What would you pay for an exercise rider?

[A3dayeventer2009]

How much would you pay someone to exercise your horse and keep them fit? This is not a training ride, but just a fitness ride/hack because you don’t have enough time to keep your horse fit. The rider is an insured adult, experienced horse person and rider with 20 years experience that rides anything from green beans to solid performance horses.

This person is me. I am not a trainer or instructor by choice (just not for me), but have been tossing around the idea of exercise riding professionally as I’ve had many people inquire recently. I’m trying to come up with a price. The going rate for lessons/training rides in my area seems to be $65-90+.

[DiamondJubilee]

I have paid between $20-$30 for “fitness” rides. As long as they werent training, just keeping fit, I would say that would be a fair price.

[evilc123]

Exercise rides at my barn are exactly half the price of a lesson (and lessons in my area are exactly in the range you provided). I think that $30-40 seems reasonable. The only other thing on my mind at the moment is…umm…insurance cough cough… :ambivalence: (btw…i assume when you say you are insured, you mean you have health insurance…not insurance related to a horse business venture. Ignore if my assumption is wrong. )

[Palm_Beach]

If you’re riding a horse, you are training it in some way or another.

[TCA_Arabians]

I currently pay $20/hour for a trail ride. It’s the going rates in the area that determine.

[A3dayeventer2009]

@evilc123

Exercise rides at my barn are exactly half the price of a lesson (and lessons in my area are exactly in the range you provided). I think that $30-40 seems reasonable. The only other thing on my mind at the moment is…umm…insurance cough cough… :ambivalence: (btw…i assume when you say you are insured, you mean you have health insurance…not insurance related to a horse business venture. Ignore if my assumption is wrong. )

Thanks, the number I was throwing around in my head was $35, so I think I’m maybe on the right track. I would definitely get insurance. Advice from another member was to see if I could piggyback on a trainer’s insurance as it would be cheaper to add someone to their policy than start my own. Either way, I’ll absolutely have some.

[A3dayeventer2009]

@Palm Beach

If you’re riding a horse, you are training it in some way or another.

Well, sure, but there is a drastic difference in rides to hack a horse out for fitness and a horse in a specific training program.

[peedin]

My barn charges $30 for an exercise ride.

[Edre]

Man this makes me appreciate my trainer’s rates! Training ride is $40, training lunge/ground work (long lining) is $35. Exercise lunge is $30. She does not do exercise rides.

I would assess what professionals are charging and price yourself $5-20 less, pricing dependent. What is being charged for lessons or training rides by professionals (especially professionals with a resume) is largely irrelevant to me - I would determine your pricing by identifying what the going rate for a competent, solid rider to exercise a horse is. This may not exist already so you may have to eyeball it based off of professionals’ pricing, but keep in mind that they likely have a list of credentials (show records, horses trained/sold, students trained up with show records) that you probably do not.

Do make it worth your time, pricing wise, but also be honest about what people are paying for. Clear expectations on both sides are the easiest way to ensure smooth sailing.

(Take into account time - not just in the saddle, but grooming/tacking up/untacking.)

Also: If you show, this sounds as if it would impact your amateur status so research that beforehand.

[GraceLikeRain]

It depends so much on your area. When I was in a college town with a huge horse community I knew advanced eventers who only made $20 doing formal conditioning rides and the rest of us rode for free 95% of the time. In more rural or smaller horse communities I think $20-25 is pretty common. If you can connect with show barns where people are used to paying $$$ for lessons, $30-40 probably won’t seem like a lot in comparison.

[Tyrus_Mom]

I had a trainer riding my horse for 20 min per ride when I was injured and that cost me $35.00 per ride. On the other hand, we have a very experienced horsewoman who is currently exercising someone’s horse 1/2 hr. for $10.00 per ride at the ranch lately. Feels sort of like doing a favor deal though. When I have had to be out of town I have paid in a range of $10-35 per day for exercise for my horse, ponying or lunging depending on who was offering their time.

[ecpolo]

I pay $20/day per horse to be taken on sets in the morning and early evening. That is, being ponied along with several others at once like this https://images.app.goo.gl/7peoMVmSvNAfR6PY6

[rhymeswithfizz]

Our eventing trainer charges $25 per on-site training or exercise ride, which are usually ~30-40 minutes (which is plenty). Her working student does some of the exercise riding for her also.

[Angela_Freda]

@A3dayeventer2009

Well, sure, but there is a drastic difference in rides to hack a horse out for fitness and a horse in a specific training program.

If you don’t know the horse prior, though, how will you know?
How will you know that the horse is safe, sane and not truly a training ride? Or that the horse doesn’t become one, in one ride or over time becoming so a majority of the time and what do you do then?

[Palm_Beach]

@A3dayeventer2009

Well, sure, but there is a drastic difference in rides to hack a horse out for fitness and a horse in a specific training program.

If it’s a competition horse, it’s in a training program. If you are sitting on it’s back and using your aids, the horse is either responding correctly or not. Because it’s a fitness ride and not a training ride, are you going to ignore the horse dropping it’s shoulder when you ask it to canter or are you going to address it? Because if you are ignoring the mistake, you are returning the horse to the owner in worse condition that you it was before you got on. Who would pay for that?

@Edre - if you get paid to ride, you are a professional.

[Coanteen]

I’ve paid $20 per ride before, although I’ve preferred to find an arrangement where the rider got to ride for free and I didn’t pay them.

That $20/ride kid (an older teenager with their own horse, so not looking for free rides necessarily) did an amazing job with my mare! It was as good as training rides for what I needed.

[Scribbler]

I distinguish in my mind between riding for exercise/ fitness, schooling, training, and problem solving. Obviously these blend somewhat, but they are also quite distinct.

For instance, I ride my coach’s school master mare both fitness, on trails, and schooling. For trails we just hack out. If she spooks or gets heavy on the forehand obviously I would correct. But we aren’t working through her repertoire and any good solid rider could do this.

I also do sessions where I school her in the ring, and we work through her existing repertoire. Here I need to be careful to keep my aids and riding, and her performance, correct. But I am not training her anything. This requires more skill than hacking her out.

On my own horse I do training, as well as fitness trail rides and schooling what we already know. I actually teach her moves she didn’t previously know existed. This is very different from schooling moves the horse already knows and is confident in. For instance, I was continuing to introduce travers at the walk yesterday.

Finally, I mention problem solving. This is when the horse has an ongoing behavior issue that you need to sort out through training. Maybe the horse rushes, spooks, or balks on the trails. Maybe like my horse there is a wierd combination of intermittent ring sour/ over excited in the ring. This has taken some creative problem solving. This is also the level where riding especially a strange horse can be dangerous.

Obviously you might need to school on a hack if the horse decides to go inverted or blow through your aids.

But I think for that price you are not going to be teaching him new things.

And it is up to you if your exercise rides deal with problem solving. I would think the combination well schooled horse and high level rider shouldn’t present too many difficulties. And if you do find you are riding a nutcase you can always drop that client.

Go slow, do a trial ride with owner present, ask the questions you would if it were a lease, and trust your gut.

It’s true that some riders might hire you hoping to get problem solving rides on a sour horse or training miles on a green horse, for half the price of a trainer. You will need to figure out how to sniff those out and decline, or have a sliding scale where you charge more.

[xeroxchick]

We pay 25$ a ride to keep my husbands horse fit. She is wonderful. I think that her job might actually be to ride out on trails with me. She used to be a groom for a BNT and knows an awful lot. Comes three times a week, and has for 11 years.

[A3dayeventer2009]

@Scribbler

I distinguish in my mind between riding for exercise/ fitness, schooling, training, and problem solving. Obviously these blend somewhat, but they are also quite distinct.

For instance, I ride my coach’s school master mare both fitness, on trails, and schooling. For trails we just hack out. If she spooks or gets heavy on the forehand obviously I would correct. But we aren’t working through her repertoire and any good solid rider could do this.

I also do sessions where I school her in the ring, and we work through her existing repertoire. Here I need to be careful to keep my aids and riding, and her performance, correct. But I am not training her anything. This requires more skill than hacking her out.

On my own horse I do training, as well as fitness trail rides and schooling what we already know. I actually teach her moves she didn’t previously know existed. This is very different from schooling moves the horse already knows and is confident in. For instance, I was continuing to introduce travers at the walk yesterday.

Finally, I mention problem solving. This is when the horse has an ongoing behavior issue that you need to sort out through training. Maybe the horse rushes, spooks, or balks on the trails. Maybe like my horse there is a wierd combination of intermittent ring sour/ over excited in the ring. This has taken some creative problem solving. This is also the level where riding especially a strange horse can be dangerous.

Obviously you might need to school on a hack if the horse decides to go inverted or blow through your aids.

But I think for that price you are not going to be teaching him new things.

And it is up to you if your exercise rides deal with problem solving. I would think the combination well schooled horse and high level rider shouldn’t present too many difficulties. And if you do find you are riding a nutcase you can always drop that client.

Go slow, do a trial ride with owner present, ask the questions you would if it were a lease, and trust your gut.

It’s true that some riders might hire you hoping to get problem solving rides on a sour horse or training miles on a green horse, for half the price of a trainer. You will need to figure out how to sniff those out and decline, or have a sliding scale where you charge more.

Bingo.Thanks, Scribbler. Everything you said is exactly my plan. I just didn’t think I needed to spell every detail of my riding in every possible scenario, just wanted a general “what would you pay?” answer. Of course there will uncontrollable variables where I will either make the decision to drop the client or discuss cost for me to address training issues for skills necessary for my rides.

[punchy]

Bear in mind that it also depends on how much time the rider has to spend getting ready/getting done. When the horse is clean & stalled and I just have to throw the tack on (then reverse) its one price. But if I had to truck out to the field and catch the horse, curry the mud off, hose them afterwards, graze for 10 minutes, clean the tack, then that’s a different story.