Bucking Girls performance Horses Tammy Schmierer, hillside farms, bucking girls performance horses Tammy Schmierer: Stay far far away. Unadilla New York

Upon first interaction with Tammy Schmierer my child had a lesson at Bucking Girls Performance Horses, from this point several lessons followed in which Tammy described to us that if we board with her there were trails to utilize, including the corn field across the street in which she took us on a guided ride of, as well as others up the road. We then purchased a horse and attempted to trail ride on these properties, and were told we were trespassing and needed to get off. Upon questioning Tammy, she said to us "I told you we don't have many trails"... when in fact there were none... and those words were never spoken to us. By this point we owned 2 horses and were stuck. Tammy continuously promised to secure trails for us to ride. 

I purchased horse #1 from Tammy’s friend Stephanie who was selling the horse from another person. Tammy was the middle man of the transaction. I never spoke or saw Stephanie, during the dale, and never received my shot records for my horse. . When we contacted Stephanie for his shot records she told us he had “every vaccination under the sun” and that she had given all the records to Tammy.  Tammy denied ever receiving anything other than his coggins test. A vet appointment was set up for my horse to get up to date on his shots.  When Tammy found out we were moving to a different stable, she cancelled the appointment. Obviously putting welfare of our horse LAST. (The process of trying to contact owner to get our shot records is another issue all together!) In the mean time, our brushes, our fly masks, our horse treats, all were going missing at the stables, typically around the time of major horse shows (Syracuse). When brought to Tammy’s attention- her solution was "be blunt- write on the white board to leave your s*** alone"... well things continued to disappear so our concerns were voiced-yet again- and her solution was to "go buy a trunk" and she put up index card signs on our cubby saying "please do not touch". (Hence making us a target for the rest of the stable). This was her problem solving skills. Making us the bad guys because our things disappear.

Tammy was then able to get "permission" (or so she said?) to use the hills behind the stables for trail riding. We were excited and happy that finally we got what we had paid to come there to do... only to have our horse get injured by being tangled up in barbed wire on our first ride. Upon notifying her- nothing was done to correct it. We then went on more rides, nowhere near the barbed wire, in which our horses became tangled up in wire that was all over the ground from previous fencing, Tammy notified, nothing done. We have 2 very different sized horses who each had their own halter. We came to the stables to find a quarter size abrasion on our larger sized horses face because the wrong halter was put on our horse and caused the skin to be rubbed away, again brought to Tammy’s attention with no care. I asked Tammy for hooks to hang our bridles on (after all we were paying $500 a month to be there... a hook in her stable where you cannot flush toilet paper did not seem unreasonable to us, not to mention the mice that constantly got into our items, the leaking ceiling in the indoor ring, the lights that barely light up the ring that we were discouraged from using due to costs). Tammy ignored my request completely for the hooks, so when I was there I noticed there was an empty hook and wrote my horses name on and hung it up. Later I received a mean Facebook message stating I could not utilize this hook and it was only for lesson horses- even though one of her friends from the stables had her horses bridles up there and when questioned she said it was to "Avoid confusion". This was the point which we had just had enough.

We had been continually lied to and our horses injured and welfare put last. Multiple times arriving at the stable my husband had to fill the water containers on the property as the horses were left out in the heat in the fields with no drinking water. The horses were so thirsty they fought over the water. That brings me to the overall condition of the property. You need to wade through 2 feet of mud to even get your horse out of the pen to bring inside. The indoor ring is often littered with garbage laying around, and is usually filled with hay (round bales) limiting your space to use the ring. The barrels for the facility are by Tammy’s own words  where construction barrels (the orange and white ones)  "stolen off of I-88". Her horses, Maverick and Dexter, never seem to be put outside with the rest of the horses at the stable, they get to stay comfortable in their pens, with their separate grain that she does not feed to the rest of the horses. Grain is left in bags on the floor open to rodents and other such creatures to get in. She has a mini horse who is frequently allowed to go into the tack room where the grain is kept and help himself. One of the horses we purchased is 4 years old. He came to us pretty well trained and calm. Tammy quickly changed that. We went away on a 3 day weekend trip and by the time we returned he would not take a blanket without freaking out and quivering in fear… upon questioning Tammy stated she noticed he was skittish about the blanket (probably was HER not the blanket) so she worked with him by throwing towels at him around the ring. He was obviously terrified. Anytime Tammy came near our horse his nostrils flared and he looked on edge. Her tactics for training are harsh and extreme to say the least. I am no horse expert but I know when a horse is terrified of a human being, and my poor horse hated her. She made him into another creature all together.

Once I was attempting to fly spray him before a ride (he was afraid of squirt bottle but I was working with him to the point he was almost okay with it) and she intercepted with her harsh tactics (without me asking, or wanting her to). By the time we were eventually able to get on our ride he was so on edge and not himself. I was afraid to take him on the trails as he seemed so obviously upset and terrified. The best thing I have ever done both for me and the welfare of my equine friends was to leave and get far away. I will NEVER look back, and I feel sorry for anyone else out there just like me… fairly new to horses… who doesn’t know any better. Lesson learned and NEVER again will I let my horses receive this treatment. Please, do not go to her stable. Your horses deserve better. If you are looking in Unadilla NY there is amazing stables all over nearby, shop around. Don’t let this be you.

(As a side note- There is an employee there named Rob who entirely is the opposite of Tammy- at every turn he tried to cover and fix her issues the best he could, however Tammy is “in charge” and his efforts were not able to fix the many many problems with our arrangement…. Thank you Rob so much for trying!!)