Feeling Annoyed

Well, I'm glad that my horse has been wonderful because other stuff at the barn has been pissing me off this week.

First, there was a last-minute announced jumping clinic at the barn that had the arena booked from 9-5 on Saturday and Sunday. Whatever, it happens. 

Because of the arena use, I didn't ride on Sunday as I didn't want my first ride in over a week on a fresh horse to be out in the field (when I was still low on energy from my head cold) and I had to be up early the next morning for work so didn't want to ride in the evening. I got the horses tails done, it was all good. 

But then they left the jumps up from the clinic, which include a course with a line along the track on one side. And because I'm working early, I'm heading out right after work to ride, which is when lessons are happening. 

On Monday I had to try to ride around two people jumping in a lesson, another person in the same lesson working on flatwork, a different lesson with a nervous beginner on the lunge line, and someone who was only circling at one end. 

On Tuesday I checked to see how big the lesson was before tacking up - it was only two people, and there was no one else getting ready, so I rushed to get into the arena before anyone else showed up. It was much better than the previous night until someone else came in, who is a bit of a green rider, and I could never be quite certain where they were going. 

Nonetheless, I managed to pop Cisco over a few of the little jumps once the lesson was over. Really, I just said fuck it, called a line, and made people get out of my way. The benefit of warm-up ring experience!

The constant transitions that I had to do to not get run over were quite beneficial to Cisco, and I was quite happy with how he went, considering that it was all start-and-stop.

However, people annoying me didn't stop in the arena.

Our barn doesn't have a designated grooming area. You just tie your horse in front of a stall down the aisle. The aisle is a bit too wide to cross-tie, so they are just tied to the stall front. 

There's lots of space. It's a long aisle.

But people feel the need to tie their horse as close to the end where their tack is as possible. Even if there is already a horse tied there. 

It drives me insane. There is no sense of safety - the worst culprits seem to be the ones that get hurt most often. 

I will happily tie my horse half-way down the barn if it means that I can have space to myself and be out of everyone else's way, and will walk back-and-forth to my tackbox and schlep my stuff back to where my horse is parked. I'm older than almost everyone else, and probably put in way more steps in a day, and I have no problems walking a bit further to keep me and my horse safe.

But even then, someone will park their horse right next to mine, and say "isn't it nice that they get along?". Grrr.

The worst is that they tie two horses that they have to feed on opposite sides of the aisle, and since these horses get a ton of grain and take like 30 minutes to eat, the person wanders away and isn't near the horses. So when you want to lead your horse through, no one is there to move horse butts to the side and make sure that eating horses don't get snarky.

Oh - and they park them in front of the main overhead door that you have to stand in front of and wait for it to open.

I need to put my bitch face on and tell them to move their horse. The barn owner won't do anything about it - she walked right through some of the worst of it on Monday night and didn't bat an eye. 

It's not always like this, I just happened to be out on Monday and Tuesday when the certain people who are culpable for this were out. They just happen to have multiple horses so it seems like it's more people than it really is.

The arena thing - total first-world problem. It's annoying because it's out of the norm. I get it, it's short-term.

The barn thing - someone is going to get hurt. Probably one of the people who always get hurt. 

(Vent over)