From: Lucy
Hi Jessica!
First, a "thank you" once again for your encouragement when I re-entered the horse world at the age of 48! Two years later, Sultan and I are doing just great. We are at a new barn with a new trainer, I have finally gotten my secure seat back and we are really becoming a team. (Don't ask about the sore muscles, PLEASE!) Sultan, being an arabian, is a challenge, but it's great!
Now my question: one of the other trainers who comes to our barn, not mine, smokes. She never smokes in the barn, but she does smoke in the attached arena while she is teaching. She sometimes leaves her butts on the ground in the arena. Now I know this isn't a really great idea at all, but there's nothing I can do about it. What I am wondering is, since we also use the arena for turnout, are the horses liable to pick up the butts and eat them? What possible health consequences, if any, could there be? Am I worrying for nothing? What do you think?
Lucy Monthie
Smoking and smoking accessories do not belong in, or anywhere NEAR a barn. I suggest that you talk to the barn owner about this matter. You aren't in a position to lay down the law to this instructor, but the barn owner IS. At the very least, the instructor should carry a plastic bag in her pocket and put her cigarette butts in the bag for later disposal. It doesn't take much effort to do this, it just takes a little thought -- or being told that this is how it needs to be done at this barn.
Horses are unlikely to eat cigarette butts, unless there's really nothing else available. ;-) As for toxicity, there was a time when cowboys would feed their horses a cigarette or two (unlit, obviously) in lieu of conventional deworming products, and according to the vets I've talked to, the amount of tobacco in a cigarette butt is unlikely to damage a horse -- but you certainly don't WANT horses eating cigarette butts.
Leaving cigarette butts lying around in an arena may not be dangerous -- let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that no horse ever eats one, and that no fire ever results from one -- but it's truly tacky. It also gives observers two strong impressions: (1) the barn owner doesn't care about fire, and (2) it's okay to smoke at THIS barn. These aren't impressions that a barn-owner can afford to give, whether to boarders, students, instructors, visitors, or anyone else.
More to the point, if there is ever a fire in or near that barn, and the insurance investigators turn up a butt or two in the attached arena, or even HEAR that the barn owner allowed someone to smoke there, that information just might be enough to invalidate the barn-owner's insurance policy. This in itself is enough reason to disallow this instructor's smoking and butt-disposal practice! And it's also a reason that the barn owner is going to understand -- even if she doesn't know or care about the danger of fire around horses, she can certainly be approached on the grounds that allowing this behaviour could have disastrous financial consequences.
I've visited barns where smoking is NOT allowed, the signs are posted and it's mentioned in the boarding contract, BUT exceptions are made for visiting, big-name clinicians who smoke -- the owners don't want to offend them by telling them not to smoke in the barn. It's a bad policy. If there is ever a fire, saying "but we only let the INTERNATIONAL clinicians smoke!" won't impress the insurance adjustor one little bit.
Lucy, when you talk to the barn owner about this, be sure that she understands that your concerns are for the horses' health and for HER liability risk. It's not a matter of smokers versus nonsmokers, and you're not morally offended by the fact that this instructor smokes. You just want to be sure that she does it elsewhere -- or that if she does it on the property, that she field-strips her cigarette butts afterward, and takes the debris away with her to throw away elsewhere, preferably in a suitable receptacle. The issue is NOT whether or not this instructor is a smoker, the issue is what place cigarettes have or do not have on these premises. And that's going to be for the barn owner to determine! If you hate her decision, you can "vote with your feet" and take your horse to a barn where the owner demonstrates a greater concern for safety.
Good luck with this!
Jessica
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