I agree, it’s common for show barns to have an additional fee to lesson on a privately owned horse vs a school horse.
However, it’s a bit different when the lessons doubled as a trial ride with the rider looking to purchase.
And, the fee should have been told to rider/parents beforehand, especially since it’s not on their official price sheet.
Definitely not a tactic to keep clients.
I’ll join the chorus and call shenanigans. That’s a big fee not to have told you about before you tried the horses. Especially when you went back to try them each the second time. That was the prefect opportunity to let you know what you would be paying.
Personally I’d be finishing out my January lease while looking around for other barns for your daughter. I can’t begin to imagine what other fees will begin to appear on future invoices.
You got off easy and rather cheaply here learning how to ask the absolutely most important question in any trainer/client/potential client/buyer/seller conversation before so much as touching any horse or allowing your child within 10’ of any horse or Pony. WHAT IS THIS GOING TO COST ME? Speak it into a mirror often so it becomes second nature. Never, ever fail on this. Dont get seduced by sales pitches preying on your wanting to do the best for your child. Its a business to trainer, their living. Long term they dont care, they are running a business, understand that and ask HOW MUCH. Dont Assume anything.
Very good friend was asked at a big circuit show, WEF in Feb, by another well known trainer (B), with permission from their long time trainer (A), if her DD could ride a couple of Bs high end sale horses in a Childrens Hunter division. 3 over fences over 2 days on each and ride one in the Hack. B was there both days presenting the horses to buyers who he stayed in the stands with during warm up and all the classes.
Bs grooms prepared them and brought them over,. A was also there to coach DD. Both horses pinned very well and shortly after sold to Bs buyers. Everybody was happy, friend for building DDs resume as a rider, A for turning out a good catch rider and, of course, B netted commissions on two, high 5 figure sale horses plus training and day care from their owners. Win, Win, right?
Not quite. Couple months later, friend recieves a $5500usd bill for leasing two horses for a weekend, coaching charges, day charges, braiding and $45 bill for tightening a loose shoe. She showed it to A who hit the roof. B claimed his billing office screwed up. Yeah, right. He got caught.
A apologized to friend for not making it clear to B that the kid was a catch rider, not a juicy mark, advised her to tear up Bs bill and reduced friends bill on DDs own horses and Pony for that weekend for the embarrassment and inconvenience caused by As failure to ask “WHAT IS THIS GOING TO COST ME AND/ or MY CLIENT despite B being a long time acquaintance.
OP is lucky trainer here revealed their business policies/ethics early on and she learned she was being naive and needs to step it up. Most good trainers have a rate sheet for both at home and away shows and make it available publicly, many put it on their web or FB page and attach a copy to all boarding, training, sales, lesson etc contracts. And, YES, written contracts should define both sides of trainer/client relationships. Absolute best way to operate as a business and avoid conflict, expensive misunderstandings and legal entanglements.
In this specific situation, OP needs to have a polite, adult, non confrontational, sit down face to face conversation with trainer regarding being made aware of any and all costs in advance and reviewing the rate sheet with trainer. Approach this as a misunderstanding that needs to be cleared up before continuing further then this short term lease.
Dont deal with any business without disclosed costs. Thats common sense yet many dont hold their horse care and service providers to that simple, basic standard they demand from all other businesses they deal with. Even with a disclaimer there may be additional, unanticipated expenses, you need full disclosure BEFORE authorizing anything.
Be remiss not to warn OP that she should set up her own account with the vet and ask to be billed and pay directly or get and itemized bill from the barn for all vet services and “ Meds” she sees on her bills. Some barns pad this stuff excessively and cant or refuse to explain what the $275 for “Misc vet” or “Meds” references. Expect your barn to at least try to be transparent, not treat you like a mushroom.
Long, I know but one more thing, have a Plan B. Know where you would go if you had to change barns. Sh*t happens. Barns get sold, go bankrupt, suffer fire, flood, high wind or Zoning changes. Worst cases I personally experienced were property owner having assets seized and being locked out until ownership of horse proved, property owners nasty divorce and property owner selling without telling leasing trainer until a 48 hour notice to vacate. On the trainers side, had one die, one badly injured and unable to continue and one hauled off cuffs with multiple, outstanding warrants. Oh…and there was the barn that went from nice to a transport hub for guns and drugs.
Ask HOW MUCH and have a plan B and your journey in the horse will be far smoother.
.
Yikes. I’d send back a bill for catch riding services and percentage of commission to B totaling $5500, with “nice try” in the notes…
Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate everyone’s input and the COTH community in general. While I don’t post much, I do read many of the posts and have learned a TON from y’all over the last few years.
Based on the initial responses I saw yesterday I sent a note to one of the owners in regard to the charges on the invoice. They wrote back early this afternoon to say that they don’t charge for trials and that the fee was in error (there had been some issues even getting the invoices out due to some changes in how they do the billing).
I go through each invoice pretty carefully and validate the number of lessons, show charges etc. And for each of the horses we tried, I was fully aware of their purchase price beforehand to ensure I didn’t get into a situation where my daughter fell in love with a horse that was outside our budget. It just never occurred to me to ask if there was a price to ‘try’ a horse since I had never encountered that previously. My main reason for checking here was that I know sometimes in different parts of the county things are handled differently and I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t completely clueless.
Again thanks all!!
Agree with this, but if you are otherwise happy with the barn, the horse leased & your daughter’s lessons, I would pay ONE of the $135 upcharges.
Explain you were not informed of the added charge, but since you went ahead not once but twice, you feel it is fair to meet halfway.
IMO, this puts Pro/BO on notice that you are not a walking checkbook, but allows you may have misunderstood the fee for trial rides (even if you are certain you did not).
Consider it Strike One & be careful with future transactions regarding buying a new horse.
Whether from these people or outside source, be sure to discuss any commission involved.
ETA: did not see your post with the resolution to the charges.
Glad they rescinded, but keep your eyes open.
Well, I wouldn’t have expected the owner to know about the fee either. The trainer is the middle man for a reason. Mistakes don’t happen to the tune of $135 for four trials. That’s a specific number and you were billed the correct number of times, not just accidentally doubling lesson fees or adding an extra training fee or something that could be easily done as a mistake.
Talk to the trainer. Hopefully they roll with the “it was a mistake” line and don’t have you pay it. Ask in advance before you try any other horses.
No, you should not have to pay to rent the horse you are considering buying or leasing.
That’s the seller’s investment. And that paid off for the seller in that you decided to lease one, right?
If you paid your pro for helping your kid during those trial rides, and those were billed as “lessons,” there should be no commission paid on the lease. If you paid him a commission for setting up the lease, his helping your kind during those test-rides were his investment in the deal. It’s part of what he did in order to help you guys decide to lease the horse.
Take or leave this bit: I don’t like the willy-nilly extortion of clients that happens in many corners of the horse biz. If I were doing business here (and I’m one of those old ammies who has been around the block a few times), I’d be going to my pro and explaining why I wasn’t paying those $135 fees for the use of the horse I was trying out. If they couldn’t make those charges go away, I’d cancel my lease and walk. They probably don’t want to lose a year’s lease fee, your board check, your training and showing business for a measely $540. But if they do want to do that, your much larger business is there’s to use. I would not compromise on this point both because of the math and because it’s early in the relationship and you want to make it clear that you and the pros will treat each other like professional adults.
OP, you need to talk directly to trainer here. Owners aren’t usually privy to billing mistakes to other clients or aware of what trainer might charge other clients for trying out their sale/lease horse without disclosing to both parties. They may have no idea trainer added an Owners Fee and never planned on crediting owners bill, just pocketing it.
Give this 50/50 chance of being what happened. Speak to trainer assuming the best intentions but, as said above, it is a strike one.
Sorry but that billing error is exactly what B told my friend in my above story. It was also used when I found out a new assistant trainer billed a very good Junior ( Medal kid) I authorized to hack my horse out and I was billed for a Pro jump school at the same time. Junior was charged $40 for a 20 min hack and I $70 for the same trail ride. New assistant was stupid, didn’t know clients were pretty open and friendly and able to easily figure out billing for ghost services. Asst removed the charges with…oooops, billing error, yeah, you got caught. Asst was fired after head trainer got home.
Trust but verify and dont assume everybody is as honest as you are. This business will teach you otherwise…
Glad they cleared the charges.
Side note: If you had traveled to see a horse this charge wouldn’t surprise me. A lot of trainers will credit the travels fees to the commission on the lease/sale.
In my opinion it is not usual to pay a trial fee to try potential lease/sale horses. That is a fee to ride the horse. I would expect that to be disclosed up front given it is not the norm. Especially since you are ending up leasing one of the two tried. Paying a fee to a trainer for coaching on trial horses is normal, or it is part of a commission structure. It can be both. I’ve seen several variants on this.
I’m glad you spoke up and questioned the fee. I’ve never heard of paying both a lesson fee and a trial fee. I’ve certainly paid to take a lesson on a horse that I wanted to buy – with the horse’s trainer, because I wanted to be coached on the horse by someone who knew it. I have never been asked to pay a fee for trying a horse.
The bigger issue is not that the fee was charged, but that you weren’t told up front. That kind of sneaky billing is dishonest and likely to occur in other areas (as others have said). I concur that one of the most important things to ask is “what will this cost me”. Ask often!
But why would you pay to try a horse for whom you’d potentially pay a lease fee? If you wouldn’t pay a pro to coach you through riding him, because that money is part of his commission, why wouldn’t the fee to try him be considered part of the lease fee?
Maybe it’s just a convention in my mind. If someone is charging me to try a horse, I’m going to assume there is something wrong with it honestly. They could say $100 to try it. You could watch it go and it could be lame. And that cost $100.
I am paying someone for their time for their expertise to help me asses a horse if I pay a coach. Or it’s for my piece of mind or help me confirm I’m looking at a lame horse. If someone is selling a horse that I will potentially give them money for in a transaction, I’m not going to pay them for that.
I realize tire kickers exist etc. But that’s part of the sales game and these two pros work together on the same barn so they can figure out that is not the situation.
The whole Situation reeks to me of trainers seeing new clients in the barn and thinking of ways to pad the bill.
You realize that the OP was billed $85 by her pro. for that coaching and advising; the BO/HO (at the same facility) added $135 for the use of the horse, right? Not sure what you are saying about why the BO/seller would legitimately charge anyone to try a horse they might lease or purchase.
@mvp1 What are you asking me?
I’m saying I would not pay a horse use fee to try a horse. I would pay a coach by way of fees or commission or both. That’s all I’m saying. It’s not normal to pay a horse use fee to try a horse. That’s my point. What is yours? I’m confused why you keep asking me to clarify?
Possibly because the sentence structure of your initial response makes it read as “NOT unusual to pay a trial fee.” That’s what I “saw” the first time I read your reply and I thought, “Where is she from? Because I’ve never heard of it.”
It wasn’t until I read your last post and scrolled up to re-read and see exactly what it was you had said that I realized that you had actually said the opposite.
That is how I read it the first time too and had to re-read it again to see that it did not say that.
Well that would explain my confusion. Thanks.
No, just no. You were essentially charged to try horses. No. If a stranger came to try those horses, you can guarantee there would not be a charge. I would take this as an early warning sign. Also, you were looking for a step up horse and you’ve ended up with a green one. Are you keeping the schoolmaster?
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