Monday, January 31, 2011

The New Journey Begins........More Talk and A Little Shift....



Part One

Maybe a month after we made the deal to trade the Arabian horse for training, BG told me there was an inquiry for a young western horse. That grew from an inquiry for one horse into an inquiry for two. The buyer was the sister of a woman with a horse that had been misused by a BNT.

According to BG this woman was sending that problem horse to BG after Scottsdale 2009 to work out his issues. She was going to pay an entire years' board and training, along with extra money for incidentals like vet care etc, right up front. That's how much she trusted BG to do what the horse needed AND it also spoke to how rich this woman was in the first place that she could even afford to make such an upfront payment.

BG weilded this woman's intent to send him a horse like some kind of proof of BG's skills as well as what he and WF could do for me with such connections. Now, after BG and WF's purchase of Storm, this woman's sister suddenly was looking at my horses as the possible western horse prospects she sought. The implication was the interest came because of Storm's purchase. Again the message was I needed them and sticking with them would get my dream on track.

There was an appointment set for the both sisters to come view the horses right after the Scottsdale show when the sister's horse was supposed to arrive. The women would kill two birds with one stone and come to see the safe arrival of the one horse for training and look at two of mine for possible purchase.

Because of this appointment the focus changed from just getting horses safe for me to ride to getting those two horses ready for viewing. Getting young horses ready for me to ride was no longer our only priority. Getting something sold had to take precedent. Starting more young horses would take a back burner as we worked towards sales of horses already started.

There were other changes that were gradually taking place as well. Before we made the deal to trade Storm for training, BG hardly missed a scheduled day of work. We even worked extra days now and then. It seems to me that once the deal was made there became all kinds of reasons for BG to skip working horses.

It wasn't like BG wasn't working horses at all. It was just that there seemed to be some kind of reason nearly every week to skip a day here and a day there or the work day itself was being shortened. The five day work week and five horses a day terms agreed to in the contract were not always being met.

Sometimes those reasons made sense to me. Sometimes they made me wonder. Why the vet appointment for the dog couldn't be made on a day we didn't work horses, don't ask me but I guess you get my drift. The priorities subtly began to change although the way BG talked made it sound like I was his number one priority. It was easier for me to believe what he said than to see what he was doing.

Those changes started off slow and gradually accelerated. Between health issues here and BG got hurt and the weather was rotten for most of that winter so it was easy to think these reasons for not working horses were valid. Looking back there were plenty of days that horses went unworked or that work days were cut short before we even got to the point that I realized there maybe I should be keeping track of what was being done. However, I just didn't see it at the time or maybe I was in denial that I'd put myself into such a vulnerable situation.

At the beginning BG had been keeping a record of which horses were worked. I found his assistant checking horses off that list that had been worked by me. I reminded her I had worked those particular horses myself. She relayed that didn't matter. BG was keeping track of all the horses regardless of who worked them. While it bothered me a bit, it wasn't enough for me to even mention it to BG or inquire why. I just figured dit was one more thing about horse keeping he was being anal about. Only much later would I learn he really wasn't anal about horsekeeping, he was anal about selling himself.

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

A New Year Starts

Visit Blog Village and vote daily for this blog Here They are now measuring the rankings by votes out, so if you find my blog on the site, please click that link too to improve my rankings. TY

9 comments:

  1. This part I too have experienced with a coach/trainer ,did everything right and tlaked the talk ,till she felt she "had me" appeared to think I had much deeper pockets than I do , then slowly seemed to loose focus , but if I asked anything ,I was suddenly demanding!Well, we didn't last ,after being charged for a full 60 days training on a horse that when I got home , had barley been backed , we parted company , we bump into each other from time to time , and she always has a "deal" for me to get involved with , sorry aunshine ! fool me once shame on you fool me twice? Shame on me!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can imagine how you might be in denial--as you said in your story--hoping for the best because you were committed to the process. Unfortunately, I've found, time and time again that when paid up front for services, the work never gets done--or, if it does, a relationship is ruined in the process of demanding it--even when it comes to family. I really, really wish it wasn't that way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow- this guy really is a con artist. He brought you in hook, line, and sinker and then dropped you like a dead fish.

    "Anal about selling himself" and having his assistant check him off for work he didn't do. Geez, if you took him to court you must have had a heck of a time fighting this guy. He was fudging the books right from the start.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey, up the hill in Graham...I left an award for you over at my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Once he got Storm he had no interest in working your horses because he already had what he wanted. A beautiful free Arabian that he could show or sell. This guy really is a piece of garbage, it's too bad you got involved with him, his con games and his ego. I've seen lots of con artists in the horse business and this guy strikes me as a pro with the old shell game.

    I could be wrong but I guess I'll have to wait and see.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ah-hah...so the plot thickens...It wasn't about how many horses HE worked, it was about the number of horses worked at his facility and he was making sure he had the books to 'prove' it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. fern, that was certainly a part of it here although this early into it, the backing off was subtle, or at least it seemed that way to me. AND they didn't have the horse's papers yet.

    paint horse, there's lots more to tell. I think you'll be surprised where this goes.

    Linda, I've certainly sold horses on contracts before where they took the horse right at the start and everything ended up fine. I guess because it was the sale of a horse, it didn't feel risky like paying a contractor or a gardener up front would be. How does one know what's safe and what's not??

    smazourek, well, the real dropping didn' come until later but when it came like a dead fish would certainly fit.

    In the beginning I think he was cooking the books as you say but it got to be too much work. While it was a he said/she said kind of case amd very complicated, I actually had a pretty good handle on it once we got to that point. I knew the ins and outs of his game playing by then as you can probably tell by these posts. I may not have gotten what things meant at the time but the fact they happened didn't escape me.

    Buckskins, thanks for thinking of me.

    Arlene, I still got worked for a while here but in the end, I think it is his ego that did him in. I had a powerful case built against this guy.

    BECG, you're absolutely right. That was definitely a big part of his game.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Just reading this so not too much in the know, but it isn't turning out good I'm guessing.
    A very good friend sent a horse she had bred to a well known trainer who often graces the cover of breed magazines and a pretty similiar story was told; horse not worked as agreed upon. It got worse, with friend's horse being injured and not properly treated. That is just the most recent story I have heard. There are so many it makes me very leery of some of these trainers.
    I'm thankful to have known mine for 13 years.
    Sorry you had to go through this.

    ReplyDelete