08/19/2024
This is not something I normally do. But I feel that at this point I have exhausted all of my options legally, I have won my case in court, and I still have not been paid. So I am letting the equestrian world know.
In winter of 2021 I had politely given a customer 30 days notice to find other arrangements for their horse. She was a difficult client in general, always impeding on privacy, wanting extra shavings and hay (but didn’t want to pay for extra), contacting my employees behind my back and all in all just making my barn an uncomfortable environment for myself, my other customers and my employees. It was a cordial split until….
I left for winter season in Florida and they decided to wait until I was gone to leave. Of course they had a bill for shoeing, 2 weeks horse showing at WEC, and 2 months board unpaid. They made it clear they were not going to pay their bills.
After hiring litigation and after a lengthy legal process, I won in court, I have a lein against their home and they have been sent to collections to enforce my lein.
Several claims were made from their side stating they shouldn’t have to pay board while their horse was away at the horse show, they shouldn’t have to pay grooming fees, they didn’t get to show Saturday or Sunday the last week of the horse show (A major snow storm was coming and we wouldn’t be able to safely make it home if we didn’t leave on Saturday. A decision was made to leave 1.5 days early to make sure the horses could get home safely or we could possibly be stuck at the show another week and have all of those bills). However, she still showed her horse wed-Friday at WEC.
They also claimed of abuse and neglect from me and my staff (a water trough was out of water one day at the farm). If anyone knows me and my employees and my program, they know that my care is top notch. My employees care about the horses and we truly do our best day in and day out to make sure they have top quality care.
At this point, they are avoiding collections and have no intentions to ever pay. I would like to publicly out them so the rest of the equine community what kind of business they conduct.
Mahalia and Rebecca Alascio. They live in Maryland, but she was a UTM equestrian during this time. I did contact the UTM equestrian team at the time as well, because I don’t believe that someone doing things like this should be able to represent a D1 equestrian team. Nothing was done on that front either (but I do understand it’s not really their problem).
So anyways. I’ve done all I can do and maybe collections will eventually get through to them. This business is so financially difficult and people like this really make it even tougher. Pay your bills. And if you can’t afford to pay your bills. Dont get a horse.
