I am a trainer currently operating out of someone else’s barn. I currently have 1 active lesson horse. Including board, farrier, and supplements, I spend about $1100 on this horse per month, not including extras like vet, dentist, chiropractor, etc. I try to only schedule a max of 4-5 lessons per week. I charge $60/lesson, so even with 5 lessons a week, I am barely breaking even.
I’m curious to hear about other trainers experiences and how they make ends meet for their lesson horses.
You start out with 4 to 5 lessons a week. As the horse gets fitter 6 days a week. As he gets fitter and stronger he can do 2 lessons a day once, then can build up to more.
When really really fit he can do one in the morning and 2 more in the evening if needed. You need more than one lesson horse for when he injures himself.
The others have to be fit to take the place of an injured horse if need be which is why it might be 3 lessons a day sometimes.
Wow, that seems like a lot of lessons. I guess if they are walk-trot lessons a horse might be able to do 2 in a day (though it seems like he might quickly get sour), but not for more advanced riders who want to jump in lessons. At my daughter’s barn, it is rare for a horse to do more than one lesson a day, and they get at least 1 day totally off.
I think it would be hard to make money on a lesson horse unless you own the barn or get a real break on board.
Horses don’t jump every lesson. Only 2 jump nights a week. Rest of lessons are dressage.
I wouldn’t ride at a barn that expects lesson horses to do 2-3 lessons a day, 6 days a week. Flat or not, that’s insane.
I think it would be very hard to make money if you are paying “full retail” on your board. It’s more common for trainers to rent a row of dry stalls for their lesson and client horses, and do the feed and care themselves.
Most of the lesson horses I know don’t cost nearly that much to keep, but I also don’t know trainers who have to pay full board on them. It’s also not uncommon for them to be part- leased. For example, at one barn I worked at (which was owned by the trainer) full board was $700. I would guess actual COST per horse was about $450 (plus roughly $100-$200 for shoeing/ vet etc-- so say $650 unless there was a major disaster.) A half lease (three days a week) was $300 plus four required lessons/ month at $65. All of the horses were at least half-leased and some were either full leased or half-leased by two different people. So at minimum each of them brought in $560/ month, plus they might do 2-3 additional lessons per week if they weren’t full leased. So just that covered cost, plus additional income from showing (coaching, horse rental if not ridden by leasee, extra lessons/ schooling to prepare etc.) And most were hardy, easy-keeper types who did not need 4 shoes or much grain or lots of supplements.
Where I grew up riding, and cut my teeth coaching, the lesson horses went 7 days a week, 48 weeks a year, 2-4 hours a day. (the better jumping horses went less then the low level horses).
You know what? I know more than a few that lasted well into their 30s, and one that was still doing the disabled riding into its 40’s. These horses weren’t buted (unless hurt and on a break), but they were well taken care of with good group turn out, good tack, regular farrier work and so on.
When I had to board my lesson horses, it was more or less break even with the goal that the clients would eventually buy a horse or lease. At your rates, I cannot imagine how you can make the numbers work, but perhaps having a couple, and half leasing them to cover 2/3 of the bills? It is really hard to run a program with only one horse, and it is really hard to use a horse maximally when it is just you using them (as I am sure you want days off), which is why leasing can help/
With my own place, my current lesson horse is a money maker, but to be honest, when I tried to buy another it was near impossible to find one in a lesson horse budget that was suitable for enough types of students. Hard to find another like him, so I am not doing lesson horses anymore.
I don’t think that carefully managed twice daily lessons are in themselves a problem- think of the number of sport horses who have a hack in the morning and trot sets in the afternoon or something like that. I don’t want to see horses drilled over fences multiple times a day but provided the horse is properly fitted up to it, has variety to prevent sourness, and has his physical needs cared for so that he is rested rather than do himself an overuse injury, I see no problem with a horse who does two flatwork schools or a flatwork and a jumping school in a day. I board at a farm whose sainted school horses are largely in their upper teens into early 20s and have a few days of twice daily rides in their week. They are well cared for and are fit, happy, and sound.
Doing the math in my head, I can see how a lesson horse could be profitable even paying retail board. But that’s assuming you have a full lesson schedule and minimal maintenance expense.
But there’s a lot of “buts”.
My BO has a couple of lesson ponies that are lil rockstars and she half leases them too. I don’t doubt they more than return their investment, and I applaud her for having those guys available.
However, it’s not guaranteed income all the time with a pure lesson horse. Kids grow out of the ponies. Families take vacation, winters get gnarly and no one wants to ride at 20 below.
If its a BO lesson horse, sure, makes sense they can return their expense. But paying full boat at even an affordable barn? Not unless you have a line of very consistent people on the schedule. And redundancy is a must. A single lesson horse IS going to get injured/sick/nqr and get put out of commission at some time.
That same reliable list of lesson folks won’t tolerate (for long) being cancelled on due to an abscess or soreness or what-have-you.
The same here. The horses are still lesson horses in their 20s. By 30ish they only do lead line. Each horse has a yearly physical, shoes, chiropractor work and vaccinations. They have winter rugs during winter, kept under lights and day rugs and fly masks during the day.
They are either kept in a herd or solo depending on their personalities and brought into their own yard or stable overnight.
They have Fridays off and twice a year are sent for holiday in a huge paddock for down time for a week or two.
Lesson horses are investments in your long term sustainability as a business. If you break even on them you are winning. Any little profit they make goes right back into their care, equipment, and retirement at some point.
Up until recently, I paid full board on each of my lesson horses. These numbers are averages- I have a couple barefoot horses, most are plain shoes all around, a few have pads and more.
monthly:
$650 board
$150 shoes (not quite monthly, but close enough)
$100 extra stuff, averaged out (annual dentals, vaccines, Adequan, previcox. Some are on no supplements)
= ~$1000 month upkeep (I added a little buffer)
Based on these numbers, and that my lessons are $55, the horse has to go in 4-5 lessons a week to earn his keep. Since my lessons are low level (some walk/trot) and groups (so they’re not actually working the whole hour) they go in probably 7 lessons per week. They each get at least 2 days off, so the 7 lessons are over 5 days. Obviously that’s not much of a profit margin- making $540/month. But I have 8 lesson horses, and the real profit comes from camps and one-off activities like a group of 7 year olds coming for a 2 hour beginner horse care clinic.
The real value in lesson horses in more populated areas of the USA is to get people into the sport and move them into leases or buying and getting them to shows to generate more income.
Unless you are in a big volume lesson barn with a big client list to keep the horses working 6 days a week 50 weeks a year with a backlog of clients to fill in when clients are ill, out of town, move, outgrow the horse, age out or just quit- as they do? Doubt most schooled can give enough lessons to meet their cost. And that’s if the horse stays sound and healthy.
Careful cost calculation needs to go into the pricing of lessons to have a chance at breaking even in most areas of the country, especially near metro areas.
This is interesting. I haven’t heard of a “horse upkeep” fee in addition to lesson prices. It sounds basically like a part-lease.
I have zero with occasional twice a day lessons. Or even more regularly for extremely low levels. I have issue with 12-18 rides per week.
I will add that the horses at our riding school are happy. If you walk down the driveway the horses will come to greet you with ears forward.
If they are not happy a different situation is found for them, which is how we ended up with Sim. Both Sim and Dodge were given to us.
When Sim came my instructor said the riding school wasn’t working out for him, the way it is run might remind him too much of racing. He suffered from Separation Anxiety and we had major reactions when next door moved horses. I can see how he didn’t work out. We have worked with it and he is getting better.
I owned horses for over 30 years, and I lived with my horses for many years.
Then after that I was fortunate enough to find a really decent riding stable with lessons. Students can lease a horse when they advance, the lesson horses are usually quite tolerant of their imperfect riders, and I have an excellent riding teacher.
In both cases, the horses turned out daily, with a pretty full social life, and well fed. They obviously enjoy their life as a horse.
I get the impression from these horses that they consider being ridden or being used for lessons as ENTERTAINMENT as much as it is work. That while they may have extensive turn-out with other horses they get a little bored, and that the humans are interesting enough so that the horses are not as bored around the humans. Then they get turned back out and go back to chilling out with their friends.
And good grooming is much appreciated, especially by the older horses.
I do not consider lesson horses carrying children, with breaks in between rides, as overworked when used for lessons 6 hours a day, so long as they are fed appropriately and their hoof and veterinary care is regular and done to a good standard. Horses are perfectly capable of carrying children that long in lessons, where the teacher makes sure that the students do not overwork the horses (excessive galloping.)
But then I spent my grade school years in countries where there were plenty of working horses in the streets, so I got used to seeing horses working. Light cart horses pulling two wheel to four wheel wagons for moving and selling vegetables and moving various commodities around, on pavement in the capitol city of the country. In Uruguay the working horses turn out was being let loose on the suburban streets to eat the grass on the roadways (the yards were walled) and to rummage through the garbage cans.
Our horses in decent stables have a very easy life. Of course a lot of them are obese and they really need to work out more.
That is such a good idea. Riders need to get away from the idea that the cost of maintaining a horse is negligible. It’s a really big deal. And… the trainer needs to make a decent wage for teaching. I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: I can’t give you a $50 lesson on a $50,000 horse that you don’t own.
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