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I was actually surprised about this issue- at my old barn which just did some local low level hunters had a couple people there who just owned a horse to say they had one. I was there for at least 6 years, I worked there for 4 of them and I can count on one hand the times I've seen some of the owners- or their children physically at the barn.
At my new barn there's an older couple who owns 3 of the stallions and I believe just bought two more. These folks are pretty wealthy even by the Arab world standards. I expected them to be the sort that would buy them and leave them in pasture (like in your situation) but every time when I got out I seen them riding or watching the trainer ride their new stallion (he's a bit of a brat and has only been backed a handful of times since he's only four).
There is one girl like that though. Her parents just bought her a new mare- this mare was owned and showed quite successfully by two twins who graduated and went to college. They drove 2 hours to get to the barn only for the girl to feed carrots to her and drive away. This mare is an amazing hunter, goes nicely on the bit, caries a good frame and this girl doesn't ride her. My trainer was complaining to be about it but there's nothing she can do but encourage the girl to ride. The mare's price tag was I believe 25, 000.

I found it amusing that it was more prevalent in my lower level barn then in my ritzy, expensive show barn where I'd expect the snootier clients to ignore their horses.

OMFG I HATE PEOPLE WHO USE HORSES AS LAWN ORNAMENTS!!!! ESPCIALLY REALLY NICE ONES!

I understand where you guys are all coming from, and it does really irk me to see people that don't ride their really fancy horses. I hate seeing the owners that really do want to ride, but because they're price limit was really high, they got something really fancy and they're not capable of riding it (those super-fancy horses are NOT easy to ride. In any way shape or form!) so although they intend to come out and ride and all, they just trickle off. The good part of that is, I usually get to ride their horses when they decide that they can't anymore. biggrin But it seems rediculous to spend the money on a horse and never do anything with it.
And yeah, the show brats bother me too. Partially because I DID work for my horses. I boarded a self-care barn that was $120 a month for 4 years before I swore never to set foot in there again (I still blame them for Griffin's lameness. If they'd kept their pastures better...). The only time my parents would do any of my chores for me (short of helping with hay... I was 12, and weighed about 90 lbs. I had a bit of trouble stacking bales that weighed more than me...) was if I was so dead sick I couldn't get out of bed. And once I was better I had to make up for the fact that they had done those chores by doing more around the house for a week. Once I moved out of that barn, I kept my horse at a barn owned by some friends of my family who had no interest in horses, just happened to have a barn with indoor and outdoor arenas and 25 acres of beautiful pasture on the property that they owned. There were three other horses in the barn, and because they knew me and trusted me, gave me a deal that I would only pay $50 a month board if I acted basically as barn manager. So I learned about irrigation, pasture rotation, teaching other boarders to follow pasture rotation, and all sorts of other fun things. I moved him to a full care facility the last 4 months or so that I had him just because it was a larger barn and easier to market him from. So the people who get everything handed to them on a silver spoon do get on my nerves. I've worked for everything that I have as far as horses are concerned. And if you put enough work into it, you'll eventually get somewhere. Maybe not where you wanted to be, and not as fast as you may have hoped, but you'll get somewhere. I got offered a full-time staff position 3 days in to my internship this summer BECAUSE I'm so used to having to work my a** off for everything that I've become a workaholic when it comes to the horse world. It pays off in the end. Trust me. smile

But, as much as all of this annoys me, as long as the horse is being cared for, and is healthy, I'm not too upset. Having spent the time that I did in self-care facilities where the barn manager comes around once a month to collect board checks, I've seen some pretty aweful situations. Serious neglect. Serious abuse. One of the reasons I lost faith in the ASPCA when they told us that all they could do was educate the owners who only came to see their yearling filly ever 2 to 3 weeks IN A SELF CARE BARN. She lived in her stall, they didn't have any hay or grain to feed her. And if we hadn't all been such bleeding hearts she would have died of starvation or dehydration or from the sheer fact that her manure would have reached up to her elbows.
Eventually one of the other girls convinced them to give her to her on a free lease, and she got so much better. Then they took her "home", wherever that is, and when Jess finally found her again she had chronic string-halt in one leg because when she'd gotten herself tangled in barbed wire and it severed a nerve (or something... I should know this.), not to mention that her bones were sticking out at sharp angles everywhere. You could count her ribs from across the pasture.

So, if someone just isn't riding their horse, yeah, it bothers me, but not too much. Because at least the horse is getting cared for. I guess I've just seen it be so much worse... it's hard to get upset about someone just not exercising their horse as much as they should.

Do any of you guys remember last year when I told you about this lady and her friend that whipped her miniature pony? Well, the friend had two horses and she came around to feed them and clean their stalls. I don't exactly board at a self-care stable, they feed, water, and clean the horses' stalls if they're not outside and if they are outside they're fed and watered and have their pens scooped out by farm machinery when they need it. She decided she wanted to save money by doing the work herself, which is fine, as long as you really do the work. She was doing it last summer, but once winter rolled around I guess she didn't want to come out in the cold and clean her horses' stalls. Ironically, this is the same person who keeps her house at like, 53 degrees year round. Finally she told the barn owner just to go ahead and feed them hay, but the stalls didn't get cleaned and they never got grain. The barn owner got tired of it and fed them grain anyway because they were loosing weight, but the stalls were terrible. The barn owner had to threaten to put the horses in run out pens before she actually started cleaning them again.

One of the horses out on pasture, Juliet, was trained for barrels and polls. The people rode her at her old barn and she was amazing, supposedly, but they brought her back and she wouldn't do it. The story I heard was that their daughter got on, did something stupid, got bucked off, and the horse was never ridden again. I guess they're selling her, but the price is to high that nobody is ever going to buy her.

i didn't mean suffer in a like, bad term, but suffer in that it umm..happens to them i guess haha. i probably could've chosen a better word than suffer i guess...i mean that they don't umm...i don't know the right word, cause horses definetly don't suffer from not being ridden. but at my barn, we make sure they get excersice. even if the person that owns it isn't riding it, they at least get turn outs to play around and stretch their legs.

haha trust me, i know horses don't need to be ridden. Dakota is plenty happy being ridden or not being ridden. but he does sometimes get cranky when he doesn't get out to stretch his legs or when he doesn't get some attention.