Op check out any local IEA teams: https://www.rideiea.org/
It’s a similar format to college riding and will give her the opportunity to show in a different environment and ride different horses.
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Different decade, and probably different region (Metro), but I can. I was in Pony Club in the late 60s, early 70s. At one C-2 rally I competed against Tad Coffin, who went on to compete in the Montreal Olympics. More recently, in the Virginia region, Phyllis Dawson, who competed in the Seoul Olympics, was a Pony Clubber. Also in the Virginia region, Pony Clubber Lynn Symansky was travelling reserve for the Rio Olympics, and competed on several Pan Am teams. (All three in 3-Day Eventing)
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This sounds amazing. Unfortunately we don’t have any Pony Clubs nearby! Believe me, I double checked after reading your comments and if we did, we’d already belong to one!
This is all excellent wisdom and advice! We’re going to follow it.
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Got it - thank you!
Yes, this is ALL what she wants to do, but we don’t have any Pony Clubs nearby. We have two types of barns nearby:
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More “high end” barns compete very well at shows (A-rated and Local) and progress riders through pretty rigorous lessons. This is where we go now - she tacks, rides, and then untacks the horse for 2-hrs 2x per week, with 1-hr of it being pure lesson time with coaches who care about the riders and horses, but also don’t sugar coat anything.
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There are some other barns that are more fun oriented. They don’t do many shows (but they do some IEA stuff, which is cool) and lessons are more fun oriented and unstructured. They also have Barn Days 1x per month where they learn all the other stuff. While she loved the barn days, she just couldn’t progress her riding nearly as quickly here.
She loves taking care of the horses as much as riding them, so we’re going to figure this out somehow. But overall she wants to improve her riding, and ride a lot more. Right now there just aren’t many barns that offer both unfortunately, so we chose the higher end ones as she just felt like she wasn’t advancing fast enough in the more fun ones that we used to belong to.
Thank you, I actually read the “Broke” person earlier today - it was certainly eye opening!
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Yes, we’re familiar with IEA. The barn she goes to doesn’t do them much (or at all maybe) though. But she absolutely loves the format. It just isn’t near as popular here as the state/regional HJA shows and the barns focused on them. There are only 2 “teams” within a couple hours of here and we don’t hear much about them locally.
And jump in yourself and take a few adult lessons. I was dragged reluctantly to my first lesson at age 35 as a Pony Club parent.
And my daughter’s first “outgrown” horse? We never tried to sell him and I ended up foxhunting him for over twenty years. My daughter gave up riding when college came along but I am still learning from my horses every day, and am happily horsing around over two decades into retirement from my day job.
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Is the program your daughter is in open to her doing more lessons per week (4-5 days)? At least for the winter? Unstructured riding time on a lease horse may not be as beneficial right now as more lessons, plus it would be better for your budget while still giving you a step up to see a bit what a more intensive commitment looks like? Or has she outgrown the capabilities of their lesson horses? I am not an HJ person, fwiw.
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Yes, we’ve done 3x lessons per week recently, but never any non-lesson riding, unstructured riding, or only flat riding (unless the coach just wanted to that day). But that would certainly be less expensive. Shoot, we could afford 25+ lessons per week 
at the rate of leasing a horse, LOL.
Honestly, the horse she rides at 50% of her lessons is the one they want her to lease. He is an expensive horse (that’s what they are telling us at least), but nobody is leasing him (probably because of the $$$) so she gets to ride him a lot. But she never minds riding the other horses too - some of which she likes just as much as the one they want her to lease but they tell us that those “lesson horses” wouldn’t do well at shows (which is definitely true, from what we have learned).
Honestly, more so at the barn we left before, but also a little at this current barn we get the feeling that if we don’t lease a horse, they might start not allowing her to ride the nicer horses or progress as quickly. It’s almost like the barns around here give you a taste of riding nice horses — as the carrot, and it’s almost an unspoken rule that if you then don’t lease or buy a horse with their approval or involvement within a year or two, you’re going to be put on a different track and are just not going to be able to ride the same horses or progress as fast — as the stick. Overall, it’s a bit of an odd feeling for us parents!
We left our prior barn because they were intentionally holding her back and not allowing her to compete or practice at the next level as an incentive to lease a horse - they told us that flat out when we asked why she wasn’t being allowed to go to certain shows or practice certain things that her peers who were leasing a horse were getting to do. Her newer barn as of the past 1.5 years isn’t holding her back at all (which is great), but when we brought up her goals, they then started heavily encouraging her/us to do the full lease in order to compete at A level shows.
I think we just need to talk with them about getting her more riding time period, before we even figure out the lease, half-lease, or lesson thing. This post has been super helpful and eye-opening for sure! Now we know what to focus on more right now, and that is focusing on her riding more and more and not leasing a horse just for the sake of leasing a horse!
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@HeelsDown123, a very simple way to better understand what this lease covers and involves is to ask the trainer if you can have a copy of the lease contract so you can look over it to understand things better.
I would think that a barn of this level would have a clear contract covering this.
I would think a full lease would include some non-lesson ride time, along with those two lessons per week.
In my opinion, I think leasing is a good first step. It allows you to get your feet wet with more time commitment, the additional cost of owning, etc. It also gives you the out of ending the lease if your daughter decides that maybe riding this much is not quite what she wants.
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OP, I suggest reading “A Man Walks into a Barn” by Chad Oldfather, and for your daughter, I suggest the US Pony Club Manual of Horsemanship D Level (and C Level) by Susan Harris. Even if Pony Club is not an option, reading and referring to the manuals is very helpful. There is so much more to the world of riding horses than A-rated showing!
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Don’t get over-focused on shows. What really develops a rider is time, particularly on a variety of horses and ponies. Taking care of them, just being around them teaches a child about their wants, needs, foibles.
A large prey animal is outside the experience of most children, who are only exposed to small predator animals (dogs and cats). Learning how horses think, behave, and, most importantly, react is absolutely critical to be a good rider and, of course, anything resembling a true horseman.
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I think the pony club manuals are great, but do go into it knowing that there are lots of jokes for those in pony club about doing things the pony club way. Some of the stuff in there is not quote modern way accurate.
Still a great read.
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Consider it more, if I am going to make another analogy to other sports, that when you start taking tennis lessons they will have demo rackets available to help make it more accessible without a big buy-in. Once you are playing 5 days a week, they’re going to want you to purchase your own equipment because the purpose of that shared demo equipment is not to be used by everyone daily and regularly replaced- if everyone only used those rackets all the time, the place would be going through them left and right. When you talk about horses, they are much more sensitive to use than another type of sporting equipment. The more demanding of a lesson (the higher level of rider) the more wear and tear on their body. It’s not fair to expect a horse to jump daily, or twice a day (many lesson horses will do two lessons a day, one very light with very beginners and one longer/faster) since it would likely damage their joints, so if all the riders there only used lesson horses, then the poor horses would be expected to jump twice a day every day and would likely have career ending injuries after about 6 months. The barn isn’t withholding higher level work because they want more money, necessarily, but their cost to keep a lesson horse can’t be supported with more advanced riders still using the lesson horses. I know it is a big cost committment, but that comes from the fact that our sport requires us to keep in mind the welfare of the other athlete.
You said it yourself- 5 lessons a week is less than the cost to take care of a horse. The barns may be willing to subsidize the entry level to an extent, especially since the horses can do more lessons at the lowest levels, but at a certain point it is also a business that can’t be losing money just to allow its clients to participate
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@HeelsDown123 - It sounds like you’re on the right track with figuring out a way to get her more saddle time!
FYI - here’s another older thread you may want to read that covers the economic reasons why so many programs are pushing for the half/full lease for riders to progress.
If you look on some of the older threads in the H/J section you’ll see a lot of people talking about being priced out of higher levels of competition given the current cost structure.
I have no idea what your financial situation is and obviously costs will vary widely based on location and level. You or she may want to explore different disciplines at some point both to have options and to see the cost differences.
A few posters mentioned cost points across different disciplines. As a rough guide from most to least expensive:
- Hunters
- Jumpers
- Dressage
- Eventing
- Endurance/Competitive Trail
Best of luck with your next steps!
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Despite me knowing nothing about h/j competition, I will stick my oar in:
I grew up in the 1970’s in California. Horse keeping was not an investment in a child’s future, it was simply something horse crazy kids did with their spare time. We kept our cheap grade horses in our backyards or at rundown rental stables and rode every second we had. We rode to the 7-11 for slurpees, we rode in orchards and picked fruit from horseback, we swam our horses in local ponds. We never had lessons, our shows were at best regional, and we all had a wonderful wonderful time.
I learned things then that are very hard to acquire under a regimen entirely controlled by adults. There is nothing like being entirely responsible for your horse’s well-being and safety. Nothing like getting you and your horse out of a jam you got yourselves into – totally alone. Not to mention, how to stick on your horse no matter what!
Coming back to horses eight years ago, one difference among many I found, was that children no longer played on and with their best-friend horses on summer days that went on forever. Nope, riding was a Youth Sport with everything regimented, ruled, costumed, and very expensive. Horses are now a means to an end – winning – not an end in themselves.
Your daughter may be ambitious and driven to excel, but has she ever had the time to braid flowers into her own dear horse’s mane? Play Red Rover with her mounted friends when no adults are watching? Stay up all night with her colicky horse? Learn the difference between a good bale of hay and a poor one? How to see which leg a horse is lame on? How to help a green horse to do something they’re afraid of? The world of horses is deep and wide, and knowing how to look good guiding a finished horse around an arena at a show is an inch deep pool in comparison to what there is to explore and learn.
I’m not advising anything in particular, just noticing you are seeing the horse world through a narrow lens. I would not trade those horse crazy barn rat days of my youth for anything. It makes me sad to see children who only know how to compete on horses, and nothing else.
If my daughter had been horse crazy (which she sure wasn’t), I would have started her off like I did, with a quiet horse we owned, that she could take care of herself and ride where she pleased. Lessons would be in addition to that. If she was ambitious we might trade up to a horse who could meet her where she was.
I know a novice mom who bought her ambitious nine year old an older Arabian cross gelding, with whom she eventually won everything within a regional radius. By that time she had to retire him she was sixteen, teaching the beginner kids at her lesson barn, and riding greenies for her trainer.
She did have room to keep him at home, which of course was a big help.
Just a different perspective.
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Railbird already said it better than I will, but I’m just adding my agreement to that post. If your daughter wants to continue advancing in this sport, then leasing is the next step. Not taking that step indicates to the barn that you are not Serious Parents. (No crime in that, lots of parents can’t be Serious Parents due to time or financial constraints.)
But, nicer, more expensive horses are typically reserved for those who are Serious. It’s a reasonable and completely justifiable economic decision on the part of the barn. Your daughter may be riding a nice horse now simply because he’s available at the moment and she’s qualified to give him a good ride, but you can bet that he will be leased out as soon as they find someone to do so and he will no longer be available for lessons.
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Also recommend buying With Purpose: The Balmoral Standard: Carleton Brooks, Traci Brooks, Rennie Dyball: 9781732963276: Amazon.com: Books
Which @Tha_Ridge told me has some good high level explanations of the ins and outs of a top level program and includes some expectations of parents of their students.
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She already has all the US Pony Club Manual of Horsemanship books and likes them (but honestly doesn’t love them). She also reads tons of horse themed books all the time.
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