I would like to bring my horse to NYC in a few months, and I’m starting to look at places for boarding.
She’s currently in my home country in Europe (while I’ve been in the US for 8 months) and very well taken care of, so I will only bring her if I find the perfect place.
My main criteria (and a hard one) is accessibility through public transit (within a 30 minute walk of a train station or bus stop). I won’t have a car and will not rent one weekly (can do it occasionally to go to shows, or in case of an emergency), I also don’t want to Uber from a train station.
My second criteria is the potential to go to shows and get the right coaching for it; my ideal place would have other boarders show jumping 1.10-1.20m, with the right coaching, facilities and the logistics to go to shows. Ideally a professional who can ride my horse on the flat 1-2 times a week.
I’m currently riding occasionally at Knoll Farm, and while I love the people and the convenient location, the lack of trail rides and of an established “good level” show jumping group makes me hesitant to bring my own horse there.
A few places I’ve heard of for now: Sage Hill Farm, Bergen Equestrian Center, Garrett Mountain, Essex Equestrian Center - if anyone has an opinion on these, or any other suggestions, it would be extremely helpful!
What you’re asking for doesn’t exist. You need a car or a willingness to rent one. I live in Brooklyn and have two horses in Hunterdon County and bought a car three years ago for that purpose.
Essex is closed. Anywhere in Westchester, like Sage Hill, is stupidly expensive, and I find the traffic far worse going north or east on LI. I show in the jumpers, and am in a program that sounds like it would be a great fit for you (all-inclusive with pro rides) should you decide you can make the drive.
Edited to add: OK, I defer to @Tha_Ridge who is actually doing this. I still think taking random train rides is a great way to get to know the region you are in, and will probably convince you @Tha_Ridge is completely correct about trying to do horses in NYC.
I don’t know about horse boarding but NYC is a super high cost of living area with an extensive suburban sprawl. That said there are commuter rail lines reaching deep into the exurbs.
I would suggest getting a map of the commuter rail lines, and then Google Earth map both standard and satellite view to see the areas you are interested in.
And take a train out as a test run.
It’s very possible a place is a half hour walk (say 2 miles) from a train station on paper but IRL you absolutely cannot get there in foot because it’s on the other side of a freeway or river. American suburban or exurban sprawl is not friendly to pedestrians. People in commuter towns typically drive to the train station rather than walk, and bus service in small towns or suburbs is sketchy at best
Also your proximity to the train station in NYC matters. If you live close to Penn or Grand Central and those lines work for you, it’s different thl
an if you need a one hour subway ride in from Brooklyn to even arrive at the train station.
If you have truly unlimited funds, much can be accomplished that the average ammie couldn’t arrange. And you could get a car.
Depending on your commitments in NYC, you might find it works best to actually move to a small town or exurb on a main commuter line, have your horse close to home, and commute into NYC as needed.
Anyhow I would suggest you buy a month rail pass if such a thing exists, and do some reconnoitering by riding out on the lines with a good map in hand, and seeing how long the journey takes and where the open land starts. Ride all the lines and observe. It’s a great way to tourist too! You could even get off in cute towns and grab a coffee, etc.
It’s really important as a horse person to have a feel for the exurbs and open land in your metro area. I would also ask your current lesson barn.
I’d add that trails can be hard to find in exurban sprawl. North America does not have long standing pedestrian equestrian right of ways through private property. Most exurban rural places are small farms cheek by jowl. You only get trails if you are near a provincial or state or municipal park. So you might want to Google horseback riding trails in your target areas. That will lead you to parks that may also be magnets for boarding barns. But be warned that unless the barn backs onto the park trail systems you may not be able to actually hack to a park that’s 3 miles away because of narrow fast roads.
I’d also say that in general, I would not expect a top show jumping barn to prioritize trail riding access. Such barns are quite likely to be landlocked. Show horse world in North America very much keeps to arenas and stables. I wouldn’t necessarily expect big pastures or even large turnout dry lots. Obviously some show horse people trail ride, but not the majority. Where I live, some of them never leave the indoor arena even.
Eventers are more likely to need to get their horses out in the wide world, because they ride cross country in competition.
Thank you for your feedback! I understand I’m asking for a lot of potentially contradictory things.
I live in Manhattan and owning a car is just not an option. Renting one 2+ times/ week takes too much time on top of a already long drive.
Budget (within reason, like below $3,000) is not an issue. Traffic also isn’t an issue if I’m taking the train, which would be the case for a barn in Westchester or Long Island.
I’m only going to stay in NYC for 2-3 years and don’t plan on moving to the suburbs, or on commuting for 4 hours multiple times a week, just to see my horse. If I can’t find anything suitable, she will just stay where she is - as I mentioned she’s well taken care of, I just miss her
Thank you! I have been looking at Google Maps, that’s how I got my initial list. I’m looking for feedback on that list and any places I might have missed.
Plenty of places in my list and in the NYC area mention access to trail rides. I’m not looking for 200 miles of trails in the wilderness, just for a nice 30-minute hack, which most places do seem to provide.
Does NYC have car share co-ops? My city has several where you join, and can then reserve, pick up and drop off cars near your preferred location. For a price.
Good point - I have looked at Zipcar, but apparently the quality of the service is terrible (half the cars won’t unlock and the other half won’t run, I’m exaggerating but not much)
I live on the 42nd floor in downtown Brooklyn, less than a mile from Manhattan. Anything is an option if you are willing to pay for it. I’ve lived in the city for 13 years, riding here for a decade now.
If you do not want to own a car yourself, Zipcar takes no more “time,” and you will find that with erratic train schedules, the drive time vs. train time is negated. For instance, my husband would sometimes take NJ Transit to my old barn, and I’d pick him up at the station and drive him 10 minutes to the farm.
For the sake of argument, let’s pretend the barn is across from the train station. If I were to leave my hypothetical West Village apartment right now to get to said barn, it would take me 70 minutes drive time or 2 hours, 1 minute on the train. I think, perhaps being from Europe, you’re being a bit idealistic about how public transit actually works here.
You’re exaggerating a lot. Did Zipcar for years before buying my own. It’s very easy and reliable, I just reached the point where financially, it made sense to own.
Northern/Central NJ has loads of preserved farmland, trails and great turnout, and that is where most H/J programs worth their salt out here are. It’s not like California.
I don’t know much, but I leased a fancy 2.6 hunter to Sage Hill a couple years back and he seemed to fit right in with a bunch of kids and adults doing the 3ft. and under hunters. Didn’t seem like they had a lot of jumper folks, but my info is very incomplete. Edited to add that they did take very good care of the horse!
There genuinely are probably not any barns under $3,000 a month with a 1.1m/1.2m program accessible by public transportation from NYC. You mention finding Knoll Farm easily, but as you’ve found it doesn’t meet your specific criteria. There are a lot of barns in the Westchester area, and some accessible by public transport. Most won’t have a program to support a 1.2m jumper, and the ones that do will probably be out of budget.
That’s interesting, I didn’t think budget would be the limiting factor here - what would then be the budget for a barn accessible with public transit and with the right program? Do you have any names in mind?
Public transport aside, any show program in Westchester capable of supporting a horse in that kind of program is going to be $4k+. You can start at around half that in Jersey, where I am, but again, in both places, the reliance on public transport is the rub.
Well, this sound more and more like my horse is going to stay in Europe and maybe have a few babies
I’ll keep digging around for barns in Jersey but I’m not very hopeful, the public transit coverage being lower than in Westchester
The other thing to remember is that there is a lot more competition activity at lower jumper height levels in North America than in Europe.
Lots of juniors and ammies pay a lot of cash to be coached and compete at under a meter. And at recognized shows with very expensive horses.
Going up to 1.1 or 1.2 metres is a whole other level and is going to cost even more. Very few ammies and juniors are competing at 1.2 metres.
I understand there are places in the world where competitive jumping starts at 3 feet or .9 meter, but honestly that’s aspirational for many juniors and ammies in North America who compete happily at 2 foot 6 or 2 foot 9.
Budget limits everything in and around NYC because of the exorbitant cost of land and transportation.
I’ve lived in the city for 13 years, riding here for a decade now.
