Interesting article on doing less (trainers)

This cannot be repeated enough. People here criticize the trainer for being involved in all the pieces, but the last clients I helped with their pre-purchase wanted to know why they didn’t x-ray the front hocks too. You can say educate the client and God knows I try, but you cannot anticipate where all the gaps are enough to prevent disaster if left to their own devices.

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This is going to end horses for a lot of people.

There’s only so much we can do as an industry, the economic climate is what it is and no amount of creative pricing is going to change that. It’s simply insanely expensive to just exist these days, whether you’re a horse or a person.

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Great, my car will be paid off and I was wondering where the extra $500 a month would disappear to :confused:

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Couldn’t agree more.

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My two children grew up riding with me and enjoyed it, but they both say they won’t get their own kids involved with horses because it’s not sustainable financially. When I talk about getting a pony to have for the kids when they come visit, they say “please don’t”. I understand their concern.

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I’m SO thankful I got Charlie when I did in 2020. It was right before prices started skyrocketing for everything. Had I waited much longer, I very well may have talked myself out of it due to the financial side of everything. Expenses aside, he has done more for my mental/physical health and well-being than just about anything else.

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This makes me sad. It’s 100% understandable but I wish it was different and there would be some “little 2bayboys” thundering around your fields on fat ponies.

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I love how much this post has taken off. It does seem like there are models to make owning a horse more affordable but it requires a lot of ingenuity, flexibility and different goals. I think there are professionals out there, well, I know there are professionals out there, who want a model where they do not take part in the endless showing rat race but it’s hard to build a business when the media and popular culture push customers towards showing. My current and forever trainer (until I die, she promised), teaches and trains but does not go to anything other than local shows and not many of those (of course, there aren’t many anyways). Her business model is starting or restarting young horses including OTTB and lessons for clients. Her lessons are as hard if not harder than any horse showing professional I have had in the past. But she struggles with getting clients because they all think they have to show at the big shows. Even those whose children really don’t know one diagonal from the other. So perhaps we need a mindset change that allows for riding with a goal of fun and personal improvement, not silly ribbons. Just my thoughts.

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As a teen, I showed on a local, open circuit over the summers and did a trip down to Columbus for All American Youth Show. We lived and breathed it. By the time I was about through high school, both my horse and I were burned out. And for what? Ribbons that went in the trash a long time ago, and a couple cool trophies.

Getting back into horse ownership as an adult, I made a promise to myself that this go around, the goal was less stress and more fun, for both me and future horse. 5 years later, I am proud to say we are still achieving that. We’ve done a few shows, and done well at all of them even qualifying for WE regionals. Hauling hours on end to a show is not relaxing or fun to me, so that was an easy nope. Some of my best memories and experiences are so far away from the show pen that it makes me wish others could look at things through a slightly different lens. Horses have so much more to offer than points and ribbons.

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Yes, I am on the ACA, and as a freelancer, it has been an absolute godsend for me. I don’t know how I can cut more out of an already financially strapped budget. And I’ve already cut out horses!

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I was fortunate to mostly have horses at home. I boarded the last few years before loosing my boy then I set my self on a different course for a few years. Now (hopefully) retirement is somewhat possibly on the horizon and ownership, and maybe even leasing just does not look feasible. It’s a bit gutting even to think about it.

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I think the “eroding middle class” is a problem within the industry in a different but similar way. It’s not (just) that there are less middle class participants, it’s that there are less “middle of the road” options. For those who do not want to be in a full program but want more than just a field and some water the options are disappearing. There used to be plenty of straight boarding barns in my area who also offered lessons or had different boarding levels. But so many have been sold and either privatized or divided up. I can name 1 in my local (up to 70-90 min any which way) area. As someone who has never been in a program (can’t afford it, don’t want it I like having control over my horse’s care) it’s part of the reason we aren’t buying any horses until we have our own place. Plenty of the “full service” places in the area are not what most equate with full service (at least IMO). They do not show, have a small up down program, do not offer grooming, but charge $$$$ similar to what full service A show barns charged pre covid. I don’t believe anyone should subsidize the cost for someone else but it’s just insane to me to be charging 4 figures what is (in reality) a straight, no frills boarding facility under the guise of it being “full service”. I suppose this is exactly what the author of the article is referring to - doing less and making as much or more.

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But that’s exactly what some other folks in this thread are trying to say from our own experiences. Pre-and post Covid costs are so vastly different. I can’t even begin to explain unless you’re the ones paying the bills.

You say it’s insane to be charging four figures for straight up boarding and let’s be kind and say $1000 per month, but that is legitimately what it costs per horse. I said this up thread, but people tend to calculate what hay and shavings cost, but they forget about all of the other expenses. Labor. Insurance . Utilities. If you haven’t owned the facility for 30+ years and the place is paid off, mortgage and principal. I have long started to say I invite the collective you to buy your own facility and then we’ll figure out exactly how much it cost to keep a horse.

Someone else said up thread about saying the quiet part out loud but I think there is a large population of people that have been used to paying really subpar rates for boarding and let’s just say it upfront - boarding barns are subsidizing people’s horse hobbies.

I don’t actually think that’s the client fault or the provider fault because that’s just how it’s always been done. But I think more and more the providers are starting to look at their costs and raising prices appropriately and the clients are just mind blown because they’ve never had to consider that before.

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:clap::heart:

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What I think is insane is anyone expecting to pay less than $20 per day for your horse to have a stall and pasture provided, have that stall cleaned daily and replenished with bedding, water bucket cleaned and kept filled, feed delivered to horse twice per day and haynet filled, blankets put on and taken off, horse haltered and walked to and from turnout. At $20 per day for all of the above that’s $600 per month.

Now add in the actual cost of feed, hay, sawdust, utilities, and maintenance costs and I think it’s insane for anyone to charge less than $1000 per month to keep a luxury pet for someone.

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Locally near me $1,000 to $1200ish a month is a price only seen at barns that travel more extensively at rated shows. You would effectively put an end all other horse ownership in the state if you raised board to 1k a month at all other boarding barns. Average board is $400 to $750 a month depending on amenities but on the higher end would include an indoor arena, lesson program, and regular chances to show at local and a few rated shows.

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This is area dependent. 33 ish a day. One aspect that hasn’t been touched on when people/trainers start talking about costs and farm ext and start throwing out mortgage etc is America has long gone from a 1 income household. So a trainer wants to have a 2 million dollar farm and wants it 100% to be covered by boarders. Well- how reasonable is that when non trainers can have to have dual incomes to support a million dollar farm or just a house?

The market in many areas just won’t bear 1000 a month.

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I’ve been thinking about this a lot.

I think the problem is everything is so much more expensive, period. The cost to operate any sort of boarding facility is higher than it was 20 or 30 years ago, even when you adjust for inflation.

Whether you cater to the DIY crowd and offer minimal services or cater to the high end crowd who wants all the bells and whistles, those boarders are going to be paying more of their disposable income to afford that care. That further limits who can own horses. Someone who could make it work several decades ago may be priced out today.

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I mean, this is the entire point of the discussion. It’s the quiet part out loud. If that’s what it costs to keep the horse, then that’s what it costs to keep the horse. Quibble about some extras here and there, but the number is not suddenly going to become accessible. You can have reasonably priced board in low population areas, but then you have extremely limited access to clientele. And since we’ve apparently decided that BOs should not expect a livable income from running a boarding barn ($450/mth board does not a livable income make), we’ve made Barn Ownership a very unattractive investment & career path. Doesn’t matter if the Xers & Boomers landed on low-cost acreage, or run a hobby farm/tax shelter while SO works a salaried job with 401K and insurance, or inherited their parent’s fully established 40-stall program. Who, graduating in this day and age, is going to take on these facilities? Work a physically toiling and dangerous job for insane hours in stupid temperatures while trading in holidays, vacations, reliable insurance & retirement savings? Any local HS career counselor would say it’s a terrible idea.

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To be fair, the person in that job should have been saying the same thing all along.

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