Let's talk about lesson programs

[Jsalem]

Trainer here with a predominately Owner/Show Oriented program. We have a small Academy lesson program for a couple of reasons:

1. As a feeder program to get people started.
2. As a way to keep our older, valuable campaigners paying their way as long as possible before they are ultimately retired.
3. To provide an income opportunity for our younger assistants. We pay a salary for riding, but teaching gives them a nice income if they are motivated.

I know that Lesson Programs are disappearing and I can certainly understand why! Our challenges:

1. Newbie riders have so many other things going on. The cancellations are ridiculous- verging on completely not worth the hassle.

2. We cannot find affordable lesson horses to teach on! We used to have lots of loaners. People were happy to let you keep their older horses when they had moved on. Not anymore. Clients have so much $$ invested that they now need to lease or sell to recoup. I’d like to buy that sweet Short Stirrup type of hony, but unfortunately, they cost 15k plus. How does that even make financial sense when you charge $60 per lesson?

3. The expectations are absolutely crazy! I can’t tell you how many phone calls I get from re-riders or lifetime lesson students who want to jump 3’+ on lesson horses for $60 a pop. They have no concept what a 3’ horse costs now to buy and maintain. No, you can’t bomb around on my 6 figure horse and pay me $60! And trying to get them to commit to more $$ than that weekly lesson? Forget about it.

Where are the new riders going to come from??

[kirbydog]

Are you me??? Cuz these are my thoughts exactly!

[Sarah616]

And mine as well.

1. this is so frustrating, and something that I have to tell students and their parents a lot. I get a lot of kids who are signed up for other sports (sports that don’t require the participation of another living being) and they make the other sport their priority. I’ve told several parents point blank “your child is good at this and they enjoy it, but if you want them to continue to progress, you will need to make this a priority.

To build on this, I get kids who want to come out “just for fun” but not actually to learn anything or move up. I try to explain to them, “I don’t need 100% from you at every lesson, but I need 85-90%” especially because most of them expect 100% effort from myself and the horse they are riding. I try to compare it to their other sports saying “if you don’t feel like you had a good practice at soccer, you can go home and kick the soccer ball around the backyard. You can’t do that with your riding lessons”

2. I blame the cost of lesson horses (at least a little bit) on COVID and supply and demand issues. During COVID so many people picked up riding because that was the one thing that was still actively taking place. And that’s great! But now those people are all looking for those Short Stirrup/Low child/adult/super safe, easy, odd sized critters, and are willing and able to pay 15-20k for a horse that 5 years ago would have been 3-5k. Even the odd sized, non-lead changing ones, it’s impossible to find under “low five figures” in the FB sale groups.

3. Even when you sit people down and explain to them the cost of everything and WHY we can’t just let you jump our lesson horses 3’ or show them extensively, they still don’t get it or accept it. It’s amazing the number of riders that I hear of either directly reaching out to our program or from other programs who are “looking for a new program because my current one won’t let me jump higher without owning a horse”. Surprise. It’s the same everywhere.

[BAC]

This makes me so sad, I was a junior in the 1960s and there was a “school of horsemanship” scattered all over the area and I rode at many of them, there was a large selection. One of the largest and oldest was demolished last year to become a housing development.

But when I came back as a re-rider in middle age, I ended up at a large local barn that in addition to many boarders with their own horses, had a therapeutic riding program located on the property. They received donations of some nice schoolie type horses as well as a few former show horses with jumping and dressage backgrounds. Not all were suitable for the riders in the therapeutic program, so they had an arrangement to be used as lesson horses. OP, is there any way you could accommodate such a program on your farm? In the situation I described, the facility didn’t have to maintain a school string but they did receive a percentage of each lesson from the therapeutic program and I think they gave the therapeutic program a discounted board rate as well…

[Jsalem]

We already have a hippotherapy program to bring in some easy $$ and support the lesson string. It’s not a charity, so we can’t offer a taxable donation that would attract the horses you’re talking about.

[clanter]

@BAC

One of the largest and oldest was demolished last year to become a housing development.

I can understand that occurring, we bought our current place in 1985, today the appraised value of the land is 25 times what we paid for it. The Property Taxes would be a killer if I was not over 65

[BAC]

@clanter

I can understand that occurring, we bought our current place in 1985, today the appraised value of the land is 25 times what we paid for it. The Property Taxes would be a killer if I was not over 65

Yup, the cost of living is very high where I am and property values have skyrocketed, so several of the last remaining equestrian facilities are gone now. It’s a shame because it was once a very horsey area.

[clanter]

@BAC

Yup, the cost of living is very high

we have a friend who is paying $135 for a 1/2 hour riding class for her daughter, this “class” is no more than a glorified pony ride as her kid is not allowed to do anything other than set on the horse as it is led about

Inexpensive horses are out there but most need time to be developed. Today’s public lacks most any patience they want an instant success. There are more people with a lot of money who are welling to drop what would for me a HUGE amount of cash for a proven mount that will give Them the Success they dream of. Thus here we are at $20,000 schooling horses

[Arelle]

The biggest things I’ve seen work to some degree is to charge in advance for the lesson bookings per month, set a definitive time/date (Every Wednesday at 5 PM, or whatever), and only offer one cancellation/reschedule per month which must be used during the same month. It’s a harsh policy, but it should weed out those that aren’t serious as it will hit them in the pocket book if they continue to take advantage.

Lesson horses are hard - many barns have tried to work out half/quarter leases on their lesson horses in order to cover some of the costs. I might see if you can try some off breeds… we have an OTTB reseller here in North Texas who has a number of horses available for four figures regularly, and there are several FB groups for stock breeds <10K. I doubt you’ll find purpose build H/J prospects, but a solid, quiet QH can teach a kid to go around eight jumps just as well as any warmblood.

Again, set the rules on the jumping limits. Most barns here have fixed their lesson programs at 18’’ - 2’. Anything high requires a minimum of a half lease on a lesson horse.

As far as “where are the new riders going to come from?”… we’re all pretty screwed. The feeder programs are disappearing - I’m lucky in that I have a solid background and horses of my own, but I’ve participated in the local H/J lesson scene for the better part of the last 6-7 years after retiring my long time jumper. Everything else I personally own are pleasure horses who couldn’t make a line if their lives depended on it. I’m blessed to be able to jump larger courses on some nice horses because of my background, but even I’m being forced to lease or buy should I want to continue. There’s not a strong outlook for anyone who isn’t already participating.

[Sarah616]

@Arelle

As far as “where are the new riders going to come from?”… we’re all pretty screwed. The feeder programs are disappearing - I’m lucky in that I have a solid background and horses of my own, but I’ve participated in the local H/J lesson scene for the better part of the last 6-7 years after retiring my long time jumper. Everything else I personally own are pleasure horses who couldn’t make a line if their lives depended on it. I’m blessed to be able to jump larger courses on some nice horses because of my background, but even I’m being forced to lease or buy should I want to continue. There’s not a strong outlook for anyone who isn’t already participating.

This is something I was just contemplating the other day. We had an older woman walk in with her adult daughter and infant granddaughter in tow. She informed me that they had just bought some land with a barn on it and intended to have horses at some point down the road, so that the grandchildren could grow up with horses. No one in the family has any horse experience. She couldn’t understand that no, even at a “quiet” time like 11:00 on a Friday afternoon (which is when she showed up) we didn’t have any availability for two adult beginners because of the horses already scheduled jobs for the day (this is slightly besides the point, but she was very unwilling to take ‘no, sorry’ for an answer). As she left, trying to find another barn in the area to drop in on to see if they could help her, I got to thinking… most of the barns around me are not set up to show people how to have horses on their own property. Most are looking for riders who want to show or at the very least want to eventually buy a horse and board it. So where do these people with no experience turn?

What I came up with is the idea of a horse professional who can basically act as a live in tutor for a while. Someone who can be hands on in the actual location from day one, to show the people how to feed, muck stalls, do water, turnout, etc, and be there through the beginnings of the learning process to at least give them a baseline of information. The downside of this is that I cannot imagine someone being able to pay enough to make this worth it. Case in point, the person noted above, when I suggested a live in person to take care of things, said something along the lines of “I thought of that but the one person I talked to wanted $1,000 a month on top of a place to live. And I thought that was too much”. A month. Not per week.

[trubandloki]

@Sarah616

So where do these people with no experience turn?

There are some lesson barns with active pony clubs, so that type of program might work for people in that type of situation. They get riding time on lesson horses and horsemanship training doing unmounted things.

[Larksmom]

just spitballing here, but could you have one of them at a time come to you and since they shy at the prospect of paying $1,000 a month to do all that, she could do some of your chores to get an idea of what is involved. Maybe a couple of hours of real work around the place, for some VERY beginner walk around on the horse to see what level of interest they really have. Sadly, there are plenty of people who don’t even ask for ideas, They just go on and buy a horse, or have one given to get the owner out of board money and don’t even know to buy hay…they can eat grass…It seems to me that would be a PITA, but on the off chance they really were interested, and even somewhat sincere they might become productive horse owners?

[2bayboys]

I wish I knew the answer. A few years ago I had a booming lesson program, but then I lost a school horse to age and EPM, another to a career ending injury, and another leased pony to the owner needing her back. When I crunched the numbers on purchasing suitable replacements, it hardly seemed feasible to subsidize someone else’s child and their riding dreams. So I scaled way way back and trimmed my program to those students who never cancel and who understand (mostly) the limitations of riding without owning.

[Arlomine]

I can relate on so many levels to this. Here is something that I have added to my program.

In the last two years, I myself have been playing around with clicker training with my own horse, who I was having a hard time with. It’s extremely easy to learn, very fun, and can be a great group lesson. People do not have to ride, they do not have to own horses, and they can be from many different backgrounds of riding. I put this under the horsemanship category.

I put one ad out for a Clicker Training workshop that crosses all Disciplines on local Facebook pages, and got five participants. Four workshops later I am running two, one hour sessions every Sunday with 5 to 6 participants in each group lesson. Some of the people are already very skilled riders, some of them are complete beginners, some of them have crossed over from Western, the list goes on. They can ALL be in the same lesson! Last Sunday, I had an equine veterinarian, an owner of a boarding barn in the area along with her friend. I’ve already built some dressage lessons from this.
I know it’s totally out of the box, but the horses love it, you can do it with your retired horses. And it is zero stress on the horses bodies.

Also, it’s value added for my existing customers. They’ve all become interested, and they join in. I keep it affordable, and I think of it as a service to the local horses as well as a business builder for me. And it’s really a nice thing for my retired horses. They get tons of attention.
I keep it affordable to encourage people from other disciplines to give it a shot. I charge $30, and if I fill both sessions with six people, now we’re talking.

[Alterwho]

That sounds like fun! If you were near me (maybe you are??) I would sign up

[Arlomine]

See? There ya go!
I’m in Southern Oregon

[Alterwho]

Darn it. I’m in WA state

[Rumorhasit93]

What area are you in? I’m in the greater Seattle area and it’s $100 for 30 minutes in our Academy Program. Lessons for re-riders on a school horse is $120 for an hour. All of our school horses jump 2’9” max and are regularly seen by a vet for routine injections, etc.

I hate to say it, but raise your prices. The most laymen way to explain it is these horses require extra maintenance and that runs about $6k/year per horse just for injections, god forbid anything bad happens on top of that.

Kind of like my line of work, people just don’t get it. Until you explain it simply. I find most people are reasonable and understanding, and those that aren’t? Well, I don’t want to work with those people.

[Sarah616]

There used to be these great videos on YouTube many years ago, I think they were called Xtranormal or something like that. They were these little animated creatures and you could set a script for them to read, and someone had done a few with horse riding things…
My favorites were “Why did I not get a ribbon?” Which included lines like “I did exactly what my trainer said, why did I not get a rib-bon?” And the response of the judge “well you went the wrong way and ran into the other horses” “but my heels were down!”

But the more relevant one went something along the lines of “horse back riding is expensive, you should provide it for me”. It stories a parent trying to sign their kid (young, like 4 years old) up for lessons, but saying the kid was the next best thing and the trainer should view it as a privilege to teach the child, and provide the helmet and the boots and the pony and the tack, etc etc etc. It really encompassed the feeling that we get sometimes when people complain about the $60 cost of lessons, or needing to buy their own helmet, or why does board cost so much… some people can never truly grasp it, no matter how well you explain.

I wish these videos were still around. We quoted them daily

Edit: wait I found them! This is the riding school one:

At the riding school

[Trekkie]

I found some. They are brilliant.

Why did I not get a Ribbon?

The Dressage Horse