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Help!! Need advice about boarding

1K views 4 replies 5 participants last post by  Saskia 
#1 ·
I'm going to try to keep it short but here goes....
so I just started boarding a horse I bought about 5 months ago at a barn (he's a 5 yr old paint green broke and is amazing!) Which I feel like I am up against a wall with right now regarding finding him a decent place to board....
so here's the low down....the barn holds about 40 horses in medium sized stalls. They advertised turn out (didn't really specify too much on how many hrs of turnout ) but I assumed a decent amount daily. Come to find out they aren't getting out hardly at ALL let alone outside. I am patient and tried to understand why and the only thing I see is that they come out and feed twice a day and clean once a day but they must feel it's too much work to let them out and in during the morning? Gosh I am even having a hard time putting thus into words...anyways it is beginning to bother me immensely that all the people there are ok with this. My horse is in his stall all the time. I work him as much as possible which is about once a day for an hr to hr and a half. Some days I don't get out there but it's rare. I tried letting him out on my own but he gets anxious and runs and calls to the barn constant unless he can have a buddy out there (I know it's bc he needs to be with a herd) but I know they look down upon me taking out anyone else's horse bc liability bc I am just a boarder and I don't feel comfortable dealing with someone else's horse I don't know that well regardless of if they told me it's ok to let their horse out with mine. I have even wanted to leave my boy out for the day and come back myself and put him in but it's in my contract i have to be present there if he's outside and honestly with no buddy with him he's too anxious to leave unattended. So I feel like I'm hanging my head against a wall with this issue at the barn. I began looking elsewhere and am finding that so discouraging . Why? Bc each place is either great about turnout but no place good to ride or one place that is huge had stalls that are not in very good condition and on top of this someone warned me that they don't supply enough water during summer in pastures? ??? So I don't know who to trust or who to believe. All I know is I want my horse outside at least 5 hrs a day minimum and someplace I can work on my dream or becoming a barrel racer.

The whole situation has me depressed worried and fed up. I'm working hard to afford the boarding rates in my area (380) a month and don't know where to go from here. My favorite thing in the world is my horse and his well being is my number one thing so I guess my question is what do I give up for this? Do I find a place I can't really ride anywhere bc of footing and size of arena but that turns out? Or do I continue to slide by where I'm at ....what I mean is I work so hard to get him out that stall by lunging , riding him and even driving out there randomly to let him out in the indoor arena .....in order to have an ok indoor arena to work on the much needed training I am putting into making this horse go to the upper races in barrels? Any help would be so appreciated
 
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#2 ·
I dealt with something similar to this when i bought my horse, he was only 3 at the time.

I busted my butt to keep him in a barn with an indoor and an outdoor. But he was never allowed out in the pasture. The difference in my situation and yours was we were at a co-op barn, and all the present boarders had "claimed" the fields and didn't want a mutt, young horse in their pasture.

So i worked him all the time turned him into the indoor and outdoor when i could but he wasn't happy. He was young and needed somewhere to run and get out.

So we moved him, and he was a much happy horse. He was also much easier to handle. Not so much built up energy to burn through before we could actually begin to learn new things.

I honestly would make the sacrifice so that your horse had more turnout.

I know that is not very much help and it was difficult for me.

Good luck in whatever you decide
 
#3 ·
Well, the way I look at it, your horse is there 24/7 so his comfort and well-being has to be top priority. Sometimes we have to sacrifice what we would want in a boarding barn for what they need. He is young and he needs turnout to be healthy and well-adjusted. If there are no places real close to you that have enough turnout and riding area, maybe look a little farther afield. It'll mean more travelling for you but if it has what your horse needs it will be totally worth it in the long run. Good luck, I know it is hard, but I can tell from what you wrote that you know the current place is not working for your horse and therefore not for you.​
 
#4 ·
Well, the way I look at it, your horse is there 24/7 so his comfort and well-being has to be top priority. Sometimes we have to sacrifice what we would want in a boarding barn for what they need. He is young and he needs turnout to be healthy and well-adjusted. If there are no places real close to you that have enough turnout and riding area, maybe look a little farther afield. It'll mean more travelling for you but if it has what your horse needs it will be totally worth it in the long run. Good luck, I know it is hard, but I can tell from what you wrote that you know the current place is not working for your horse and therefore not for you.​
I think this is key. You as a person can be perfectly happy with every aspect of the barn, but if the care isn't working for your horse then it's just not working.

For the better part of a year I boarded at a barn where during the winter it seemed as though the horses were hardly being turned out. All through the summer the barn manager was super good about putting them out overnight unless the weather was completely atrocious. Things were great. Once winter rolled around she rarely turned the horses out. For a period of time the weather was uncharacteristically horrible for the area (freezing cold, pouring rain all the time) so it seemed understandable. The pastures would have been torn to heck and back, and I'd rather it not be a dry lot when he did go out. I guess she just got in the habit of not turning out then out so it rarely happened even on good days. I tried to ask her about it on multiple occasions and she always had some excuse as to why they were still in. I found myself turning him out with a friend's horses on multiple occasions knowing that he'd be brought back in for feeding. I suppose it worked, but was something I completely shouldn't have had to do since I was paying full board including turnout.

I ended up having to move my horse, though there were a couple of other reasons that factored into that decision. It was not an easy decision to make because I loved that barn, its facilities, and some of the people out there. But, the lack of turnout simply wasn't working for me. I ended up moving to a place close to twice the distance away and I love not having to worry about whether my horse is getting out or not. Strangely enough, the barn manager from the old barn is the one taking care of him at the new place, but she's under direction of the barn owner. We're still good friends, but simply had two different ideas of what's necessary in horse care.
 
#5 ·
I would move him. It doesn't sound great

As far as your riding, barrel racing isn't as competitive here so I don't know lots about it but lots of people make do with training in small areas and fields. Sometimes they just have one barrel with some sand around it. Might not be ideal, but the skills needed for success can be built through a range of exercises, balance, turning.
 
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