PUT AN END TO BARN DRAMA

While it’s impossible to prevent all discord at the barn, conflict resolution techniques can help solve problems, restore calm and enable everyone to enjoy their horses.

- Joanne L. Belasco, Esq.

To people outside the horse world, the idea of handling unpredictable animals that weigh upwards of 1,000 pounds seems nothing short of death-defying. But, for many of us, the challenge of working with horses is not nearly as daunting as contending with the other volatile creatures we sometimes encounter at the barn. You know what I’m talking about: barn drama and the people who create it.

If you don’t frequent a boarding stable or large riding facility, you may not have firsthand experience with the simmering tensions---and worse---that sometimes darken the atmosphere where horsepeople gather. But barn drama is fairly common (some would say inevitable) where individuals who have invested time and money on equestrian pursuits share amenities and interact regularly. Trouble may start with something minor, perhaps a borrowed currycomb or a disagreement about training philosophies, but things can get ugly with surprising speed. And when they do, disputes may lead to shouting matches, whisper campaigns and outright criminality involving vandalism, theft or even assault.