Currently, I lease pasture from a local guy, and have my horses on self-care. I feed them, do the watering/blanketing/etc, and they live out. The owner of the land maintains the fence (vinyl so fairly sturdy) and is kind enough to mow/drag for me about once a week. It’s a great arrangement for me but I can tell you that even doing this, I still pay close to $500/mo for the first horse, and that’s just pasture, hay, and grain (but I live in Florida so hay is crazy expensive, and I don’t feed coastal). The owner allows me to maintain a grass ring on the property and brought my own jumps- no riding facilities provided. I hack to a neighbor’s for conditioning and lessons.
When I lived in Massachusetts, I was at a place that ticked all your boxes, except perhaps turnout (horses came in between 2 and 3, so slightly less than 8 hours, and stayed in for bad weather). It cost north of $1200/mo. Sand turnout, no grass. It cost more than my rent but it was the only place that had the riding facilities I needed and feeding practices that satisfied me. I could have gotten under $1000/mo elsewhere, but I probably would have had to sacrifice the indoor, the frequent feeds, and the turnout.
As as a former BM, I will say that there are a lot of factors that play into the feasibility of your requirements. Our barn satisfied them all, but we had a number of onsite staff, a handyman for maintenance, and our board price reflected this (and still, we basically broke even for board). For example:
Hay feeding- limited by staff and availability. Are you okay with a round bale or do you only want to feed square? What if there is grass? Are you okay with a winter hay surcharge? If hay is expensive or limited in your area, the barns are likely very careful about hay wastage, which increases with frequent feedings. Is there staff onsite all the time, and available to do a lunch feeding or a night check feeding?
Turnout- do they have enough to put every horse out at once? Enough to have some resting, if you want the grass to have a shot? What about in the cold months, when the horses might only be out for 6-7 hours? We used to bring in at 2 in the winter, because the sun started to set at 3 and the horses would go batty wanting to come in. It created an unsafe situation for staff (especially with ice/snow) so we had to cut turnout back. As for the field boarders, we cleaned the shelters once a week, and dragged the fields as needed. They stayed plenty clean (lots of space) on this schedule, but if someone expected to never see a poo pile in the shelter, they would have been disappointed. The horses also went into a smaller sacrifice area in the muddy part of the spring, so we could seed and rest the fields. Yes, it sucked for a few weeks, but we wouldn’t have had good summer pasture otherwise. Compromise!
Fencing- I agree you shouldn’t compromise here, but recognize that your price bracket may dictate the fence quality. The farm I managed had 3-board fence with hot tape and we repaired at least 2-3 issues a week. Horses are hard on fencing and boards are expensive!
Arenas- costly to build and time consuming to maintain. Outdoor rings freeze unless they are treated and harrowed continually and indoors require watering, raking, and dragging daily if in reasonable use. More hours for staff = more expense. I would guess we spent an hour a day on indoor maintenance alone (move jumps if necessary, rake edges, drag, sprinkle).
Boarding is all about compromise. You’ll probably find you have to compromise somewhere- cost, distance, or one of your expectations. Best of luck to you!
