The New Journey Begins........Settling In.....

Part One

Besides not strictly working horses by the numbers laid out in the contract, there were other boundaries that got pretty clouded too. My time began to be unimportant. I could find myself standing around for long periods of time waiting on BG. BG working 4 or 5 of my horses could take all day.

That day could sometimes run from 8 am to 8 pm because BG was now fitting in those horses of his he had to work. Even though in the beginning, he'd made my horses the priority and finished up his after I was gone. Where originally we'd gone one after the other down my string first, now I could find myself waiting for one even sometimes two or three other horses to be worked.

I am not a patient person. I have never been. Standing around is not something I do easily. Instead of standing there waiting on BG I began doing more with the horses he was supposed to be working to give me something to do. I did whatever I could do to get myself and my horses out of there without wasting my time waiting on BG. If BG said anything about it I just told him I wasn't happy standing around. I needed to be doing something so that's what I did.

In the beginning when BG was working horses for me for free, we did the work of grooming, tacking up and untacking horses together except for Reflection. I was paying for training on that horse and all those things were being provided like any trainer does. Clients aren't expected to be at the barn doing such things.

Yet once the contract began on Storm, I was soon doing mostly all of the tacking up, untacking and cooling out of the horses that BG was now being paid to train. If I didn't do those things I would end up standing around waiting sometimes a half hour even more before he'd get to my horse. I found I could sometimes keep things moving along by having horses ready for BG and then taking one off his hands so that's what I did to get me and my horses out of there each day.

I even rode many of those horses each day. Once it got to the point the horses were safe for me to ride I was on them. Sometimes I even did take up to three loads of horses over there to be worked. Some were lunged, some long lined and others ridden. Sometimes it was a combination of things. The work was split depending on BG's schedule and his mood and how fast he was moving. By the end of the day, I was collapsed in a heap staring off into space I was so exhausted. He was equally as tired.

I know whenever I brought horses I was being very careful not to cross what I thought was that line of 5 horses per day for BG to work. I didn't want to take advantage or burn BG out before we got the horse paid off. I figured like any trainer I've ever worked with that me working counted in as a credit in computing those numbers.

I believed from the many conversations we'd had that these things would all settle out in the end. BG had assured me he would never take advantage of me. I could count on him making things right in the long run and that's exactly what I did. I counted on BG being fair about the amount of work he was really doing and what he would charge me for.

This whole time we're working horses together those funny life things were coming up for him and for me. I tried to help him if I could and he helped me.

Once when my truck broke down, BG set up pens in the arena so I could leave the three horses stuck in the horse trailer at his place over night . I tried to pay him for the use of those pens but he dismissed me with a "What are friends for?" statement.

There were a couple of other times where my truck was in the shop so BG decided he would come here using his truck and my horse trailer to haul horses to work. Whenever he did that, I tried offering him money for fuel but was again met with that comment, "What are friends for?"

After I began working Rhet and Scarlet for halter, BG asked me if I would help him train another yearling for halter. He had clients with a half-Arabian colt that wanted to show Sweepstakes too. BG could do the conditioning but he didn't know how to teach the colt to stand up for halter. Without some way to get the horse trained, BG would be unable to bring the horse into his facility.

BG wanted to know if I would do the training for him. He said he'd pay me for that training but I declined because as an amateur I cannot be paid for training. I told him I would train this colt to stand up for him to help him out but I would not accept any payment. Some times as I taught this half Arabian yearling to stand up, BG lunged Scarlet or Rhet for me.

BG's mother got really sick in the early spring. Even though he had a love/hate relationship with her he told me he wanted to go see her but he was worried about his obligation to me. I told him not to worry about that. If he needed to go, he should do that. The horses could wait until the timing was better.

The fact his mother was supposedly critical started me thinking. What if something happened to me before the contract was fulfilled? We hadn't made any kind of provisions for that in the contract and I didn't want WF (who I believed to be his wife) not able to keep the horse because he wasn't paid for.

I suggested to BG that maybe it would be wise to add a provision to our contract. If anything happened to him WF could pay off the balance owed with money the horse earned in the Sweepstakes program. That way she could still keep the horse and get him shown and I would still get my money.

BG told me he would have to talk to WF about it and he'd get back to me. Within a day or two he said that they both agreed the provision to pay off the horse with Sweepstakes monies in the case of BG's death was acceptable to them.

I mentioned at this time that we really needed to sit down and get all these terms on paper. BG seemed to nod his head in agreement but still nothing was done. Each time I brought it up, I was either ignored, the subject was changed or I got that nod of his head. We went on as usual with nothing in writing and a whole lot on the line for me.


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

A Turning Point

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