This is my first time posting here but I didn’t know where else to turn. I am 17 and I have been riding since I was 7. To me it’s my whole life and I’ve always put it first. I’ve always worked for money off of lessons, board ect. I lease a quarter horse who has recently gone lame and the vet can’t figure out why. I work 6-7 days a week at the barn and 3-4 at a part time job. For the past month I’ve been considering taking a break from riding. I haven’t been looking forward to going to the barn or seeing my horse. It’s been really hard and I’m wanting to take a break to figure out if I really love riding or if I’m still doing it because it’s what I’ve always done. I’m scared to not ride or go to the barn because I don’t know what else I’d do with my time. My trainer is also a bit rough and I’m having a hard time communicating with her, but I’ve heard horror stories from other people at my barn about the barns in my area and a lot of people who left for various reasons always seem to come back to our barn. Any advice from people who are older and more experienced with life than me would be awesome.
Why don’t you take some time off from LESSONING, and instead just focus on doing fun stuff with your horse. Trail ride, go camp, whatever.
Is your lease horse currently lame? With no clear diagnostic? Are you on a month by month lease from the barn or trainer? In that case if he’s going to be out of work indefinitely I would give up the lease until he recovers. Obviously if you’ve got him on a year long lease that may not be an option but I would contact the owner and see what your contract says and try to send him home to recover. The whole point of a lease is not to be tied down to a horse that’s not working out for you.
It’s no fun when your horse is lame. It is worrying, it costs money and time to fix and you can’t ride.
I would not take any gossip from anyone at your barn as the truth about other barns. If you want to try out lessons elsewhere go do it quietly while your lease horse is out of service and draw your own conclusions.
Finally what are the terms of service in your barn work? Are you doing work exchange for this lease horse or for board? Is this exchange fair? Or if you are getting a wage, is it fair, are you paid for all the hours you work?
I say this because I see and here so many stories of teens doing barn work on terms that really are not fair. The wage is low, they work more hours than they get paid, or they are doing swap for lessons that never end up happening.
Maybe a 14 year old has no other way to make money or support horse time. But at 17 you can get all kinds of retail and restaurant jobs that may pay better and be easier than barn work.
My guess not knowing your situation is that there’s an element of burnout, exhaustion, work exploitation and an unrideable horse combining to make this all no fun anymore.
As a teen still in high school I assume, you have a fantastic excuse with school starting in a few weeks. “I’m going into my junior/senior year, I need to really focus on my grades this year, I need to step back from barn work in September. I’ve loved being here and if I can manage it I will return for lessons once I see how the school year is going.”
Then walk away. Keep your part time job and then go pay for sample lessons at other barns and see what you think.
I ended up retiring my oem horse when I went to college. And even now, as a university professor, I sometimes put my horse on a field for the fall semester because I’m wanting to focus on getting back to work!
My lease horse is currently lame, hes got pretty bad navicular but steroid injections didn’t affect it so the vet says it’s probably not that but he doesn’t know what else it is. It’s the farrier for our barns horse and he’s the vets friend so any treatment is discounted. I’ve been working at this barn for about 5 years now, during the summer I work from 8am to around 2 or 3pm, some times less depending on what days I have to work at my other job. During the school year I work weekends 8am to 1 or 2pm. This summer I haven’t had to pay board, just lessons and during the school year I get a discount on board. It’s a month by month lease. He has been on and off lame for about 2 years now. It’s not a formal lease in any sense of the word.
Get out of the lease. A navicular horse getting worse is a nightmare and if he’s not your legal responsibility walk away now.
Get out a calculator and crunch some numbers. Be totally honest. Hours worked pay or value of the exchange. You are working 5 or 6 hours a day, 6 days a week. That’s 30 to 35 hours a week, basically a full time job. I don’t know what mimumum wage is where you live. But say $10 an hour is $350 a week is $1400 a month. Is that what board costs? Where I live board is about half that and minimum wage is $17 an hour.
What can you earn in other local jobs?
You’ve been working at this barn since you were 12, a child. You are now a young adult with lots of options but I bet you are still being treated like a child in many ways.
My advice is to walk away from.both the lease and the likely exploitative work situation and give yourself room to explore other barns and options. Working full time to support someone else’s unrideable horse is ridiculous. If your trainer has been enabling this they don’t have your best interests at heart.
Take a break from this barn and explore other possibilities.
Lots of people take a break to focus on school or career. Horses will always be there when you are ready to come back.
If you are one of those people who NEEDS contact with horses in order to feel complete, there are lots of options. See if there is a reputable rescue organization who needs volunteers.
If ever there was a good time to take a break, this is probably it. I’d assume you’re going into your senior year of high school, and after that you’ll either go to college, go to some other type of continuing education like trade school or an apprenticeship, join the military, or start a career. You may find that you are busy enough with your studies and preparing for your next step in life. It may also be good to work more at your non-horse job and sock away some money for school, a car, a house/apartment, or whatever you’ll need next year. If you are going to college, that also gives you an opportunity to try out new clubs and activities to see if you have other undiscovered interests or not.
It sounds like people can leave your barn and come back with relative ease, so it seems like you would be able to take a break and not worry about burning that bridge. When I was in college I didn’t ride during the school year, but I went back to my barn to help and ride in the summers (on top of another full time job). After I graduated and started working, I found that I now had the money to ride without having to trade tons of barn work for the opportunity. I also discovered that I do best with a variety of activities/hobbies, so I only ride once or twice a week and found that it’s plenty. Horses don’t have to be either all-consuming or nothing.
