Monday, July 14, 2008

More Barn Drama

Things are sadly approaching the enemy action stage at the barn. I got up to see Ace around 5:30 on Sunday afternoon and discovered he had a manger full of feed-room sweepings for his dinner. The sign on his door says "no alfalfa" and he had half a bale of his specified 3-way hay sitting in the feed room. It wasn't even good alfalfa in the manger, just dusty shattered leaves and some short twigs of oat, and pellets, and god knows what else. I cleaned out almost a full bushel of the stuff. Then, while I was being very upset and talking to another boarder who is also a lawyer, Ace went running after the mare Kathy had out in the arena and she went down, hitting the fence and skidding.

Kathy took over this mare a couple of months ago after caring for her at the barn down the street out of the goodness of her heart. She looks like a quarab, but we really don't know for sure. She's a flea-bitten gray and god only knows how old. Kathy can't ride her, she just takes her for walks. And she's got wounds which don't seem to heel and lots of scrapes all over her. She's the only mare at our barn.

Even though Kathy had told me it was o.k. to turn Ace out with her, I felt so guilty about the new scrapes and I was pretty horrified when she wouldn't get up at first. But she did get up and Kathy cleaned up her boo-boos and then we put some Bigeloil on the spot that appeared to be really sore. Nothing appeared to be broken.

I went home feeling pretty sick to my stomach about Reina and whomever decided to feed Ace trash rather than his food. On Sundays, there's only a small chance of catching anyone to talk to about problems. I don't know who actually fed. I called Gina this morning and let her know what I found last night. I can only be grateful that Ace had pretty much turned up his nose at what was placed in his feeder and there was that much left 90 minutes after he must have been fed.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to talk to Gayle about moving him again. I'm not about to leave my last month's rent behind, so the earliest I can be out is August 31. I wish Gayle could find a place for all of her students to be.

2 comments:

Grey Horse Matters said...

It's not a good situation when you are unhappy about the barn conditions your horse is living in. I hope you find a place you like by the end of August, and if Gayle can't move her students maybe she can travel to give lessons.

M. C. Valada said...

Gayle already travels to give lessons, ever since we all left the beautiful but totally crazy place about 15 months ago. With gas prices, you don't want to travel too far, so we are all within about a mile of where her main training place is.