Hi all,
We're new to pony loaning, my daughter has been riding for over a year and a half and doing really well - so we decided a few months ago to loan a pony.
My daughters only just turned 9 and the pony is 5. He is obviously still young and inexperienced, although he has confident teenagers sometimes ridding him.
The first time my daughter rode him, he took off with her and she fell off - there was a trainer in with her. This dented her confidence, so we decided to just stick with ground work. She LOVES visiting the pony, and gets a lot of valuable experience from just the ground work. Today we did a 15 minute lesson with a trainer and she enjoyed it, but the pony is very lazy!
My issue is with the owner, tbh she is starting to do my head in. I understand the importance of looking after a pony, and me and my daughter try really hard every week to ensure we do things properly. But this owner is really anal about everything. To the point it's becoming a problem. She always every single poo and anything wet taken away, today she called me after we left to complain I hadn't taken it all away. I honestly thought I had.
Last week she told me she is buying different bedding and not to take so much away as it's expensive. Mid week she asked me to only use a certain saddle pad (even though we hadn't used them as my daughter wasn't riding the pony!)
Bear in mind we only loan the pony one day a week, she messages me constantly and it's becoming a regular occurrence to call me up and "have a chat" once we get home.
I just feel on edge on when we go. This is supposed to be enjoyable. I'm paying £10 a day to essentially groom the pony, muck him out and lunge him and we just get grief in return.
I don't know what to do, my daughter loves this pony. But the situation is doing my head in.
Help! Is this normal? If so I don't think I can be bothered with it all.