I paid 1/2 of full board to hold a stall (not a particular stall, just hold a boarding opening) at larger facilities, and at a smaller one had one held for me (again, an opening, not a specific stall) because I had a good relationship with the trainer, we were actively looking and they were the buying agent, and there was more flexibility what with it being a smaller operation. I wouldn’t blink at anything from 0 to 100 % just depending on the situation!
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You may also want to confirm how long the barn owner will hold the stall for you. There may be long gap depending on how hard it is to find the next horse. Especially if the stall is being held at a discounted rate. And it gives you a timeline of when you need to find your new partner.
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I should hope that any discounted rate is making the barn owner at least what they would have made while there was a horse in that stall.
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IME, the most common arrangement is to pay half to three quarters of the board rate. This will keep a stall but a lot of variation as to whether a particular stall. The only situation I knew with a training requirement, the person took lessons on school horses.
Something to keep in mind is that often the cost of board doesn’t really make the barn any money, and it is the training, lessons, etc that are the income. That means that the barn really isn’t gaining much in the way of income by charging a fee to hold the stall, if they generally count on the additional services to pay the bills. Sure, if they’re not training the horse or teaching a lesson, it frees up their time to teach or train someone else, but it’s not always quite as cut and dried as it looks on the surface. For this reason alone, I think having an open conversation is the best course of action, rather than going in with a preconceived expectation of what the solution might be.
True, board can barely break even for the barn but charging half or more for an otherwise empty stall, with zero labor or hay, shavings or water, and no one using power or the arena, is pure profit!
But you’re often not saving money on labor because the barn pays the help the same if there are 19 horses or 20 on the property. Even if help is paid hourly you’re not going to recoup large amounts of labor savings with one less horse. The grass still needs to be mowed, the hay stacked, etc. Doubt you’ll see a large change in electric or water usage either. The only real savings are on consumables - shavings, hay, feed.
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…except for rest of the light bill, other 99% of the water bill, paid staff to keep the barn operating, insurance, rent/mortgage, property tax, repair and construction costs or loan payments plus the loss of lesson and/or training income from an occupied stall.
Lots of “pure profit” there.
OP described a large, full service show barn. IME those barns depend on additional income per stall from show, lesson and training services. They might offer a dry stall rate for a limited time, like 30 days, at a rate that allows them to cover their fixed costs and just take off the feed and bedding.
Most full service barns provide all the feeders, buckets and other stall fixtures plus reserve the right to change stall assignments as needed to reduce conflict between equine tenants. They may not guarantee the same stall. The good barns have waiting lists and cannot afford to hold stalls at a reduced fee while potential clients willing to pay full freight plus take lessons wait in line for a slot.
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I paid about 1/4 of the board cost to hold my stall while I was horse searching but lesson horses still used the stall. My situation was a little different in that I wasn’t a current client of this new trainer (my trainer at the time that was helping me horse shop had no room at her barn and didn’t think she would for the foreseeable future).
The trainer wasn’t advertising the open stall and it was a new barn so she didn’t have a waitlist. I probably could’ve gotten away with not paying a hold fee but I felt like it was the right thing to do. Plus I didn’t want to worry about buying a horse and not having anywhere to put it.
