I am considering moving barns for the summer to a place where I can put down trail miles. The place I am exploring has a trailhead literally within yards of the barn. I want to move back to my current place of residence in the winter, their indoor arena can’t be beat. Does anyone else do this? I do not want to put unnecessary stress on my horse. I want to find a balance though so I can do more of the kind of riding I enjoy the most. I know that plenty of horses get taken all over the place for shows. My horse has never been a show horse, mainly trails and ponying around kids. Does anyone else move back and forth for summer vs. winter and if so do you feel like it has a psychological impact? He is pretty much bompproof and I would like to keep it that way.
I move my horses back and forth. For about 6 months of the year (summer) I have them with me, boarded (pasture board). During the off season, I take them down to my parents’ place (also pasture board).
They could care less.
It’s easier for me. Hubby is on kids duty while I enjoy my horses in the summer, and then I’m on kids duty while he enjoys hunting season. So that’s what we do.
My mare would go to college with me. She’d also come home on winter break for a month. She was fine with it. The one thing you need to make sure of is that there will still be a stall for you when you want to move back. I normally left a holding fee and the first month back board when I left for summer.
I’m appreciative of the advice. The only animals I have owned my whole life are dogs and they would be a wreck in this type of situation. I know they aren’t the same creatures by any means, I just have no basis for comparison
Horses are built to be migratory and to adapt to changing herds. As long as the situations are good and the other horses tolerant, they are happy to move. And happy to come home. I put my horse on pasture for 6 weeks in the fall and she spends a day adapting to the herd and then is blissfully happy.
I actually believe it’s almost instinctual for both humans and animals to want to live/stay in different places seasonally. North in Summer, South in the Winter. I’ve taken my horses somewhere every summer for the last 6 years. Go for it!
In my area it’s fairly common. Board is expensive. Some of the bigger barns with indoors have a lot of trainers and clients go south for the winter, and it’s usually easy to “sub-let” a stall for the winter in such a place. One does want to be sure one’s horse has a place to go when the weather warms up, though. Our boarding options are becoming more limited.
Around here the critical question would be finding places that have the space/flexibility to allow for seasonal boarders. Most places would prefer to have long term boarders.
That said I actually have migrated for the past three winters. I would stay at the winter barn, but my younger horse reacts to something growing in their pastures and I worry about an extreme reaction. It is a bit of a pain to move all the stuff twice a year, but the horses are pretty good. They settled in very easily this past fall and spring, knowing both places well.
When I rode across MI in 2015, about 1/3 of the people [20 or so] doing the Shore to Shore Ride were living much as you say. They came North in the summer and rode UP and MI --some had been MT and AK too --then in the winter they moved to TX, AZ, or NM. These people had (for the most part) no permanent residence but lived in very nice LQ trailers with one or two horses (sometimes it was just one spouse that rode). I asked questions about general horse care and found that all had some kind of “lay over” area —a place where they could park the LQ and turn out the horses for a rest between “camping” trips – but this wasn’t camping. It was a way of living. There was actually a community that moved from one place to another for various distance rides and trail rides. You’d hear the occasional “Bob’s not going to South Fork this year --stopping by his grandkids for that week.” --but for the most part they “lived” in a travelling community trail riding their horses all over the US. And I believe in EQUUS recently there was an article or a letter about people who travel south for the winter --again, no permanent “house or farm” just a LQ and a bit of land for the horses once one arrives. Personally, I can see the appeal --but it’s not for me. I like my little farm, winter, spring, summer and fall.
update I actually found a situation that works great! I joined Back Country Horseman, the group is AMAZING. The members are helping cart me around and I am spending a week or two at one of their houses prior to a chapter ride, a horse hotel type situation. Then they take him back home! So I get the kinds of rides in that I want, but can also stay where my instructor and farrier are. I am reconsidering buying my own truck and trailer, even though the thought of towing one around terrifies me.
