Worried about a horse at the yard

[ThatchersCold]

I’m new to livery life (always had family owned places to keep horses before). I’m at a DIY yard which is, by and large, absolutely lovely.

I started a previous thread about a teenager at the yard who has a habit of ‘borrowing’ my stuff. I had some concerns about the way she keeps her horse. He had to be fully stabled for a few months because of an injury and whenever I was up there he never had hay or water. Turns out his owner was going up there morning and evening, but he’d smash his hay back within half an hour and drink all his water and then be left with nothing again all day night. If that was me I’d have bought a different haynet to try and slow his hay consumption down, and found a bigger container for his water, but neither of those things happened.

Anyway forward to today and I happened to be walking past this horse’s field, which is rare, I haven’t seen him (or his owner) for weeks. It was lunch time and about 13 degrees and sunny. He was lying down in his field as I went past, and I noticed he was wearing a rug. His owner doesn’t have many rugs and the one she had on him was a super heavy weight middle of the winter type rug, with a neck, I’d say 350-400g. He’s not clipped, and is a cobby type. He was absolutely sweltering in it, so I took it off, and messaged the owner to say I’d done that. She replied saying oh thanks so much, I meant to come up today but I had to work :/

Basically this horse isn’t looked very well, and it’s really hard to stand back and watch that happen. At the same time I don’t want to become responsible for making sure he’s ok, as I have enough of my own stuff to deal with, and I don’t want his owner to assume I will have sorted him out.

I feel really sad for him but not sure what I can do.

How involved is your yard owner? Ours would step in and speak to the horses owners in this case.

It depends on your YO or YM, they may be able to get involved and have a word with the owner.

Beyond that, the hay is a tricky one because not all horses can have adlib hay. And whilst the horse standing in with nothing to eat is not very nice, the effects of being overweight can be worse.

I'd maybe offer her a larger water bucket to "borrow" and offer to change rugs if you can.

But if the YO won't step in, there's not a lot you can do.

Totally agree that if the yard owner isn’t bothered then there’s little you can do unless you want to help her out personally .

Legally,the yard owner is responsible for the welfare of any animals on her property,whether she owns them or not. I'd certainly make her aware that this horse is being neglected.
I think this will become more common,as people who bought horses during lockdown,have to go back to work/ want to have days out/ go shopping/ go on holiday. A lot of people don't realise how much responsibility a horse actually is ( if you look after it properly,that is).
Thank you for helping the poor thing.