Different Kind of Journey - an Attempt to Intercede and a Final Payment

This Story Begins Here

At this show I did something out of character for me. I was so distraught and wanting to fix things and still unable to catch the owner alone, I stopped and had a conversation with the mahogany gelding's significant other. I had met the man before and gotten on quite well with him. He seemed like a reasonable man so I thought he might just listen to me and share with the owner what I'd said.

We had a long talk and I explained what I saw happening and how I thought it would affect the show career of the horse and his future sale value among other things. The owner had paid a lot of money for this horse and she expected a horse she could compete with at the national level. The way this horse was being trained, he wasn't even going to be worth what she'd paid let alone ever working to his potential. It was and is my opinion this horse was not working to his potential because his training had blocked his natural correct way of going and his ability to work his best because of this interference. I asked the man to intercede for the horse since I could not get to owner without having to deal with YW too and he assured me he would.

It didn't take long for me to know this tactic had not been useful. Later the following week I got a letter from the owner. She had been talked to all right and she was not happy, not happy with me.

It was clear from her letter that she didn't see things the same way that I did. She was pleased with YW's training and thought her horse was doing just fine. What she was concerned about was my behavior. I got a firm scolding for taking advantage of YW by not paying her a finder's fee ( the fee that had been waived) on the sale of the horse and not appreciating all she had done at my open house and was doing for me by getting my Legs' babies into the ring. She reminded me that had it not been for YW she never would have purchased this horse. I should be grateful. She was most upset that I had not talked to "us" (meaning she and YW) and instead I had chosen to speak to her significant other. Now he was doubting her choices in choosing a trainer and it was all my fault.

While it is unfortunate it turned out this way, it did not surprise me. The horse that this owner had put in training with YW before buying my gelding had had a hard go with the previous trainer. This owner had not realized anything was wrong at the time either. It was only in hindsight based on what she was told by YW and me that she had seen that this mare had been mistreated.

Despite years of horse ownership, the woman didn't know enough about training or riding for that matter to be able to tell the good from the bad. Unfortunately for many horses, she is not alone. There are way more horses out there being ruined with inappropriate training practices than there are horses being trained correctly, if you ask me. Most of those owners believe they are doing the right thing by their horse so it just keeps going on. The horses that are ruined are discarded and new ones sent to the very same trainers who ruined the discarded models in the first place.

Over time nothing improved with either of these geldings. I even heard that the gelding that had been purchased by YW herself was frequently tossing her onto the ground. I can't say that surprised me at all. I'd told YW before she even bought this horse that he was a bit stand offish and really needed to trust to be able to perform. He was and is a horse that needed kindness and patience to learn. Pushing him too fast or beating him up because he didn't do as expected would most certainly ruin this horse and yet both tactics are primary parts of YW's training.

The time came for YW to make her final payment on this horse and she not only claimed I owed her for a fee which she had waived but she billed me for training for Vee. I stood my ground about the fee she now thought she was entitled to receive after I double checked with my daughter and granddaughter to see if they remembered our conversation about the fee.

Both assured me they had been present when YW said she didn't expect a fee on the sale. I knew I had other conversations with YW about my practice of quoting prices and making sure people knew that did not include commission and we'd ever discussed my pricing on this particular horse and that a commission would be added on for any buyer coming with a trainer expecting a fee.. We'd even had YW had stated at that time she thought that was totally reasonable and she could see why I wouldn't even consider taking less for this particular horse.

Since by now I'd had enough experience with YW lying to me and others, I was comfortable she knew full well she was not entitled to a commission. I did not challenge what she wanted to deduct for training Vee however. I wasn't really ready to go down that road yet even though there was plenty of evidence that she did nothing with Vee. I knew from what she originally told me that she hadn't worked Vee, with a witness present, then the timing from then when I took the mare home and the condition the mare was in when I picked her up, it just was not possible that she had worked Vee the number of times she claimed BUT I was worried about my relationship with HM and really wondered if it was worth pushing it so I just let it be.

I am not normally an enabler. I tend to hold people accountable for their bad behavior because I think enabling is not really helpful to anyone. However, I didn't stick to my beliefs in this situation and it came back to bite me later. If I had it to do over, I would have insisted she pay the amount she charged me to train Vee but there's that hindsight again.

It was actually HM who met Dave and delivered the final payment on the horse. They paid what I said must be paid and Dave delivered the papers. Personally it was a sad day as I wondered what would come of this horse now that he did belong to YW. It was the closing of a chapter for this horse and me, but a whole new one was coming for YW and me.

To be continued................

Wrapping Up Loose Ends

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