Renting out my riding ring?

[BeeHoney]

I think it is really difficult to charge enough to make it worthwhile. All it takes is one person backing their trailer into your landscaping, running over your pet dog or cat, bringing a guest that behaves inappropriately and gets hurt or messes something up, plus the security issues, plus people bringing their dog and letting it loose to chase your horses or pee on your hay you have stacked in the aisle, leaving manure everywhere, letting their horse paw through footing and dig up the arena base. Plus, people do the darnedest, most dangerous things when left to their own devices–things like let a beginner try out their green broke sale horse, overworking horses or rough riding, crazy style longeing, etc. You 100% need to be there to supervise.

It has been my experience that while boarders are invested in following the rules and treating their home facility with respect to help keep it nice, guests can be much less respectful and much harder on a facility.

[danacat]

“Difficult to charge enough to make it worthwhile” – I agree.

After reading everyone’s input (along with my own reservations) I’m not going to do it. Thanks to all who chimed in!

[Incantation]

I knew people rented out spaces for people to exercise their dogs, but never knew about this. Interesting.

[TheDBYC]

@Spyder

fine.When my DH met the person, he said, “She acts nice.” He is a better judge of character than I am.

I remember the owner of the hair salon describing how her husband reacted to meeting the new boyfriend of the recently separated stylist: “You know Hunter. He isn’t one to say much of anything about anyone. Well…”

[rulex]

I’m late to the thread but just wanted to chime in as someone who is grateful to be allowed to use other arenas. There are conscientious and appreciative folks out there who will be safe and threat your property better than their own, and pick up after their horse.

As someone who keeps their horses at home, I really enjoy getting out and there’s a casual social aspect to going to the arena. I don’t always see the owner, but when I do it’s always nice to have a short visit and chat horses. I miss the social aspect of boarding and this is one way to get a bit of a taste of that. Especially if you can be very selective about who you allow, you might end up building a nice little network/community of likeminded folks.

[danacat]

I’m so glad you said this because the social aspect was very appealing to me. I miss the boarding stable atmosphere as well (the good parts!) Maybe I’ll very selectively pass the word around rather than posting publicly online on my regional horse sites.

[findeight]

Yes, try word of mouth only in addition to all the liability insurance and contract/release procedures before they set foot on your property.

[rulex]

Yeah I wouldn’t advertise publicly. The arenas I go to don’t advertise publicly, it’s all based on word of mouth. That really helps with keeping it to a group of respectful and likeminded folks.

And the one arena that I go to most often has a very long and thorough list of rules and waivers that I had to sign. So consider sorting out your expectations and paperwork ahead of time, and don’t feel bad about whatever they may be (no dogs, no lunging in the arena, etc)

Definitely look into insurance implications as well. There could be additional costs that might not be offset by what you might charge for a drop in fee.

[Tarlo_Farm]

I wouldn’t. I let a friend use my indoor without supervision thinking she knew better than to lunge in one place…and she didn’t. Know better. Broke through my subsurface and took hours to repair. It was never as good either.
I tried renting it before that, and between some weird hanky-panky with a couple who were married, but not to each other, and the fact one of their horses put a foot into the sidewall, I stopped that as well.
NO ONE takes care of a place like you do.