Spin Off: Lesson Programs, are school horses/easier intro programs even viable?

[red_mares]

My barn has a pretty good string of lesson horses, from beginners to show horses. I think he’s got 4 of his own, plus several that are working off board (like my pony ) Pretty much every horse in the barn gets used for lesson at some point, except the 27 yro mare, the yearling & the horse on straight board.

The trainer has a pretty good deal on rent, so that helps the business.

It’s been a weird year, as we’re waiting to get into a new barn (couple more weeks!) More group lessons will be coming. Not sure about camps, I don’t know if anyone is psychologically prepared to do that. Rather than kids, I think the focus may be on the 50+ crowd. We have a lot of driving horses and some that are proven Grandma-safe horses. A good number of the riders in the barn are re-riders who have no interest in going over fences and are happy in a saddleseat barn.

[Turntable]

Like most small businesses in the USA, only if one is married to someone who has health insurance!

[luvmyhackney]

One of the programs in my area run after school camps, Home schooler camps, and then summer camps, plus has a string of 3-4 minis and ponies for mommy and me lessons. If you want to jump anything more than cross rails you have to lease.

Owner seems to do really well. Most of her lesson horses are TBs off the track she gets for free and retrains plus a few horses from auctions. The horses aren’t fancy but seem like good eggs.

It’s not my jam, but she runs a tight ship and makes money.

[aregard]

@mdp9

Your numbers are pretty correct- the break even rate of 4-5 lessons per week per lesson horse. You are missing a big factor in the income model- HORSE CAMP.

Just adding that the active barns I rode at had the horses doing 2 lessons per day. For many beginner programs, that’s not too demanding, and the horses stay sound.

[Vyce]

It’s eye opening and interesting learning about the various program models! My trainer teaches on the side to help with horsey bills and her show budget. She only has a few students.

[Mango20]

There are two busy beginner barns near me. One of them is SUPER busy, has lessons every day of the week, and the horses get ridden a few times per day, and are also half leased. In the winter, they might have two group lessons and a private lesson going on in the (long) indoor at once! As you can imagine, being overrun with lesson kids, they don’t do a whole lot of boarding. The people who board there are people who started in the lesson program and eventually bought a horse. Most of them move on.

The other one is also busy but not to the same extent. I believe they only teach six days a week, and may only have one instructor teaching at a time. They seem to make up the difference in income by hosting frequent horse shows, mostly attended by their students, but open to the public.

[IronwoodFarm]

Late for this party, but I want to add that LABOR is a huge issue for beginner lesson programs. We ran a beginner program for the county rec department for many years. Little kids and/or beginner adults cannot do very basic horse tasks without a serious amount of supervision. They are not able to lead, crosstie, groom and tack up. It is not that they want to do things wrong but the learning curve is steep if you take a lesson a week. We ended up doing all the work. And eventually it became too much even with nice horses and great clients. There was no amount of money that would get us to continue and there was no way we could afford to hire someone to do it for us.

[fivestrideline]

I saw an interesting cost breakdown going around FB recently. It was in regards to “plain” boarding (hay/grain/turnout but no grooming or training), but a lesson horse still takes a spot on the farm.

Without business insurance and some other highly variable costs, the consensus was that anything less than $850-$1000/horse/month is the farm owner subsidizing the horses. A lot of trainers and farm owners that I know were chiming in with agreement.

I remember 10 years ago, $1000/mo was what I budgeted for everything: board and 2x lessons a week, farrier and vet and supplements. Now, I’m lucky if I can board and fit my farrier and fly spray in that figure.

$1k/mo is a good round number, and while I think some places can get their costs under that with a stellar setup, I think it’s a fair number to use when looking at starting a program these days (especially if renting a farm or looking to buy one for the program specifically). It’s also a startling one, when looking at the programs with which I’m familiar enough to ballpark the costs.

Nothing here to really toss into the discussion, but it’s interesting to look at.

[TheBigEasy]

My barn runs a beginner up/down lesson program. There are 4 aged schoolhorses of differing size and ability, so a junior or a brand new AA could move up thru the horses.
Those horses pay for themselves, but the BO runs a very low cost ship. Now that Covid is “over” we are jam packed with new kids and AAs wanting lessons and half leases.
It’s nice to see new people join the sport. Some have stayed, some have not.
I know BO turns a profit in these circumstances, and survived Covid (barn was closed to visitors) just fine - cause she’s savvy and frugal.
I think making a beginner program work rests a lot in managing expenses. As most business models as well.

[Sammy_the_Saddlebred]

I run a beginner lesson program for ages 7 and up and am in my 2nd year of business. I run the program out of the farm my husband and I purchased in 2014, and I use my own horses.

I teach 6 days a week and do not have an indoor. I am in Minnesota. When we can’t ride, I do unmounted lessons and teach anything and everything related to horses.

I started in April 2021 with just one adult student, quit my job in July 2021 when I got up to 6 students, and ended the winter with 10 students. Starting this May, I added more and had as many as 26 weekly students this summer. I am sitting at 22 weekly students right now and have had several inquiries in the last couple of weeks. My max capacity would be 29 students (I do all the chores and instructing myself and primarily have private lessons).

I have 4 total lesson horses, but 3 are my main standby horses. Number 4 is hit or miss in both soundness and temperament. She handles about 2 lessons a week. The rest of the lessons are divided between the other 3. It is not uncommon for my horses to have 2 lessons in a day, but most of my students are still just learning to trot. I don’t do any jumping.

It is my passion to bring new people into the horse world and infect them with the horse bug. I love teaching people, and horses are my favorite subject, so this is basically the best job ever. So far, the business is covering the cost of the horses and insurance. I am still working on paying down the debts incurred when I had less than 20 students. Over the next few months, things should start to improve financially.

My husband works a fulltime job to cover most of our regular bills (but only makes like $50k). My intention is to show people that horses don’t have to be limited to elite folks, and that you can do horses well (safely and nicely) without being super rich. I love what we have built here, both with the farm and my barn family.