Irresponsible people and their out-of-control kids give eveyone grey hair. My son has done a couple things that freaked me out(playing in a storm drain during a rain storm!!!!) However, just going on someone's property and getting into the animals is really,really wierd. After the storm drain incident(he came home and confessed that he did something stupid.) I made sure he has more structured activities to spend with his friends. I hope these parents get a clue and do the same! PJ

I don't Kristi, I think I might have invited them to come and see me and I would teach them about taking care of horses and riding them and let them know that the horses could be very dangerous if they didn't really understand them. And I might have tried to impress on them that they would be welcome to ride them only if they came and asked me first.

Course, they're not my horses, and I wasn't there so I can't say for sure that I wouldn't have reacted exactly the same way you did. Still, when I was a girl, we had some neighbors who had horses and I wanted to be around them so bad I could taste it every day. But I never was invited, and they never rode them either. I would have been thrilled to be allowed to muck out a stall or brush the mud off the horses, but I never was.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth. I didn't know you had horses, if I did I might have followed you home from our last swap and snuck into your pasture myself...haha. Just call me an out-of-control Grandma! Don't tell my mom, ok? Cheryl

Well Cheryl, that would be very noble of you. If you haven't been around horses all of your life and been hurt by them, and had friends hurt and killed by them, perhaps this would be a natural response. I know that none of my horses would hurt anyone *with intent*. BUT, the oldest horse I have (21 years old), and the same one that one of the girls was on, will buck your @ss off when he gets tired of being ridden....and as of about 4 years ago, that doesn't take very long.

When you have first hand experience of how powerful they are, your first response when you see something like that is fear and that's what happened with me. And this may sound callous, but if I wanted to provide riding lessons for the neighborhood kids, that's what I would be doing. However, every horse (6 of them) in my pastures has worked HARD in their lives for me. They are here now to be left alone to be horses and eat grass, roll in mud, play and fight with eachother. In other words whatever THEY want to do. Not what humans want them to do.....not anymore. In my mind, it's the least I can do for them after what they've given me. If I wanted them ridden.....I'd be riding them.

I took riding lessons at age 3. I didn't get my first horse until I was 13. I never, ever in that time rode a horse without permission from the owner. I rode with friends who owned horses, or saved my allowance for rent-a-horses, and one time I even rode with some people who were camping out next to our campsite (while on vacation). I spent the first day or two pining and staring at the horses until my parents finally took me over there and asked if I could have a ride.

Excusing these kids behaviour with a pat on the head would have been ridiculous. If one of them had ended up with a broken bone or worse.....I would have to live with that. I can live with them being a little scared a whole lot easier. I'm sorry if this has offended you, that was not my intent. If you don't mind if your kids ride horses without permission, horses that they don't know at all, while unsupervised.....well, I wish you good luck with that.

Peace,
Kristi

Kristi - I would have been mad as heck too. A girl who was a year younger than me in high school fell off a horse and was killed shortly after she graduated. Her best friend was with her. I felt so bad for her family losing their daughter so young and also felt bad for her friend who had to witness her death. I am glad you hollered at those girls for doing that. They were trespassing on your property and had absolutely no business riding your horses.

Bless you for letting those horses retire like that. I just hope your heart rate has slowed down back to normal and you can sit down and relax now.

Dang Kristi...I hope your heart rate is back to normal! I am so glad you saw them out in the pasture before they got hurt.Those are some huge horses! I hope the girls took your message to heart and don't ever try anything like that again!

Pam

Looking out seeing those girls on the horses is the equivalent to a city person seeing kids playing on I-35. Those girls were just crazy!!! I don't blame you a bit Kristi - I probably would have acted much worse!! People in my yard or helping themselves to my things just P@sses me off the most! People aren't teaching their children to have any respect for other peoples property.
Not to mention - these days stupid kids coming over like that - end up getting hurt and them mom and dad come out of the wood-work and want to sue you!!! Good job Kristi - next time - Tell the parents, even if they cry!

~Angie~

Very scary, Kristi. What age kids were they?
Jim

Yes my heart rate has returned to normal. But I can promise you that it's never beat as fast and hard as it did today..at least not since I've gotten old :).

Jim, the girls are about the same age as my oldest niece. 13 or 14. I know it's summer, I know that they were probably just bored.

When I asked them "What were you thinking?", I thought to myself....You sound just like mom and dad used to. I did stop myself from the tail end of that conversation....."You weren't thinking at all, were you?" LOL.

I'm not one to get shook up over much of anything and I'm thankful for that.....it's NOT any fun!

Kristi

I wonder if they've ever rode your horses before when you haven't been home? Somehow I get the feeling it may not have been their first ride.

People have no respect for the property of others. Several times I've had complete strangers fishing off my dock like it was public property. They get beligerent when I ask them to leave. Why don't they understand MINE is MINE...NOT YOURS. I have a million dollar umbrella ins policy here, just for that reason.

Way to go, Kristi. I would never have stopped where you did. If parents don't want to parent, then someone else has to for the sake of the children. Lesson #1, in my opinion, is, if it isn't yours, you must seek permission.
They should not even have been on your property without permission, let alone riding your horses. I have been around horses since I was five, and believe me, I have a great respect for them and their strength. Thank you for being a loving, responsible adult to someone else's child.
Oh, and by the way, correct disipline is the greatest form of love.

Bev believe me, that thought occurred to me as well and I said "I don't guess this is the first time either, is it?" You could tell by the look of relief on their faces when they responded that it really was the first time. Either that or I'm a complete sucker, but in any case I did believe them.

Carrie, I know it's easy to romanticize about horses. I grew up doing that very thing. I'm the only one in my family that ever had an interest in horses and I appreciate my parents allowing me to have one when I was a child. Both of them have always been intimidated by the horses but they still hauled me and my horse to barrel races and trail rides (overnighters even, LOL!). It's natural for children to romanticize about horses, particularly young girls, but when adults do it, someone will likely get hurt.

Aside from all of that is the fact that what the girls did was just *wrong* and they knew it. Call me old-fashioned or backwards but I just don't think rewarding that kind of behavior is in the child's best interest. I do know that most kids that were raised up back when I was a kid were a lot more respectful than most kids today.

I do kind of regret the subject line of my post though. I didn't mean to imply *ALL* kids...I should have been more specific. Because I do know an awful lot of kids that would never dream of doing something this silly. And I do think that these two are basically good kids. I believe that we are all a product of our environment and unfortunately, these kids are environmentally challenged.....

Kristi

Wow, Kristi, what a scare. My first thought was that was pretty close to stealing. It would be like some kid getting in your car, hotwiring it, and driving it around your street or something, except I guess these girls didn't actually leave your property. I just don't know what I would have done given your situation. I think you handled it well. The trouble with kids, no matter how well raised they are, is that they have no concept of danger and can't accept that they might actually gte hurt or killed doing something stupid. I know - I did some pretty stupid stuff when I was a kid. We all probably did.

Sally

Who me??? NEVER!!! LOL! I was one of the kids that ran wild and got into stuff I had no bussiness being in. I tamed a junkyard dog once. Sometimes I wonder how I survived! PJ

Kristi, You were right to chew them girls up one side and down the other. I had horses, ponies too from the time I was 7 years old and I know the danger of horses.
When I was about 9 my dad, mom and I went to one of my dad's coworkers home. Well, the guy had horses and I wanted to ride really bad so dad asked if I could ride. The guy said I could and they saddled up the horses, one for me and one for my dad, we were heading out of the front gate when I clicked my tongue to get the horse to gallup. Well, this horse was trained to whirl around and run when you clicked your tongue. This horse whirled and took off in a blind run, running right into the barb wire fence throwing me into the pen and the horse ended up with barbs into his chest. I was lucky not to have hit my head on anything or end up tangled in the barb wire fence myself. The guy felt bad for forgetting to tell me not to click my tongue, while I felt bad for the horse.
I've had horses fall on me, throw me off with my head half an inch or less from hitting a large rock, small boulder.
If you see the girl that lives next door and you can talk to her just let her know of the dangers of horses. If she does not listen to you and she goes onto your property she's in the wrong and trespassing.
Your horses are not rideable because they are not ridden and this makes for an unstable horse which you and I know this and anyone that knows horses know you have to ride horses all the time to keep them tame,once they are put out to pasture they go back to their wild ways.
It is kind of you to keep the horses and let them live out their live in this sweet way, your giving back to them what they gave you when they were young.