# How Often Does THIS Go On? O.o



## whit144man (Sep 28, 2007)

My younger sister and I used to take lessons at a rather popular stable close to us. Where we live, there aren't many stables around, for lessons or otherwise.

So this stable was decent. It was a clean barn, despite its age, and the stalls were roomy. It had an indoor barn and an outdoor ring, a few acres of trails and pastures...

The issue was in the management.

The owner of the stables bought abused or problematic horses. There was Steel, who obviously had something wrong with his digestive system (he farted constantly); Gizmo, the going-on-30 appaloosa who was blind in one eye; Shelby, the mostly-green mare; one time I rode Story, the 17-year-old mare they were most proud of, while she was lame. And of course you had the cribbers, the ones who freaked out when you went in their stall, the balkers, the weavers, and a bunch of "red-ribbon" horses... Whatever her motivation for buying these horses, whether to save money or to help them, I don't know, and I don't care. 

The problem was when she put small children on them for lessons! The first horse my sister rode was a territorial cribber who was originally a rodeo horse. She was eight. :shock: 

This owner was very particular about which horses were ridden and at which times. One time, my sister was assigned to ride a horse who clearly did not want to be messed with. He was kicking in his stall, ears flat against his head, making a lot of noise and ruckus. The stablehands, all girls between 10 and 16, saw this, tried to help but couldn't, and offered that she could ride another horse.

That night, my mother got a call from the owner saying that switching horses was not allowed. She apparently didn't know or care that the horse my sister was assigned was misbehaving. The poor girls that were helping us got in trouble for allowing this (my mother later brought them flowers as an apology). We decided not to ride at this stable anymore.

I was wondering what you thought about this. If it's normal for a lesson stable to teach on abused horses, maybe if you had an insight about the owner's perspective, what we should have done...


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## latte62lover (Sep 4, 2007)

i sometimes have similiar problems on a smaller scale where i ride. almost all the school horses have something wrong with them so that most of the lesson we are teaching them how to not mis-behave instead of us advancing. at least all the horses where i ride are ridable. i don't know what to say about where you ride. all i can say is that you were probably right about switching stables.


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## whit144man (Sep 28, 2007)

It's such a shame, though...
It's a nice stable, the instructors were so great.
Well, what can you do...? :roll:


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## latte62lover (Sep 4, 2007)

yeah my first barn was terrible though!!! the horse's were not exactly at tip top shape the youngest horse had to be 25! before we rode we didn't even groom them and not even after!!! nobody did! in 2 years all i learned was how to trot in circles...that's it! what a waste of money.... :?


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## KANSAS_TWISTER (Feb 23, 2007)

my theory was always that theses poor horses where only good enough for lessons and not for the show ring....bcause of there back rounds, it's is sad that with horses like these you spend half the time dealing with correcting the horse and not your self.


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## blossom856 (Apr 5, 2007)

we can't aways expect perfect or even near perfect horses. there's always a few problems. you have to to be able to decide what problems you can deal with. and there are horses that come from less then desirable places. my lesson horse, for example, came from the slaughter house. in your case though, it sounds like you have this a bit to extreme. switch to a different stable that has horses with manageable problems.


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