Hi,
I am a med student in Baltimore who rode in the hunters and the junior medals throughout hs. I have only been able to ride sporadically for the past year and a half or so since my horse tragically passed away, and I am looking for a hunter/jumper barn where I can lesson on and possibly show nicer horses without actually owning one. I have run into the typical problem of either contacting trainers who only take clients with their own horse or going to lesson barns where the horses really shouldn’t be doing anything over 2’6" (if that…). I am relatively new to the area and any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Where in Baltimore are you and how far are you willing to travel? Do you live in the city? Just wondering which direction might be easiest for you to travel (ie: up 83 towards the hunt valley area, west towards Howard County, etc.). Kudos to you for wanting to ride in med school - it was one of the things that helped keep me sane!
You are going to have a hard time finding good horses to lesson on and show without paying for a lease, or something like that. Or, you need to luck out and find a horse owned by someone who needs a good rider- this is what happened to me when I started riding again, so it is possible. Your best bet is to find a good trainer to take lessons with in a larger barn with a range of horses and see what your riding skills might get you after you establish yourself.
Before I got my own horse again I rode for a couple different trainers who didn’t have time for everyone in their string, and got the ride on a couple of fun horses. Then I found a really good trainer who had an extremely nice hunter whose owner was no longer interested but didn’t want to sell him, and that guy became my project until I bought my own.
If you can afford a lease of some sort, all of that groundwork is unnecessary, so you might want to think about that, too.
There are a lot of good barns in this area, but it does depend, as tarheelmd says, on which side of the beltway you are willing to go!
What about Caves Farm - in Owings Mills, MD - which is about 15+ miles North of Baltimore/ cavesfarm.com
I would try Caves Farm or Rolling Acres
Thank you! You were able to do it too? I feel like it’s kind of crazy to try to add riding on top of everything else that I’m doing, but I’m going crazy not riding anyway haha. I live in the city near the jhu medical campus, but I have a car and ideally I wouldn’t really want to drive much farther than somewhere an hour away…
Ideally, I would like to find myself in the first scenario you described; honestly after losing my last horse I am a little gun-shy of leasing/owning another horse and getting too attached to them (not that it would be realistic for my schedule anyway- I can only get away maybe 2 or 3 days a week). But finding a good trainer with horses that I could ride or with clients who can’t always ride their horses would be a total dream.
And yeah, I’m not really picky about where the barn is as long as it’s not ridiculously far I am willing to drive there 
[QUOTE=bbbrmc;7047431]
Thank you! You were able to do it too? I feel like it’s kind of crazy to try to add riding on top of everything else that I’m doing, but I’m going crazy not riding anyway haha. I live in the city near the jhu medical campus, but I have a car and ideally I wouldn’t really want to drive much farther than somewhere an hour away…[/QUOTE]
I rode all the way through med school - and kept riding after I moved to Baltimore for residency/fellowship. Finding time was difficult sometimes…especially during the MS3 year…but it was definitely do-able. Residency was easier in some ways, as post-call days were great for lessons I actually went from 1 horse to 2 horses after intern year, bought a trailer, and managed to show through most of residency and fellowship…granted, I was a psych resident, but Q4 call is Q4 call
