The Traz Saga Continues...

There is so much drama that I don't even know how to go about writing about it all. I've been trying to find the words for a week. Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook already know that Alcatraz is back at my barn along with his owners' other horse, Jay Jay. I'm going to try to tackle this chronologically.

You already know how I felt about the trainer at the barn Traz was at. That feeling has escalated to 'I want to run this woman over with a bus' and I don't even remotely feel the need to be professional about it. If I had any faith in the actual privacy of my blog, I'd probably just out the barn and trainer right now, but it's not worth the drama.

Last week, when I was out with Jen, Tor, and Romeo, I got a voice mail from Lindsay's mom. The more of the message I heard, the lower my jaw dropped.

Apparently Lindsay was riding Tiger in the outdoor arena, practicing some low cross rails. She jumped one of the jumps and it went fine, but after the jump, Tiger tripped and fell to his knees. Lindsay lost her stirrups and ended up on his neck. When he got back up, he bucked in protest and she came off. She landed badly and hit her head hard on the packed outdoor footing. She was wearing a helmet, but ended up badly concussed anyway. In fact, she lost consciousness for a few minutes.

The trainer saw it happen and didn't do anything.

Eventually, Lindsay got up, caught Tiger, and dizzily walked him back to the barn, where she asked one of the other girls to help her put the horse away. The other girl replied, "[the trainer] told me not to help you. I don't want to get in trouble."
Lindsay asked, "So she knows I fell off?"
"Yeah, she says she doesn't care."

There was yet another girl there who was kind enough to help Lindsay get Tiger put away. By then, Lindsay was sitting on a tack trunk, waiting for her brother to come get her and crying.

Let's recap:
We have a fourteen year old kid who has had a bad fall and is injured and crying in the barn.

The trainer walked right into the barn, looked directly at Lindsay, and didn't say a word.

As you can imagine, Lindsay's mom was furious. The next day was the first of the month and the trainer came around asking for board. Lindsay's mom told her to go fuck herself, wrote her a nasty letter, and moved her horse and dropped the lease on Tiger all at once. The barn owners (who are actually really nice people and are trying to find a legal way to break their fourteen month lease with this trainer so they can kick her off their property ASAP) kindly offered to let Lindsay take Tiger with her to her new barn, but finances won't allow it.

I don't even have the words to describe my reaction to all this. I'll let you guys fill in the blanks.

The following day, I arrived for my lesson with Lisa. I could tell the moment I stepped out of the car that there was more drama about to unfold.

It turns out that the trainer was about to lose yet another lease/lesson horse. She has been using Jay Jay, a 19 year old Azteca gelding, in her lesson program. One of her students, another teenage girl, has been leasing Jay Jay for longer than I've been in the picture. The horse has been getting grand champion at shows all across New Jersey and is probably the best horse the trainer has in her program. Jay Jay has been doing the four foot jumpers, with the understanding that he's 19 years old and will need to slow down eventually.

Apparently, Jay Jay has been experiencing some lameness, but the trainer didn't say anything to Lisa and her dad. Instead, she just kept on using him in lessons and jumping him three and a half feet. It finally caught up to him, and when he went to Garden State last weekend, the staff said, "Yeah, I don't think so. That horse is lame, take him home." Soooooo... the trainer took him home, threw him in a field, and didn't say anything, hoping that nobody would notice. She then took his Coggins and used it to enter a second, unvaccinated horse in the show.

I'll let that sink in for a minute. Trainer cripples horse, lies about it, then uses his paperwork to ride at the show anyway.

Lisa and her dad wanted me to look Jay over and, after watching him trot out, I told them to call a vet. The vet diagnosed an injury to his right front ankle, and advised a week of pasture rest and a re-evaluation. If the problem persists, he'll need joint injections, but we're not there yet. He is definitely done jumping higher than 2'6", though.

The vet visit revealed some other issues that the trainer had been lying about. They're not important enough to get into, but they were the absolute last straw for Lisa's dad (this is his horse). Shit really hit the fan that afternoon.

So, on Sunday night, I got a frantic call from Lisa asking if she could move Traz and Jay Jay to my barn. I initially told her no. I'm not a boarding facility (I do take clients for full training board, but regular board isn't worth it financially, and I have a limited number of slots to fill). Plus we haven't expanded the front pasture yet and had just had it limed so we couldn't expand it until it rained. With the department of ag program about to begin, I'm not sure what the fencing/seeding situation is going to be in the upcoming months. On top of all that, Carolyn is having some insurance glitches with the farm and had just told me that she wasn't comfortable bringing in client horses until all that was resolved (I 100% agree).

I did go in and talk to Carolyn about the whole situation after I got off the phone. The biggest issue for Lisa and her dad was that they had 24 hours to get the horses moved. As you can imagine, that's not much time at all. To my surprise, her response was, "Well, the extra board money would be nice."

And the very next day, a trailer came up my driveway and two horses unloaded into my not-boarding-facility. I will admit it's good to have Alcatraz back. I missed his silly chestnut face in my barn.

Here's the part that really angers me though (and you'll have to excuse me if I've said any of this before).... Alcatraz looks like some sort of SPCA rescue case.

This is what Alcatraz looked like when I had him in January. I spent a lot of time putting weight on him and fixing his feet and I had him barefoot and on a hay-only diet. He is by no means a hard keeper:

This is what Alcatraz looked like when he unloaded on Monday:

Yeah. The trainer stopped feeding him out of spite when Lisa told her she couldn't use him in lessons any more. That's right. She takes her anger at people out on defenseless animals. I had told Lisa to go out and buy grain and feed him herself, but he dropped a ton of weight anyway. Rumor has it that none of the horses at that farm got fed this week. After all, the trainer lost four boarders and two lease horses in one week. She's not exactly rolling in the dough.

I weight taped Traz when he arrived. He was at 1030. He should be around 1150. In less than a week, he has visibly put on weight. He is so hungry that it breaks my heart. I feed him and he just doesn't lift his head from the feed pan. I throw him three scoops of grain and he vacuums it down. I put a big bucket of chopped alfalfa in the pan and he just eats and eats. The first day, I put half a bale of hay in the feeder. Half an hour later, it was completely gone. He comes galloping across the pasture every time he sees me.

Did I mention that his feet were crumbling from the lack of nutrition? I had my trimmer come out and do an emergency trim on him before he went lame. Not to mention he's so body sore that he doesn't even want to be brushed.

Don't get me wrong, Lisa and her dad are not completely blameless in all of this. There is no excuse for an animal to go through this. Boarding facility or not, it is your responsibility to advocate for your animals. If the barn's not feeding him, you search for a new barn, and in the meantime, you drive out there twice a day and feed your own horse. I do think they just don't know enough to fix it without help, and they just needed to get the hell out of that barn, but the whole situation makes me want to shake people and cry at the same time.

The good news is that both horses settled right in to life at Cat Tail Farm.

I put Jay Jay out back in the big pasture with Art, Rue, and Ozzy. He's a chunky, easy keeper and there's more than enough grass to support him out there. He spent the first few days off by himself before buddying up with Rue. The two of them are joined at the hip now and spend hours grazing with their noses touching. When he first unloaded, Jay Jay trotted the entire field, eyes bugging out of his head like, "I've never seen this much grass in my life!" He wouldn't even come over to Lisa's dad when it was time to say goodbye. Of course, when I went to get pictures of him, he decided to be boring and could barely be coerced into a trot. He seems to have picked up on the new routine (I go out and groom Ozzy every night with a handful of cookies, and Jay Jay has figured out that he can get scratches and treats if he comes up with the other horses).

Alcatraz went out front by the barn so I can bring him in to feed easily. He's living with Dancer and JR. He and JR just ignore each other, and he and Dancer seem to remember living together. But, more than anything, Alcatraz is just happy to have his mini back. It was a Disney-style reunion.

Alcatraz just about broke my heart the first night. The last time he was here, I had a bucket hooked up on a fence post for him. When I fed Dancer that first night, Alcatraz walked over to that same fence post and stared at me like, "I remember! This is where you feed me!"

So there you have it. I'm barely on my feet and I've got boarders banging my door down. It must be all my abusive horse care practices.

I included some photos from the first night so this entry isn't all doom and gloom.

JR is definitely not in need of groceries, and is getting a muzzle when we expand the pasture.

  

Jay Jay, the Azteca (Andalusian/QH).

Investigating all the grass.

Half assed trot.

Bob trying to get in Kathy's car.

Traz reunited with Imari. When he stands like this you can't tell how skinny he is, but the withers give him away.

Lisa didn't recognize Dancer when she saw him.

I think he may get dapples when I get him out on more grass.

Did I mention this is the 'over grazed' paddock?

Ozzy and Rue hanging out in the shade.