What do you boarding barns offer your trainers for perks? How do you work out pay? Do you give them discounted or free board for their horse?
Background: I’m the assistant trainer at a small (20 stall) farm. They are not really giving me any discount of board of my one horse, basically treating me as a regular client as far as that goes. I’m paid direct by my students, 70(me)/30 split of lesson income that I teach. Just curious what the norm is for trainers and compensation!
There really is no norm.
There is rarely much profit to be made in boarding. Are you using their horses or just their facility to teach?
How many horses do you have there? You say you’re the assistant trainer, what perks does the “head trainer” get or is the head trainer the barn owner too. As another poster mentioned there is no norm because that all depends on how any barn business is set up.
I use head trainers horses for lessons. I occasionally use my own.
So you get the use of horses as well as the facility, and still keep 70% of the lesson revenue… not bad.
Head trainer is business owner, her dad owns the farm but not really involved much besides collecting board. I personally have one horse
Yes it’s definitely a nice set up. They had discussed changing it though which sparks my question about the norm for trainer compensation
Using barn horses the best I ever did was 50/50 for a farm horse which is pretty fair when you think that it should be more like
1/3 to the horse (maintenance)
1/3 to the barn (insurance, facilities, etc)
1/3 to the trainer.
70% using someone else’s horse is a lot.
50% for your horse or owner/rider is fair.
I wouldnt expect a free stall in addition to this arrangement unless you are bringing in a lot of money for the barn.
When I taught at a big lesson barn with multiple trainers, all group lessons, almost all beginner, beginner intermediate riders, and all lessons horses and grooms doing tack up, I made 15 an hour (2012).
I’m a head trainer at one boarding facility where I keep the full income from lessons, but that is because I only teach clients. When I was doing assistant training, every barn seemed to have a separate ‘normal.’
First place was I used trainers horses and facility. I would teach lessons she did not want to teach typically. I really only had one personal client at the time and would just help her out. Lessons were typically priced at $45 per person. She kept $35, I kept $10 per person.
Second place was I used barn owners horses and facility. I had my own clients, which I kept the full amount from, and then lessons I paid out. It was a $10 ring fee, $10 horse fee, so I typically kept $25.
The place I run my second program out of right now is similar. They wanted half of my income from lessons, but it’s hard to split $45 in half, so we agreed upon $20 which is what I paid at my prior place. Looking into the future, I would probably raise my lesson prices a little more if I have to use other facilities horses to make a little more profit. I moved over to a different facility half way into the season and don’t feel like it’s fair.
As for my personal clients that I have brought every where, it’s $35 (private or group) but I keep the full profit. I was matching a previous trainer on what she charged when we were sharing a facility so it’d be fair.
To add onto the free tall, that was never an option. The only time a stall had been discussed was when I was willing to purchase a lesson horse and let other trainers use it. I would get I think half off on board, but it made zero sense to me. I felt more comfortable paying out a fee then having people use my lesson horse whenever they wanted.
I am in a similar boat. Head instructor, all lesson students come to me first (unless they reached out to a different instructor first), and I delegate them if I cannot accommodate them. I pay $7.50 for the use of the facility, $5.00 for the use of the horse if it’s not one of my own for each lesson. Comes out to 25% of each lesson that I use a lesson horse for. 15% if I use my own horse. It goes right back into the facility maintenance.
I don’t think it’s fair to ask nor expect them to let you board for free, or a discounted rate. Especially if they are doing the labor and providing feed. I self care board my two mares and still pay what a normal self care boarder would pay because I use the electricity, I use water, my horses cause wear and tear on the facility itself. It’s simply not fair to ask the BO to subsidize any part of my business.
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