The Horses Are Out

This week I had a few stop where the horses were out when I got to the barn. It happens, I’m not mad or anything, but it does cause hassles.

I’m not mad because I have the best clients and this kind of thing rarely happens. When they inevitably ask that I don’t fire them or be upset, I always tell them that its fine and just remember this happened if I ever make a mistake. Nobody is perfect and there is nothing wrong with making a mistake, its just how its handled and how much effort we put into putting reputational capital into the relationship.

In this case, there is more to the story…

See, this is in Goshen, OH and last week there was a hurricane that hit this area. I had a few horses scheduled in the area the morning after the storm hit but obviously that all got postponed. Today was the first time that I attempted to get into the area. It was a lot worse than I thought.

This is very close to our place and I feel lucky. None of my clients had any injuries to people or animals, but there was plenty of property damage and a ton of trees to deal with. I didn’t get any pictures of the damage as I drove around the area, but it was a lot of damage.

Any, I tried to get to this barn yesterday afternoon, but literally all the roads were blocked by crews out cleaning up the roads. I drove around the area for a good 40 mins or so before I gave up and decided to try again today. Like I said earlier, this isn’t very far from my home.

I was able to get through this morning. There were tons of crews still out, but they were letting traffic through. The problem is that the owner forgot to tell the barn I was coming.

Since he was out and I couldn’t find anyone at the time, I circled back later in the day.

I don’t know if it shows, but this fellow needs some attention. He is an old guy and he had shoes on, but he threw them and tore his hooves up between throwing them and then stomping at flies in the terrible weather.

I trimmed him as conservatively as possible. He is a little sore and I don’t want to make him any more sore by taking too much off, but the jagged and sharp edges of the hoof wall do need to be smoothed up to as to promote more organized growth. Its a delicate balance and I’ve gone over the line lately on a couple of horses because its really hard not to when they are already on the line or past it anyway.