use facilities at home?

Generally I find these things do settle after a while, either once the ringleader has established themselves as yard queen bee and people stop engaging in their drama they move on to find entertainment elsewhere, or if they push it too far and YO has to deal with constant complaints and/or other liveries leaving, then it becomes worth their while to deal with it!

Unless you are in an area where yards are few and far between, I'd get the word out to find somewhere else to move to. I've moved off a perfectly nice yard when the general atmosphere changed because of "personalities". Luckily there are a lot of yards round here and I found somewhere with a much more happy-go-lucky atmosphere.

You pay too much money to keep horses on livery to have your time there spoiled by yard divas! And if your YO isn't defusing the situation then unless the newcomers move on, it's always worth looking round for a closer yard.

I’d move.

It’s supposed to be enjoyable and it all costs far too much money to put up with shit like that

We move yard for much the same reason - large yard and a couple of new people arrived who were complete PITAs. We moved to a private yard and it’s just lovely

Thank you for the replies and advice, sorry to hear others have had similar problems.

I decided to explore other yards more local to us and I've now put my name down somewhere closer to home, but it's unlikely to happen anytime soon as stables there don't come up very often.

I just hope I'm not going out of the frying pan into the fire 🤞🏼

We were on a yard that ended up like Jeremy Kyle live after 1 particular family arrived. I was so glad when a friend phoned me to say the person she shared a private yard with was moving was I interested. Couldn't get away fast enough. Mind you OH moans it's boring not getting the horror stories.

Hope a space comes up. I'd move too OP.