Bay Area Barn (Near Stanford)

[jaehwandred]

Hi all! I’ve done a search for Hunter/Jumper barns in the Bay Area near Stanford but just wanted to get some more opinions.

I’ll be moving to the area sometime in the late summer. I’m currently showing on the A Circuit right now (just the small stuff think 2’6" Adult Hunters) on a horse that I half lease for an insanely good price. Ideally, I would love to be at a show barn with a half lease including lessons for ~1500. Is this a reasonable budget or should I expect to pay more? Barn doesn’t need to be fancy or go to A shows every week, I only plan to show every couple of months. I’m also open to a discipline change back to a more jumper-focused barn as I have competed up to the .90s before.

I was also wondering if it would be possible to bike/take the CalTrain to the barns in the area or if I would need to use my car. It would be great if I could bike to the barn after work but not 100% sure how feasible that would be.

Some places I’ve looked into that seem to be in my price range (ish) are Schwarzer Sporthorses (Webb Ranch), Vintage Lane (PVTC), and potentially Northern Run (Stanford Barn). If anyone has any insight into those, it would be much appreciated! Thank you all for your help!

[SweetMutt]

Your budget might be low, but ask around and see what you find out. The peninsula is expensive! I wouldn’t be surprised if half leases run closer to $2k/month at most show barns.

You might be able to bike from CalTrain to the barn at Stanford, depending how much biking you’re up for. Looks like it’s a couple of miles from the Palo Alto station, and Sand Hill Road has a big bike lane in several parts. PVTC and Webb are not far from there, so you might be able to bike there too, but that road is windy and not especially wide. (I’ve always come off the 280, though, so I’m less sure about the part that would be your route.) You’d be going uphill towards the barns, more downhill away. I would definitely try this before you count on it working for you.

I think Vintage Lane moved to Spring Down? Or did they keep an outpost at PVTC too? Your list of places to look is a good start either way. (I don’t know about biking to Spring Down, though.)

[Faye]

Pretty sure Northern Run is more expensive. My friend was just looking at Vintage Lane (spring down) and their half lease is flat rate at $1500. Good luck!

[Training_Cupid]

I too thought VL moved to Springsown, and Schwarzer moved to Westwind.
I used to sometimes bike to Stanford barn from Los Altos, and the area is bike friendly with bike lanes, but I’ve also done a century bike ride so your idea of biking distance may differ.

[jaehwandred]

Got it, thank you! I haven’t asked Northern Run for their pricing just quite yet but I definitely will. It would be great to be able to ride right on campus!

[jaehwandred]

The Schwarzer website said they were at both Webb and Westwind but I’m not 100% sure! I don’t do much biking as of right now but I’ve heard the area is very bike friendly so I gotta build up those calf muscles for sure.

[jaehwandred]

Bump! Would love to know if anyone else had more opinions!

[vagabondrider]

If you’re not doing much biking now, don’t plan on biking to Westwind from Stanford. Very steep hills & 2 lane roads w/ no bike lane (and sometimes a cliff on 1 side!) when you get close to Westwind. It’s very slow going even for serious bike folks. Biking to Webb would be much more doable in terms of terrain.