Drama

Ruled the barn tonight.

The H/J trainer, who is months behind on her board, finally got evicted by the BM. She is now playing the victim, telling her clients she has no idea why she is being evicted, despite the multitude of warnings she has received. Since most of her clients are young teen girls addicted to the joy/terror of jumping, this resulted in tears, sobs, and general hysteria. One of the young women has a particularly close relationship to one of the H/J trainer's horses. She is devastated by the forced move (if she goes with the trainer to a new barn) or will be devastated by the separation with her beloved horse if she doesn't. I really want to point out to her that the H/J trainer has been living in her camper trailer on the barn property with all of her stuff, not paying rent, not paying board, but still collecting from her clients. Seems really irresponsible to me and very likely to happen again, especially since this trainer has been evicted from most of the barns in the area.

I want to tell the young woman to cut her losses: either offer to buy the horse from the trainer or find a new horse to ride. I know, I know, not that cut and dry when you are sixteen and in love with your horse. It's easy to react with all of the teen angst and maudlin sorrow of losing your most beloved horse, which makes me even madder at the H/J trainer, but I also want to take her aside and point out that she is risking the same thing in another six months or a year, if the trainer can even find a place to move to.

I think trying to make a living by training horses and giving lessons has to be a difficult. No regular paycheck, living at the whim of your clients, having to coach performance from the riders you teach or risk losing them to a trainer who will get them to place where they can win ribbons. None of that sounds appealing. And all of it sounds difficult. But this H/J trainer compounded the issue by owning schooling horses (12) she wasn't taking care of. She was charging her clients, but not paying for her horses. Wouldn't that be the first thing you would do?

So, there was a lot of tension and angst, tears and recriminations. I refused to get drawn in to the drama and walked away when the trainer was looking for sympathy. I didn't think it would help matters for me to be involved.

Ashke did pretty good today. N and Cali rode with us. We did walk-trot transitions and he fought me a lot. We did some cantering and he did that really well. I could see us doing W/T/C on the correct lead in both directions without any issue by the end of the winter. N is going to ride with us tomorrow and we are going to do the Fairmount trail at a trot, see if we can average 6 mph, and let the horses relax a bit. I think we both need a break from the dressage arena for a little bit.

I think the browband looks amazing on Cali. Too bad I can't take a good photo.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but the red is shaded. Looks so much better in real life.