LOL. It’s not for the faint of heart! Honestly it wasn’t that bad until about two years ago when my heart horse died at only age 19, had her since she was unbroken 2yr old and she came from PA to Ca with me, AND my property insurance went from $5k/yr to $15k/year! And that was with me hiking my deductible from $4k to $20k, the highest I could go. At almost $1k more a month, that’s my board cost right there.
Losing my mare caused me to really lose heart in the horses for awhile, things are improving there but the guy I have ATM is just a horse to me, he can stay or go and I can get another one just as easily, and on the financial side I was like OK CA you win- stick a fork in me because I’m DONE.
I don’t know what you do or where you are but there are still places where you can have both. You do sacrifice some things - we’re 600 miles from family which I don’t love, and being midwestern means my seafood is just…not as good - but there are still cities where you can have a pretty full life more cheaply than some of the other cities. DH wants to get out of this state for some reasons, but I don’t think I could buy this in some others (most notably VA).
Like I said, I’m really close to downtown. Does it have it’s downsides? Yes. Absolutely. I both love and hate the fact that I have residential areas so close. Invariably someone is doing weird things right when I want to ride one of my spookier horses. I like to think that it’s training both of us to be more resilient. I hate that I have to get a dumpster for manure - it feels so wasteful. I don’t love that I’m concerned about getting permits to build. I get more concerned about looky-loos from the local neighborhoods and had to put up “no feeding” signs because someone was feeding my horses the excess veggies from their fridge which the fatties were only too happy to enjoy.
On the flip side, there’s a gas station on the corner and I’m 5 minutes from two huge grocery stores and the pub/restaurant we go to weekly as well as a bunch of other things LOL I’m 5 minutes from an urgent care and 10 minutes from a major hospital - also useful when being a horseperson. I’m 15 minutes from MLB, NHL, MLS and now XFL games as well as art museums, botanical gardens, cultural events and other really fun city restaurants. There’s a real value to that.
I’ve lived a 45 minute drive from town, and though I liked being isolated to a degree, you do have to be a LOT more prepared IMO for things like snow or infrastructure failure.
To Nancy’s point though, I do always have more troughs full than I need, I have a woodstove, and have my emergency seeds and food storage. And my barn is big enough to store a LOT of hay and we usually do. The horses can go without grain, but they need hay.
Oh, but forget non-weekly trips to TSC. I swear, no matter how well I plan, there’s always something I need from TSC, usually mid-project LOL So I’d plan proximity to a TSC in there. Amazon is great and we get a lot of things delivered overnight (again, you can’t get that out in the boonies) but TSC still has the majority of the stuff I need.
Every time I think about moving I think…yeah…but this is pretty sweet in so many ways!
I thought about you today and decided I’m going to start tracking my time. I don’t deal w water buckets and chuck into a FEL and go dump into a compost pile. My chores tonight alone took an hour. That wasn’t the am work which would be easily 30 min. I did go pick my turnouts for 15 min because it had been weeks. Then cleaned my stalls. I don’t close my horses into their stalls but do bed deeply so they pee in there and do lay down at night. They poop outside in two piles so that’s quick.
Then I fed - small rubber bowls and clean them w soapy water and a quick scrub otherwise they get gross. I stuffed four 2 inch haynets for overnight and into tomorrow pm because I’ll leave at 630 am.
I cannot imagine getting all my work done in 20 minutes. Mine is easily an hour a day between AM and PM and that’s with no special clean ups: sweeping up the hay chaf in the hay room, sweeping the aisle, cleaning up in my tack room.
I wonder if the posters who say they have horses at home but still ride 5x a week also work FT and if so, if they are remote? I work off-farm and even if I just did a grab-n-dash of my doggos at my Dad’s house (they go stay with him while I’m at work) and don’t socialize at all, there is just no way unless it’s my Friday and I don’t have to get up at 4am the next morning.
Mornings for 4 horses take me about 30 mins. I soak pellets which takes a little extra time in the winter because I use a kettle. I bring everyone in, feed, and while they are eating I go clean the track and put in the dumpster. It’d be quicker if I didn’t soak hay pellets but I bought some huge ones that require soaking.
Then I add hay to the one hay station, and refill hay nets, and by then the horses are about ready to go back outside.
I have one trough kind of under the hydrant so I don’t have to mess with hoses and another larger trough that stays pretty full for a few days so I check those, and then turn out. That takes like a minute maybe 2 if they are walking slowly.
I use a blower to do my aisle, so that takes sub 5 mins.
They do not have access to stalls other than for feeding but they have a communal shed with straw. They tend not to poop there much so I clean it out when I notice more than one pile. They have kind of designated dung piles and I keep those picked up.
It took me 45 mins when I had them in stalls 12 hours. It would take me less time if I dragged poo or picked up with something more automated. So I could see 20 minutes being reasonable.
I do work remotely, which makes this much more doable.
I think an hour a day is realistic for any setup I’d design - assuming more than 2 horses.
I do chores at a farm a couple of times a week. AM chores take ~ 30 minutes, PM chores can take 2 hours if you let things slide the day before or decide to be extra. Horses live out but come in to eat.
AM (30 min)
Dump feed for 8, including tossing in a feed scoop of water into each meal from their water bucket (feed soaks up fast even in winter)
let horses in - they go to their assigned stalls with minimal fuss, this would take ages if I had to halter and walk them in
while horses eat, top off water in fields and throw hay
let horses out
PM (1-2 hours):
clean 5 stalls and run bucket to pile. Unless they’ve been in for some reason, this only takes a few minutes. Also pick dry lot and gate areas
refill water, dumping stall buckets as needed. While the hose runs, throw stall hay. Sometimes we use nets and sometimes not. Stuffing nets easily adds 30 minutes to this.
dump and soak feed
let horses in
SHUT OFF WATER (!!!)
scoop feed for next day, refill bins/crush pills/etc
throw field hay
blanket change
kick horses out
blow aisle and organize
With fewer horses, actual dry lots/loafing areas, auto waterers, and a better field hay setup, I could likely cut PM down to less than an hour on a “long” day.
Right. I even maximize trying to take the least amount of steps. If I’m walking by something I grab it on the way to something else I’m doing. I took pictures tonight of how out of control my barn is and it just isn’t possible to have order without a lot more time being spent. Just to show I’m not some neat freak.
I work FT/non-remote and have three horses at home. One is retired, but I ride each of the other two 4-5 days a week. Rarely (maybe once or twice a month?) I miss a day of riding due to extra-long work or weather (no indoor). I typically ride both on Wed, Sat, and Sun. The eventer also works Mon and Thur (jump lesson off-farm). The dressage horse also works Tues (dressage lesson off-farm). Fri is a bit of a wild card depending on who needs what that week. My Apple Watch says I have a daily average of 45-60 min of riding this year, but that’s low because one was at a rehab barn for 3 months and the other was with my dressage trainer for 5 weeks (both unusual occurrences). Usually each horse works for 40-60 min, though conditioning rides with the eventer can run to ~80 min. From November - February he gets his hind shoes pulled and we just hack 4ish days a week, because he knows his job and doesn’t need drilling.
What is your commute like? I think that can be a massive killer on top of regular work hours, especially if it gets you home after dark. I’m lucky to be fairly close (~20-25 min) and have some flexibility to roll in a little late or leave early. In the summer I work 9-5 and ride one horse in the morning (which is the best!!); in the winter I work 8-4 and ride in the afternoons/evenings. This year I’m averaging 45-50 hours of work per week, which includes regular 40-hour weeks, plus 600 hours of OT, minus leave (almost all for horse-related things, if we’re being honest). I avoid accepting any voluntary OT that I know will prevent me from riding. I’m also on call all the time but that’s usually in the middle of the night, so it doesn’t conflict with riding very often.
Brutal efficiency and chore flow make a huge difference. Hubby gets a kiss hello and then I’m outside again until dinnertime. He also does almost all of the dog care, grocery pickups (we order online), and dish washing. I do more of the cooking, with dinner typically around 6:30-7:30. Large batches when possible, for leftovers. No kids, which obviously also helps a lot.
I don’t do long grooming sessions. Grab horse, knock off dirt, tack up, go. More leisurely tacking up and extra chores are for weekends. @TheJenners, are you sure you aren’t spending too much time snuggling burritos?? My dressage horse is super snuggly and sometimes it’s a challenge to be efficient with him.
As far as chore flow, I think the biggest time sinks are turn in/out, stall cleaning, haying, and watering. Setting up your farm and workflow to streamline those is a huge help. Fall through spring my guys live out 24/7 with an auto waterer, a dry lot, and covered netted square bale feeders that I only fill every few days in the winter. Full turnout makes my life SO much easier and gives me flexibility to work weird hours without worrying about them being trapped in stalls or standing at the gate. AM chores are typically ~20-30 min. In the winter I can feed PM grain and, while they eat, change blankets, top off hay, and pick the dry lot in ~20-30 min (which is basically what I also do in the AM in the winter). In the summer they are stalled during the day, so PM chores take longer. In the summer it ends up being more like ~30-45 min with turn out and stall cleaning. My stalls have runs and I’m lucky that all three of my current horses are neat, so that’s usually pretty quick. I can do it faster if I really need to, or hubby can feed and turn out if I get stuck at work. I try to save longer chores like moving hay around, dragging the arena, and other projects for weekends.
To be fair, during the week I do nothing but work, ride, eat, spend some time in the evening with hubby, read a book, and sleep (usually in bed around 10 pm and up 5:30-6:30 am). But honestly I don’t have much interest in going out or whatever normal humans do after work. There have been times I’ve felt burned out by it, but usually that’s because I have a horse on stall rest or because work is extra stressful and it’s bleeding over.
I do foresee a time when I don’t want to do this anymore, but I don’t think that will be because of the daily workload. Maybe when I am ready for a break I can rent my 3-stall barn, 3 acres of pasture, and outdoor arena to someone nearby who will appreciate the ability to keep horses at “home” without the start-up costs. I see empty fields and unused barns in my area, and it kind of bums me out that there are a lot of people out there who would be thrilled to put them to some use–but of course you have to find the right person, which is a whole different topic…
Yeah, that’s your killer. I could work 9’s and have one 3-day weekend every two weeks, but even that extra hour would cut into my riding so I stick with 8s.
Heck, this time of year I am lucky if I can get chores done before it is so dark I am using a headlamp to pick the manure in paddocks.
I go to work in the dark, I come home from work in the dark.
I suppose I could ride in the dark, but …
Clearly if you have an indoor or all weather footing and a lighted outdoor you have the ability to ride after dark. None of that is in the budget.
This is where I am. I might bring Grundy into the barn to do some low-key stuff, but realistically every hour of daylight is gone. I’ve been trying to get out of work at a “daylight hour” once or twice a week so I don’t lose my mind, but realistically I’m working from 6am to 3-4pm - add the commute and there goes the daylight.
@Libby2563 am I reading that correctly that are you shipping in for lessons 3 days/week? I am feeling very pleased with myself when I can pull off 1 day/week How far do you go - and do you go after work? I have been considering trying a trainer that is quite close to me but who I don’t know all that much about just because traffic is just so bad at any peak times. I just basically gave up on my last trainer because it was just too much of a bear to ship an hour each way after working all day.
Back to the thread question: In my opinion, if you want to keep retired or “pleasure” type horses at home, that’s probably the best/most realistic plan. You don’t need a ring, let alone an indoor, and you’re not killing yourself (see above) to keep going with lessons…you’re able to adjust their care as their needs change with age.
Generally, I’m happier to be able to turn out my horses on days that I know they would not been out wherever I have boarded, and exchange that turnout time for an indoor. In my experience, having an indoor but no turnout just means I have to ride horses that I wish had just been turned out
I’m with you on this question! Even if the trainer is just 15 minutes up the road, it takes time to pack up, hitch up, warm up the truck, load up, unload, unpack, tack up, [ride time], untack, repack, reload, rewarm up the truck, get home, unload, unpack, clean the trailer, unhitch. That’s 2.5-3 hours, for me!
So I’d plan proximity to a TSC in there. Amazon is great and we get a lot of things delivered overnight (again, you can’t get that out in the boonies) but TSC still has the majority of the stuff I need.
I am feeling very pleased with myself when I can pull off 1 day/week 
How far do you go - and do you go after work? I have been considering trying a trainer that is quite close to me but who I don’t know all that much about just because traffic is just so bad at any peak times. I just basically gave up on my last trainer because it was just too much of a bear to ship an hour each way after working all day.
