When I was still jumping, I had my horse at my trainers place about 45 mins to an hour from my work, and my work was about half an hour from my house. My drive home was usually an hour and twenty.
I’d do it again in a heartbeat if I needed to.
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My commute to my boarding barn is 57 minutes to 2+ hours each way (major metro area), And I have to make that drive 4-6 days a week. If I ever do have the opportunity to have property and horses at home, I would jump at the chance because of that alone… and while I would hope to find a trainer nearby that we meshed with, I would be okay with hauling up to an hour or so each way if my horse(s) didn’t require training rides and were good haulers.
My current one doesn’t require pro rides much, if ever (hasn’t had one since September), and she trailers like a champ… so a longer haul could be doable. But if I had to do a longer haul more frequently, or my horse(s) weren’t good haulers, that might enter my calculus.
Also, my current barn doesn’t allow trailering in, and my trainer used to say she preferred clients to be in her program. I think the latter has loosened, but not sure about the former.
The sad truth is that unless you are unbelievably wealthy and also pretty darn lucky, you’ll always have to compromise on some things! The trick is to figure out compromises you can live with.
I will say that often driving forty-five minutes for an hour lesson is a bigger time commitment than it sounds like. For me if I have a 4 pm lesson, I try to plan to get there by 3:30 at the latest, so I have half an hour to tack up/ do studs/ put on my boots etc and be on and walk around a bit (this also gives me a 15 minute cushion if there’s traffic). So that means leaving at 2:15, which means I need to get to the barn by 1:30 at the latest to have time to hook up the trailer, catch my horse in the field, do a quick groom, pack my tack, put on shipping boots and load. That’s assuming that I already have everything else done-- water and haynets filled, all the other stuff I need like buckets and sponges and coolers and extra equipment already in, trailer tires not needing air, gas in tow vehicle etc.
So really I am leaving for 4 pm lesson at 1:30, then riding until 4:45 and then spending roughly another half an hour untacking, bathing, hand grazing, repacking and loading, which means I get home at 6 (best case scenario if there isn’t traffic) and then spend half an hour unloading, getting my tack out, mucking out the trailer, and unhooking. So really my 45 minute lesson takes half a day!
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Alternatively, if OP is keeping a horse at home, and gets a good system down, it could take significantly less time 
they make ringside backpacks that hold grooming kit/boots/helmet, so it’s a matter of grabbing that an tack, so assuming you keep your trailer ready to go, could be as easy as loading up in less than 10 minutes and being on the road.
I do think the social aspect will make it trickier if the OP is really looking to develop a barn family - that’s harder to do when you’re hauling in. Not impossible, but definitely harder.
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Oh. It’s a 10 minute load up and go for me. Super easy, he’s a star hauler and I don’t take much. I admit I worry about his stress but he doesn’t show any. I’m just a nervous Nelly.
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I think that’s fair! But maybe give it a trial period and see how you both feel. If he’s a good hauler and not generally an anxious horse, might not bother him at all!
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I moved 2 1/2 hours away from my trainer 3years ago and it was too much. I sold one of my horses at that time and have 3 at home. I quit showing and training.
Too much time, too much money, too much stress driving through heavy traffic pulling a horse trailer.
But then, I’m now 71 and while I miss it, it was time to stop.
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I wasn’t hauling, but I’ve commuted everything from a half hour to an hour and change each way for lessons/leasing, and I agree–once you’re in 45 minute territory, you’re talking a half a day, minimum, that has to be slotted in your schedule. Traffic, catching the horse, tacking up the horse (getting crosstie space, dealing with chatty boarders), getting into the arena with other people riding/ other lessons, cooling down the horse, bathing, cleaning tack (I wasn’t using my own for my lease horses, so had to be extra-respectful), dealing with chatty people on the way out, helping friends and helpful barn staff with small chores I didn’t feel I could turn my eyes away from…
I will also say, even when I commuted a short distance, those particular barns were so poorly managed, putting out fires also took half a day.
I’m glad I did it when I did it, but I also have to say that the lessons have to be “worth it” for the commitment, versus just a lesson, or good enough, and when I was doing this for lessons that weren’t worth my time I had to stop.
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Are there any traveling g coaches? Or would your coach be willing to work with you online? That’s if you have an arena space.
My trainer is 2 hours (one way) and that’s with normal traffic…so an hour would be no issue in my mind. At one point I was going weekly…would go late in the day have a lesson, stay over, lesson the next morning and go home. The two horses I did that with were great haulers and easy for loading/shipping. Lately I’ve had horses with medical issues and baby horses and so I’ve not been for a lesson in a long time. Have a 4yo who is going well, but don’t want to stress her in the summer heat with that kind of travel (plus traffic right now due to construction and summer travel, as I live near the beach, is brutal)…hopefully this fall my mare will be ready for some lessons, but I will probably try for once a month or every 6 weeks.
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So there are no dressage lesson barns with school horses for love or money where I live. Im still struggling to find regular lessons hauling in or no. Yet by volunteering at the local dressage shows and attending test days and clinics I’ve found there’s a thriving and supportive local community. It’s largely the same small, dedicated group that attends the shows and clinics and while most everyone rides on their own at home or on their own at a multi discipline barn, there’s a strong sense of camaraderie at the events. You may find there are other ways to find that social aspect you are looking for outside of a dedicated barn community. We haul to each other’s barns to ride together, read our tests to each other when practicing before a show etc.
Back to your original question, before I moved to the hinterlands I was driving an average of 45min to the barn. Could be up to an hour or more depending on time of day and traffic. This was boarding though. But honestly if you have goals and are short on time, board your horse, lesson 2x a week on your own horse and on other more trained horses, and get training rides for your horse and you should see tremendous progress with a good trainer. I would do it in a heartbeat if it was an option for me again just to get past this feeling of being stuck and stagnant while dealing with all the struggles of being on your own.
It me! I try to have everything set up for weekday lessons to basically load and go. Traffic can be a real problem for me too so I definitely have had days where I’m pulling in 5 min before lesson time. My horses couldn’t be much easier to ship in - they both load easily, and I can tack quickly in the frailer before they come off so that I can basically walk off the trailer and into the ring. Some days they could be cleaner but I am there and I refuse to feel any kind of way about it because I probably just sat through an hour of stop and go traffic pulling a horse trailer, and if that’s the best I can do that day, that’s not bad!
That being said, a 4pm lesson means getting back around 630, then feed and turnout - they are long days. I was feeling like a slacker reading how far others travel for lessons but one thing I have learned is that not all one hour drives - especially when pulling a trailer - are created equal. Like for me, driving a car to the barn in rush hour traffic is annoying but not terrible. With the trailer I can sit a good long while to get enough of a window to pull out at the second turn out of my driveway as I need to go wide (and slow, obviously!) and waiting for my chance to get both lanes clear feels like parting the Red Sea some days.
If showing, camaraderie and the social aspect of the barn are a priority, shipping in will be tough. If it is important, I would suggest grabbing a stall in the barn when you can to establish some relationships, then when you go to shipping in you will already have a much better understanding of barn personalities and dynamics:.
I drive three hours to another state for lessons with my trainer. I do this 2-4 times a month. We drive down Sat AM, lesson, then drive home. We don’t stay over, because she simply does not have an extra stall where mine could stay.
During the week, if I need extra help, I’ll haul 30 mins to a local girl.
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Yep. This is what I do. Its about 45-50 minutes each way with my trailer. I budget roughly 3.5 hours of my day for a lesson, mostly so I don’t feel rushed. I do this about 3x month. My trainer is the actual best and has helped me with multiple horses, going from a Training/First level rider to riding the FEI and training my own horses along the way. The distance is 100% worth it for me, even if it is a PITA. Then again, my horses all get good off property experience this way too.
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When I was working, I used to drive 2 hrs one way to take lessons about once a month. Call me a slow learner, but it took me those 4 weeks to process what I learned in the lessons, so I didn’t feel I would get anything from more lessons.
After that trainer moved, later I towed 13 hrs to her new farm. I would take vacation from work and stay for a week 2x per year.
Now I will trailer 1-2 hrs to lessons with some clinicians that come to this area. I budget a day for that 45 minute lesson between coming, going and getting the horse ready.
Typically 1 1/2 to 2 hours one way for lessons. I had a nice two-year window where the commute was more like half an hour while I was in college, but prior to that I was in an eventing desert and the nearest coach was an 1 1/2 hours away, and now I live in a horsey-adjacent area, but my coaches are still 1 1/2 and 2 hours away respectively. Yes, it makes a lesson take up at least half a day. I do ride on my own for the most part, and lesson once or twice a month.
When my horse was younger, we would trailer in and do two lessons - one dressage and one jumping, with a short break in between - to make the most out of the trip. He’s 19 now though, so we’re stepping down a bit and I wouldn’t do that with him at this point.
I used to haul weekly to a dressage trainer that was 1.5 hours away. We had a group that would all trailer pool and make a day of it, splitting gas so that we no only reduced cost but also got to learn by watching our friends go as well. This wasn’t too bad of a deal but it did usually take up most of the day on Saturday.
My jump/eventing trainer is 3 hours away, but I only get to her very occasionally since it is a whole day ordeal (most often I was able to swing was once a month, but usually ended up being more sporadic). I usually try to schedule an overnight trip where I can go up Friday and lesson, stay the night (she has plenty of extra stalls and a cute rental house) and then lesson Saturday morning before I go home to make the trip more worth it. It’s definitely a commitment but I found my riding improved immensely once I started lessoning with her, so it was worth it to me. I am fairly capable of riding on my own at home most of the time in between lessons. I do have a couple of more local trainers that I can get a last minute lesson with in a pinch if needed, but I mostly use those lessons as an opportunity to just get access to a different ring with different jumps.
I didn’t find this schedule to be too demanding on most of my horses (they usually got a day off after each lesson). Except my poor OTTB mare who was ulcery and the travel really stressed her out, especially when we would go alone. I don’t think I would do that kind of extensive travel with her again, but my others seemed to handle it fine.
My dressage instructor comes to me, so zero.
But my eventing coach is about 90 min away. She also travels to give lessons so I can usually catch her closer to me, like an hour. The distance definitely limits how often I can take lessons with her. I could find someone closer if I wanted, but I like her.
Lately I’ve been broke and busy so lessons rarely happen lately.
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Well now, I’m glad I posted this. Now I feel like a whiner for even considering it was too far 
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I don’t think it makes you a whiner, everyone has different thresholds and tolerances for things like this but the cool thing about CoTH is sometimes finding that you’re not alone!
