Every single place has its pros and cons though Four Star Farm is just constant cons. Let's start with the cleanliness of this facility. The cleanliness of everything surround this place is just plain gross, for example, the Moldy hay the owner refuses to get rid of since she spent money on it, therefore she has to use it. The grain as well has rats living in there plus it's moldy due to her buildings falling apart and leaking. The stalls on the other hand sometimes don't get done for days maybe weeks on end depending on whether kids come out to clean them or not. Another key thing is there is basically a ton of junk not used or that have no use on this property that just sits and rusts, which can hurt a horse if they got out.
The other thing they have going for them is the violation of Child Labor laws. The violation of labor laws includes younger kids cleaning around 24 stalls or more depending on what the owner wants to be done (kids being around 5 or younger maybe 12 or older). All the considered 'older girls' didn't get paid during any of the time they took to 'teach' these kids which were about 4 or more hours of work depending on how long each of the kids stayed. Basically, we were glorified baby sitters that didn't get paid or have a choice to help with these kids. We were also forced to give these kids lessons even though we had paid for a 'lesson' which we never got, the Owner had threatened to not let you ride if you didn't do any of the work or give lessons you couldn't ride.
The third thing has to be the amount of disorganization she had during all of this. The lessons were insanely disorganized due to the fact that we had so many kids and no trainer, so all the kids have learned our bad habits let alone we had no room in our already pretty big arena for almost 9 horses. Along with many parents and kiddos did not sign the waiver or at least the Owner never made sure it was signed at the time of the 'lesson' plus when they were riding not every kid was on a suited horse for there weight and height which led to a lot of horses becoming lame. She also held summer camps which consisted of around a week of riding a horse, learning how to do things involving horses, though many of them have never even touched, sat, or have even seen a horse before. The week of camp was terrible 14 kids or more broken up into different groups doing activities these kids didn't want to do along with the counselors which were just us older girls not getting paid and again being glorified baby sitters whilst teaching these kids how to ride and 'be safe around horses,' while none of us knew how actually be safe around a horse.
One of the last things has to be the amount of neglect and strain put on these horses. A lot of these horses either had riders that were too big, tack that didn't fit properly, food fed to them that was moldy, many of the horses lower on the pecking order became insanely skinny and the Owner didn't care. The Owner refused to call the vet for several horses that were colicing & she was just going to let them die. In fact, she let a 20-year-old horse die of colic along with the person who decided to stay the night and ignore the signs of colic, then waking up the next morning to him dying. The Owner had done the same thing with a miniature horse saying she would watch him overnight even though they also had visible signs of colic. She, the Owner had decided to do this procedure on a horse who had a side bone, she had a not so good vet come on out, pull out the pain nerves in her front legs, waited for them to heal after 2 weeks then put a rider on her and jumped around 5 feet with her having little to no work previously. Though that procedure made her permanently lame since she can't feel her legs any longer due to those nerves bein gone.
The Last and final topic has to be the amount of drama that goes on around here. Since there is no trainer out there ever we girls and I mean literally all girls would ride after giving a lesson the Owner forced us to do or else we didn't ride that day. Going back to no trainer since there was no trainer to give the 'older' girls a lesson it became full-blown chaos and everyone started to get on everyone's back on things which meant a ton of gossip of how each girl was riding. The Owner didn't shut this down when her attention was brought to the situation instead she just sat there and ignored it along with her picking a favorite than her herself deciding to talk crap about the older girls as well. read more
