'disagree with everything you said'
Well, that's ok. Sounds like you're taking it in a way it was not at all intended, but I won't attempt to argue with you about it.
It does seem like you have made the right choice (to move). I do believe that thing about how relationships simply sour sometimes and there's no repairing them. Especially when someone is being victimized, it's usually impossible to change a relationship from aggressor-victim to equal-equal.
Most of us have had to leave a barn sometime. Even a verbal agreement to give notice can be binding in court, so often I see people will pay on the 1st of the month and then pull out immediately, and pay for their new barn that month too. It can be a way to get a deposit back (and some barns want two months' board as their deposit) and avoid worry about if the horse will be mistreated, but of course it's expensive. A lot of people seem to feel it's preferable to leaving any opportunity for the barn owner to complain to others.
I have been around boarding barns, horses and horse people for about fifty years now. Everything from hippies to cowboys to international trainers, backyard barns to some really nice facilities. And I know that in most places, barn survival skills do come in handy. I had to learn to have a thick skin too, and it was not easy.
welsummerchicks... there is plenty wrong with many things you posted. however what really annoyed me about your post was telling everyone that all horses WILL kick some one in their lives, let alone by the time they are 4. my 20 year old gelding has never kicked or bit a human in his life, another horse, a cow or two and the annoying neighbor dogs have gotten into it with him and lost. but a sane horse that is properly raised and trained from the day its born IS NOT DESTINED TO KICK. I live down the road from the women who bred my horse, we are good friends and come to think of it, my horses mamma lived till her late 20s and never bit or kicked a human. two of my horses brothers I can be positive have never bit or kicked a human. not even a nudge or a Im gonna hold my foot up and think about it. the rest of his siblings I dont have daily contact with so I dont know. sure accidents happen, and absolutely they can happen with wild untrained animals. but to say every horse will kick is off your rocker.
The old saying is that the only horse that won't kick is a dead horse sounds kind of harsh to modern ears, but I believe that it is pretty much true. When I am around horses, I assume they COULD kick, no matter how sweet, gentle and well trained they are, and I stay out of the line of fire.
A friend of mine was hand grazing her horse. He was a very, very gentle animal, and had always been very easy to deal with, was about 3. A horse fly bit him, he spun around. She got kicked in the elbow. 3 surgeries later she still did not have normal motion in her arm. This is a perfectly nice horse, not a mean bone in his body. Sometimes things go wrong.
When I was young, I worked on a number of large breeding farms -mostly race horses, but other breeds as well, and my experience has been, babies kick, in general.
I'm sure there's one from time to time that doesn't ever even lift a foot to anyone, but most I'd say, they do kick. Not that they connect, hurt or maim. One place I worked had 50 colts and 50 fillies born a year. They kicked, they reared, they pulled, and they learned not to do these things through training. I must say the colts were much more so than the fillies. Sometimes the two year olds were a lot more difficult to handle than the weanlings or yearlings.
My friend had a very, very quiet young mare she often rode bareback over to our place with a halter, on the road (a quiet subdivision road). One day, she took piece of paper and opened it up, and it scared the horse, and she fell off and got kicked. That was the sweetest most darling quiet mare. And very well bred.
One trainer I know was teaching a clinic, she got kicked in the cheekbone. That was a quiet old horse that had never done anything like that. She is permanently in pain, the nerve in her face got damaged.
These were not mean or bad animals, not in the least. They were just young, untrained, or startled. Just like a foal that doesn't realize a fence is a barrier. They just don't know anything. Patient, firm, consistent, non brutal non abusive training, repetition, familiariizing them with things that frighten them and caused them to react, or they just try to play with a human like they would another horse. That was my job and there were older workers who were in vet school as well. And all of us went home bruised, scraped, bumped and usually very, very happy. Because horses do learn quickly and it's fun despite the mishaps.
And like the other lady, I say that's just fine if you think I'm wrong, stupid, etc. That's your perogative. I won't stoop to insulting you like you insulted me, though.
You will see it the way you want to see it....your experiences have been different from mine. I've been around a lot of babies and young horses.
I pretty much assume a horse could kick, and as the old gal I first learned from always said, 'ALL HORSES KICK'. Not that literally, every single horse that ever lived, swung at a human and maimed or killed one. But this - that she wanted us to behave, position ourselves, and proceed, AS IF all horses kick, and think to ourselves always, all horses kick.
And I do. And unlike many horse people I know, in 50 yrs, I have never been severely kicked (knock on wood) because of how this lady taught us to position ourselves.
But the kindest, sweetest horse I ever knew, the one my friend called 'born twenty two years old', even he kicked once as a youngster. Something startled him, he spun round and kicked out without thinking. His hoof barely brushed my leg. Whatever scared him, scared him to death. He would start to breathe faster and look around every time he passed by there. I spent a lot of time, patting on him, working around him, talking to him, rubbing him with a rag, with blankets, etc. Again, not a mean bone in his body, just a mistake.
Even my sweet old retired horse, his vision is going, and occasionally he gets startled, and he is a big boy, we are careful around him. We arrange things so he has his routine. My spouse takes him for walks, but only in a familiar small area. The two old men together, LOL.
