Maybe you can explain this to me.

I was looking thru a barn design book the other night, and a few of the barns had captions describing their system for making sure that boarders horses were tacked and warmed up for them prior to their arrival. Then I remembered that a long time ago, I used to have 2 boarders at a barn I ran who expected the same thing. One had a somewhat valid excuse that as an older middle aged woman, it was physically difficult for her to lift a saddle. The other one assume that full service board included daily workouts as well as riding before she rode. (I guess I blocked that part from my memory).

One of the owners in the book that had her horse ready to go for her considered herself a top level horseperson (or so the caption said). How can you be at the top when the only thing you do is ride a horse that has already been warmed up for you?

Are some people so lazy & full of themselves that they can't be bothered to saddle up their own horse?

Maybe I'm just set in my lower middle-class ways to understand, lol

Lol I guess I just don't understand either.

Maybe they think horses are machines.
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Some very high end barns do offer that service but it's not free, and certainly NOT included in the board fees. We're not talking $800 month facilities here; more like $3,000 and up.

Maybe it's just me, but I hate when someone else saddles my horse for me, even if it's my family. I like being able to look over them myself before I put the saddle on.


And, I'm pretty persnickety about anyone else riding my horse too. I'd much rather warm him up myself. Though, when we had a horse walker, my Dad would saddle up horses and put them on the walker to warm them up (it was variable speed so he would set it faster for the warmup and slower for the cooldown) while he was riding other horses.

Speed, I know But still, don't you just wanna slap 'em and say "get your own damn horse ready", lol.

Smrobs, a hotwalker is different, you still have to get on yourself and work the kinks out. It drives me nuts when I'm not the one getting the horse ready. It used to happen on occasion at shows when I had a different horses going in all the time. I had to show one, exit, race around to the other side of the arena, and hop on a different one. Still checked everything over before I got on, even though I trusted to horses owner to do everything correctly.

When I used to give lessons, I would get the occasional "is the horse going to be ready to go? I'm only paying for the time I'm riding." In which case the answer was and always will be, "it's not my horse"

True busy, but these are people who have more money than God, so think their time is far too valuable to actually do the menial tasks of tacking and warming up their own horses.

They're there to RIDE, not bother with all that other stuff! Goodness, there's a reason we have serfs, um, I mean barn help to do that!

Don't you mean "smurfs"

I can understand doing it here or there for someone, of course I would expect to be compensated. I get PO about kids having someone tack their horse up and have it waiting for their arrival.

I work with a girl that boards at a really high end place. I've heard her call them before and tell them what time she'll be there to ride so that they can have her horse ready for her. I think they do all of the preparation for her for shows and everything as well.

It's interesting because she has this false sense of knowledge because she is riding and placing in the (I don't do hunt) she's above the A shows but I don't know what they would be listed as. She even places but it's different because her trainer shows the horse in the really big stuff and then she shows at the same shows but at a lower level and she feels like she's really accomplishing something.

I don't want to take anything from her because she is a really pretty rider and her horse is beautiful but she hasn't gotten there with blood sweat and tears, just money... You know?

I don;t get it either. My DH had a business partner whose KIDS (we are talking less than 12....) kept their horses at a place like this. When the mom (total Barbie wife)told me this, I think she could see the shock on my face. I tried to explain to her that grooming, handling etc was, to me, part of the whole "horsey" experience, and that when my daughter learned she did for herself because I feel it is an important part of it. This mom and dad are obviously NOT horse people.....in fat, she was the one who called me one time to ask my advice when the pony hurt its "arm". I kid you not. So glad I don't have to associate with this air head anymore....She was a waste of air.