I am so sad and frustrated. Everything seemed to go so nicely! My gelding and his older friend were alone for some weeks, and today the two mares are coming home. I went trail riding twice last week and it went very well. Also the owner of the other horse took mine along for a fast ride once. Now the weather is very bad and I thought I could easily leave him alone for the weekend.
But now the stable owners are back from their holiday and tell me my horse hurt one of the trees. I did not see it, but they are right: one of the trees has huge parts of its skin eaten off. The protection is gone. This certainly is bad enough by itself, but then she went into telling me exactly how bad a horse owner I am:
that I should work him more, that he is bored and will start to develop bad habits (she is a vet). With her accusations she hits me where it hurts most: I KNOW I don´t work him enough! I know I am not the best possible horse owner! But I TRY so very hard! And I thought we were making progress.
This all seems so useless now: I can give my best but it will never be enough. She also told me that when she had a horse, she worked him much more. I am sure that´s true: but it was before she had a family, and the horse was certrainly kept in a closed stable. My horse is kept in an open paddock with stables, and they go to the pasture for several hours a day. I know I only work him about three times a week, but then I try to do different things with him, to keep him motivated. And my two fellow horse owners at the stable do try and support me where they can, by taking him along or even riding him from time to time.
I wish that the stable owner could aknowledge my effort, and not just hit me over the head with accusations. It is not that I believe she knows all that well, but she lives in the house next to the stable and I have to get along. I also feel that she is very lucky to have us as tenants, as we always payour rent on time, we keep the paddock, the stables and the pastures very clean, we try to keep to the agreed hours, we always listen to her and her husband…
The rent is high and we don´t get any service, we do it all ourselves: buy the feed, the hay, the straw, repare what is broken, organize the transport of the manure, talk to the farmers who own the pastures and so on. But from the beginning it was clear that they don´t respect me and see me as some idiot who does not know a thing about horses. They knew from the beginning that we had different opinions on horse care and still did agree to the contract.
Most of the time they seemed happy enough: they told us themselves that the horses are quiet and friendly and a pleasure to watch. But I knew of course that in their heads they did continue to judge me stupid. I was glad we did not meet too often. It´s a lovely family, but we are just too different to mix. But the confrontation today (if you can call something a confrontation, where on person accuses and the other listens) hurt me lots.
Too bad there isn´t really any alternative to this stable in our village. And even it there was: it is ideal to have the horse right across the street, especially in my case, without a car and a drivers licence. Last night I did dream about moving to another stable and it was just plain horrible.
Filed under: me as a horse owner, me as a loser
