Having been at a few barns, managed a few barns and had family with barns I feel decently educated when it comes to setting the standard for its care. I have seen the worst of the worst and fixed it with a lot of physical effort and maintaining a plan of attack. For instance you can have a space like the one below on the left and have it turn out like the one on the right.

We had just gotten a lot of people working for us at a former program who were ultimately temporary, and unfortunately their lack of management led to unsafe living environments like the left. Thank goodness it was only temporary and the situation at that location is in functioning order again. That being said the whole recovery process took at least 4 months in total, because we had horses still living in the spaces we were working on.

When it comes to running a boarding facility or a barn of your own, you have to set standards you can’t back out on. It’s just that simple. With consistent effort in the right places, you can take something from barely running to efficiently running. In today’s post, we’ll be talking about how I would ideally run a boarding & training facility of my own. For ease of understanding I’ve called this idea “Metropolitan Stables” to set my standard. While it’s a major dream to own, run and operate out of my own facility, who knows it might happen one day and I want to be ready.

One thing I like to do in the beginning of having a horse in a stall or paddock is finding the optimal pee spots for both the horse and person caring for the stall. Sometimes that means teaching the horse where the most desired pee spot should be, and other times it means working with what you’ve got. For Cayenne, we know he likes a sandy soft area where the pee absorbs and doesn’t back spatter on him. In an effort to support his need we set up areas for him, and section off other soft areas with wood to keep him out.

In all of the in out style paddocks I keep the interior portion clean as heck since there’s usually mats or depending on the barn style, shavings, and I cannot have the pee and ammonia smells building up. Indoors it’s already going to be hard enough to clean up after feedings, hair, and hoof scuffs anyways, adding pee and more poop than is reasonable isn’t on my to do list.

Pictured below is a NICE bed of shavings I prepared back in 2018 at Webb. This is typical of the bedding thickness I would use for my horses. I would utilize a bedding sifter, also pictured below, to make this a seamless experience for me and any stable hands at Metropolitan Stables. It’s called the Shaker and it helps sift through your shavings for the various muck that accumulates in a stall. I don’t think this would work for pee spots, but it would help for refluffing the bedding and cleaning.

On the outside part of the stall, I would ideally line it with the wet shavings that have an opportunity to dry out to be used as cushion outdoors. Everyday this section gets raked back into its original shape, allowing for patches to dry and for it to reshape & refluff. For outdoor pee-ers it’s a good idea to make a mountain of these used shavings for pee spots as it makes clean up easier. No ruts in the ground from pee, and there’s no scraping the earth to dry out the spot if you can rotate shavings properly.

The entirety of my lease on Capone I exercised my full cleaning potential on his stall. From tack room cleaning to mucking on my day of the week etc. There were days there was an overflowing wheelbarrow of poop and pee built up, and I would return it to its glory like above. All because the horse comes first, and it was instilled upon me at a young age. Below are images before and after I tackled mucking at the family barn in Arizona.

While it was my day to clean, our boarders operate under the same standards the family has set since before my time.

My biggest recommendation if you currently run out of a lesson program that gets their horses out for you and gets them ready, I urge you to ask about other aspects of horse care like mucking, basic horsemanship outside of riding, and their barn expectations & standards. Nothing could have prepared me for how much work this part is except for doing it hands on myself.

Until next time, keep your eyes out for a new horse post like this one.