Just kinda bugs me *vent*

So I have four horses currently. Loki, my personal nobody-else-rides-him horse. Baby, the broke-but-needs-further-instruction-in-trot-and-canter (she's lazy). Red, the unbroke-with-potentional. And Divo, the future-Dressage-mount.

I have a friend named Kay. Now Kay is a nice girl, she really loves the horses and enjoys being around them. The only problem is that she's not the sharpest crayon in the box and doesn't understand instruction very well. This isn't Kay's fault, but around the horses it can be deadly. For example:

It's Divo's first or second night out in the pasture. Kay wants to see the Pretty Black Horseth. Her idea of an approach is to screech "OMGGG HE'S TO PRETTY" and WAVE HER ARMS AROUND IN THE AIR. If Divo had Loki's temperament, he would have presented both rear hooves and bolted out of sheer terror. Divo looked irritated and magically put up with it. I was on the other side of the pasture, shaking my head, as I checked up on the other three boogers.

Baby has a serious horsefly on her scar and was dancing around at the hitching post. Kay stands RIGHT BEHIND HER and doesn't move. Now I don't think Baby will kick, but IF she does for WHATEVER reason or suddenly goes into reverse, Kay is in the hospital with several thousand dollars worth on injuries caused by a $700 grade mare with a fly stuck to her ass.

Kay goes with me out to the Friesian place. They have the husbands personal mare, Cookie, in with this seriously off-the-wall crazy paint gelding (boarded by another guy). The paint has some weird issue and keeps going after Cookie, so the wife decides to take Cookie out. Cookie was only in there to keep the bat**** crazy gelding company, but he's just to bat**** crazy.
Kay stands RIGHT in front of the gate. If the paint bolts for the gate, she wouldn't have a chance to get out of the way. I tell her (kindly) to move out of the way. She goes two steps over. I put her behind a tree and go to help the wife.


Kay also enjoys riding. Now because I'm a nice, polite individual, I give her short lessons on Baby Girl, for free. Baby Girl has to be the most tolerant, best behaved horse I have ever met because honestly, I would throw this chick off in a heartbeat.
The only problem is that THIS GIRL CAN NOT RIDE. I don't mean she's green. I don't mean she's a beginner. I mean SHE CAN NOT RIDE. Period. Not at all. Not even a little.
1. She sits like a sack of potatoes.
2. She holds the reins far to tight. Whenever Baby moves, she's tugging on her mouth. I loosen those reins almost constantly. Baby is wonderfully tolerant and soft, but it kinda pisses me off, about to the point where I'm ready to remove them all together.
3. When she -thinks- she's on a loose rein, one side is still tugging and the whole deal is lopsided.
4. She sticks her whole damn foot through the stirrup. Her heels are all over hell and I don't even know which way her toes are pointing.
5. Her whole posture is so out of whack I'm not sure where to begin correcting her.
6. She constantly wants to canter!. She can hardly stay on at a walk! STOP TELLING ME HOW YOU WANT TO CANTER.
7. She kicks with her right foot AND pulls the right rein. Your asking the horse to go left and right, AT THE SAME TIME. I have explained the concept endlessly to her.
8. Her idea of asking the horse to whoa is to pull the reins WAAAAYYY up in the air and veryquietly go 'whoa'. Her seat is saying 'Go', the horse has no idea what's going on in it's mouth, and I'm sitting there thinking 'I hate my life".

She's also been nagging me about buying Baby Girl, who is for sale. She gets $60 a month in allowance. For starters, you can't buy a horse on $60 a month, let alone KEEP a horse. She has also been nagging about leasing Baby.

Look kid, you still CANNOT afford a horse! Let alone be near one unsupervised!

Now her parents won't allow her a horse, for obvious reasons. But what REALLY cranks my chain is that they just dump the girl off on me. Like she's MY problem. I am NOT insured. I am NOT a certified instructor and my horse is definitely NOT a proper lesson horse. She is broke and has a good groundwork foundation, but still needs more schooling!
YES she does well walking in circles in the pasture but that's it! You cannot expect me to teach this kid how to ride!
Don't dump your child off on me and expect her to be my problem! And if you do, you sure as hell better start paying me so I can at least afford the bullet for the damn horse if it breaks it's leg trying to make heads and tails out of her cues!

I literally have to sneak out to my horses now and screen my phone calls just to avoid talking to this people. I'm too damned polite to just say "I'd like to go alone, thank you". I just can't do it! Now that I have TWO horses scrapped up because of that IDIOTIC fence out there, I especially do not want some la-la land beginner out there who is either nagging me about buying/leasing Baby Girl or nagging me about riding! I WANT TO RIDE. ALONE. ON MY HORSE. GOAWAY.

The worst part is that the step-father is my dad's boss. My dads boss is ALWAYS hanging around. And when he finds out we're going to the horses, he just TELLS my dad to pick up Ms. I Can't Ride 2010 WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ME FIRST. NOTHING. I'll be headed out there then all of a sudden "Oh we gotta pick up Kay"

What?! No! Definitely not! KEEP DRIVING.

We JUST lunge now with NO reins (this after two 'lessons') to work on her posture. Hopefully to bore her into chasing boys or something.


Sorry for the novel. I know I sound like a total stuck up, snobby, a-hole who's horses pee gold and poop diamonds, but this has wearing on my last nerves. I'm seriously looking forward to selling Baby and Red, getting Divo trained and saying "Sorry. I have no horses available to ride."
Once Divo's in training, NO ONE rides him but me or another experienced horse person. He's my Dressage prospect, and I'll be damned if some head-in-the-clouds-can't-pay-attention air head goes yanking on his mouth with their ankles in the stirrups and their dead weight all over the place in the saddle.
No one rides Loki as a rule. He's not specially trained, I just don't trust anyone but myself on him.


Anyone else have an experience like this? I kinda wanna crawl into my hole with my horses and hiss at people who walk by.

Hehe, I like your closing sentence
Well, that does sound like a crappy situation! I'd say you need to just tell her or something but honestly I'd be stuck too if I were in your shoes.
Hopefully it's not too long before you get them sold so you can be free!

This sentence made me laugh so hard! Goodness, your "friend" sounds like she's missing something vital...

The whole time I was reading this I was thinking "man if that was me I'd have her on the lunge with no reins and no stirrups!" but it seems we think alike.

Why not give in to her and let her have a little canter? Then see how much she likes riding!!

She's honestly a nice girl, but she's really not quite all there in the mind. I KNOW it's not her fault and she really tries...but arg! She's gotta stay outta the horses mouth and pay a little more attention. I could see if I had a if-it-wouldn't-remember-to-breath-it-would-die horse but my guys just aren't like that.

I'm not even sure Baby knows HOW to canter under saddle. She trots a little bit but honestly she's just a lazy mare meant to wander down some trails. I really need to work her more, she got a little herd-sour prissy on me last time. Her idea of being 'prissy' is just to go even slower until she's pretty much just at a dead stop. Mares. Oi.

-hiss- Begone! RAAAAA BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA -wiggles fingers in a threatening manner-

I'm a very vicious person you know, beware!

I never had your specific problem because all my friends were very competent horse people from a very early age.
When I brought home my first pony, she was sent straight from satan and I don't think any kids wanted to ride her anyways.
My second horse was a flipping mess when I brought him home, so he wasn't a candidate for anything other then feeding apples and petting.
Now my third horse is a beautiful high strung Arab. And when I brought him home I had every person crawling out of the woodwork to ride my pwetty horsey. First my dad thought, you know, who cares if some kids sit on him? My dad bought him so ultimately he had the say - and Cody was having nothing to do with children. The first time someone attempted to pony ride him, he reared so high he almost flipped on them. After that, we resorted to saying "we are not an insured facility to have pony rides. Our horses are high strung, expensive animals who have had lots of training put on them. It would be inappropriate and dangerous for us to put inexperienced people on them, and it is begging for disaster."

It's always worked well. Basically, it's like a "I know you say you won't sue me if your kid gets kicked in the head and is a vegetable, but I know you will, so why don't you go try your luck somewhere else" clause.