Why is it so hard to find Professionally run boarding stables????

[BettyH]

I am at my wits end. I have searched high and low, talked to people in my area, and spent months searching for a Professionally run boarding stable. Yet, still nothing. I have a job where I can work from any location, so moving for me is not out of the question.

Some background info, I currently have a small place, with outdoor arenas. I have 2 horses. And I am a Dressage rider. My job keeps me busy enough that maintainance of arenas, pastures and fencing, just keeps getting pushed to the back burner. Plus, I travel for work, and finding a reliable sitter is expensive and hard to find. The downside is that I spent 10 years as an working student and then barn manager / assistant trainer, so I know a thing or two, and I expect proper care of my horses.

Fast forward to this year, and now I find myself looking for a stable, but even the most expensive stables regardless of discipline, in my area, don’t seem to know what they are doing. The best ones, I have looked at all have some combination of having poorly trained staff, and cut corners on feed, bedding and facilities maintance. Many stables, when I email questions don’t even email me back.

Why is it so hard to answer things like who will be handling my horses? What is their qualifications? How much feed (lbs per day) is included in board? Are arenas maintained on a daily basis? And honestly, why is that info not on a website? I am starting to think that there are far too many premium, world-class, ect facilities that exist which avoid you when you start asking hard questions, and yes I have a lot of questions. Why would I pay $950 a month, if you buy cheep hay which you have never had analyzed, you don’t provide a night check, and all your stalls are bedded so poorly, I can see the stall mats underneath?

So does anyone have any recommendations on high quality stables? In Ohio? Or heck, I am open to anywhere on the east coast? My budget is 1800 per month, but I am willing to go as high as $2000 per horse (which is double the rate of the most expensive so called “Premium” stables here in ohio) for a stable with great in-house (dressage, eventer) coaches & near (within 2 hours) of quality show grounds.

[IPEsq]

For a budget of $2000/horse/month and having your own facilities, I’d hire your own full time barn manager/groom. I say full time because I think that after discounting the expenses, you’d still be able to afford that and would be more likely to get a person motivated to keep up your standards than a part time employee.

[ladyj79]

[QUOTE=IPEsq;8716262]
For a budget of $2000/horse/month and having your own facilities, I’d hire your own full time barn manager/groom. I say full time because I think that after discounting the expenses, you’d still be able to afford that and would be more likely to get a person motivated to keep up your standards than a part time employee.[/QUOTE]

Exactly my thought: hire a professional groom. Provide decent housing and salary, would seem the best solution. I’d happily leave my Olympian at this point for just two horses.

[flyracing]

George, Roberta, and Noel Williams are in Ohio.

Really the only way to get what you want is going to be to hire help and keep them home. Even then, you’ll find out how hard it is to find people that do things just the way you want every time. No barn can make everybody happy. My barn is “perfect” to me, but I have a friend that disagrees. That’s ok; she doesn’t keep her horse here. Other people think my barn is amazing. That’s just the way it is.

[SLR]

Location?

[Bent_Hickory]

[QUOTE=BettyH;8716206]
I am at my wits end. I have searched high and low, talked to people in my area, and spent months searching for a Professionally run boarding stable. Yet, still nothing. I have a job where I can work from any location, so moving for me is not out of the question.

Fast forward to this year, and now I find myself looking for a stable, but even the most expensive stables regardless of discipline, in my area, don’t seem to know what they are doing. The best ones, I have looked at all have some combination of having poorly trained staff, and cut corners on feed, bedding and facilities maintance. Many stables, when I email questions don’t even email me back.

Why is it so hard to answer things like who will be handling my horses? What is their qualifications? How much feed (lbs per day) is included in board? Are arenas maintained on a daily basis? And honestly, why is that info not on a website? I am starting to think that there are far too many premium, world-class, ect facilities that exist which avoid you when you start asking hard questions, and yes I have a lot of questions. Why would I pay $950 a month, if you buy cheep hay which you have never had analyzed, you don’t provide a night check, and all your stalls are bedded so poorly, I can see the stall mats underneath?[/QUOTE]

With all due respect and complete candor, when we receive similar inquiries, we no longer answer either. Experience has taught us that it’s not worth any amount of money to attempt to please certain individuals. Nothing is ever good enough. After having lived through a few of them, we are no longer willing to accept customers that make us cringe when we see their car coming up the drive, or their name on an incoming text message or phone call. It’s just not worth the headache.

You might be a great customer – I don’t know – but if this is your approach, we’ll never find out.

[PhoenixFarm]

[QUOTE=Bent Hickory;8716528]
With all due respect and complete candor, when we receive similar inquiries, we no longer answer either. Experience has taught us that it’s not worth any amount of money to attempt to please certain individuals. Nothing is ever good enough. After having lived through a few of them, we are no longer willing to accept customers that make us cringe when we see their car coming up the drive, or their name on an incoming text message or phone call. It’s just not worth the headache.

You might be a great customer – I don’t know – but if this is your approach, we’ll never find out.[/QUOTE]

This. And we do provide a night check and charge a heck of a lot less than $950 a month. But if I got as pointed an email as what you’ve said here? I’d be pretty certain it would t be a good fit, even if we provide most of the things on your list. My mental health is worth more than that.

[Halfpasser11]

I’m in Ohio and I haven’t found one. That’s why I work part time at my barn not because of the money (nice perk) but because I have almost unreasonably high expectations regarding standards of care. I realize it’s unfair to expect it at any boarding stable so I do it myself.

Obviously, this is not an option for you. I do think your better off hiring someone to “follow your rules”. I’ve worked for plenty of people like this. I got paid a lot of money to take care of a small number of horses and do lots of seemingly pointless stuff because that’s what they wanted. It worked for me and them quite well.

[shayaalliard]

I know some back yard barns in ohio with fantastic care- and some GORGEOUS facilities with up and down care.
Hard to find both. Center Valley Farm used to meet all those criteria when I knew a boarder there- been a couple years ago though. It is a beautiful facility. Bellbrook Ohio

Also very very good care and FANTASTIC trainer, lovely but a smaller facility is Mill Creek Equestrian. New Carlisle OH

Hillrop Equestrian is also AMAZING, but is part of a church and I don’t know if they take outside boarders. West Alexandria OH

[yourcolorfuladdictio]

Honestly, you’re going to have to decide what is most important out of your list of demands. Hay testing at large barns is very uncommon, if you want the hay tested: do it yourself. Depending upon feeding routines, I’d prefer forage availability more than quality. What are two rich flakes of alfalfa provided vs hay and grass available 24/7? It doesn’t have to be great as long as it’s not harmful for the horse.

Some barns have adopted the practice of sweeping shavings away from the front of the stall where hay is placed and in front of the door so it isn’t drug into the aisle. Having sparse shavings doesn’t bother me as long as there are mats laid out. I actually worry about deep shavings as standing and walking in deep shavings can be tiring on the horse (think walking in sand).

If the turnout is ample, sparse shavings wouldn’t bother me.

As for arena maintenance, no farm is going to guarantee daily watering and/or dragging.

As for staff, they are hard to come by and hard to keep. If you find a barn with long-term employees, it’s a sign of a quality stable regardless of the facility itself. The other half of that is, will you upset the flow of the employees or make them unhappy?

If you start asking tons of questions, the first thought is that you will upset the system. If you ask tons of questions, you may be the type that micromanages your horse and subsequently, the staff.

Find something that checks all the most important boxes, and relax about the rest.

[J-Lu]

[QUOTE=Bent Hickory;8716528]
With all due respect and complete candor, when we receive similar inquiries, we no longer answer either. Experience has taught us that it’s not worth any amount of money to attempt to please certain individuals. Nothing is ever good enough. After having lived through a few of them, we are no longer willing to accept customers that make us cringe when we see their car coming up the drive, or their name on an incoming text message or phone call. It’s just not worth the headache.

You might be a great customer – I don’t know – but if this is your approach, we’ll never find out.[/QUOTE]

I really agree with this post. Dear OP, if your budget is upwards of $1-2K/month, you are in the realm of “boutique barns”. Fortunately or unfortunately, those who run these barns usually have a set system regarding how they run things and, frankly, they likely don’t need your money. IME, these barns might feed mediocre hay and grain and have mediocre to poor turnout, but they have excellent footing and mirrors, an excellent covered or indoor arena, excellent trainers/farriers/staff, etc. Or, they provide excellent hay and food, have excellent footing, excellent trainers but have no covered arena and mediocre stalls, etc. Or some combination of these things. No barn is perfect and no two boarders want the same thing in a facility.

Bottom line, though, is that many of these barns are run by FEI-level trainers, owners or amateurs with money who have at least as good of a “horse education” as you have, and they don’t want to take on boarders who are going to “tell them what to do” or bring trouble/drama to the barn. Maybe your approach is raising some red flags and maybe that’s why they aren’t responding?

[SharonA]

I also ask alot of questions up front. It doesn’t take that long to answer these questions – maybe 5 minutes and a 20-minute barn tour? If the barn isn’t what I’m looking for, no hard feelings and I will move on and we’ll all be happy, and if we are a match with a barn, we will all be happy and I won’t have to ask them these questions again. Definitely you do have to find a barn that checks all the “must have” boxes and let the other stuff go.

For my own (non-horse-related) job, I don’t like being grilled about the details of my company and what we provide vs. what another company provides, but it’s part of the service. It makes me know my organization better, and be better able to be up front about its strengths and weaknesses. Saves alot of time and results in happier customers in the end.

Regardless, with the OP’s budget, I agree that I would hire someone to care for the horses on my property, or I would find a barn with great facilities and I would hire someone to provide additional care for my horses (like hiring a caregiver for an elderly parent living in an assisted living facility – the ALF provides some care, but alot of people need to hire a private caregiver additionally, to really get the support they need).

[Weluvhaha]

The horse world is the complete opposite of the real world. In the real world, the people you pay, work for you. They try to please you, the client. They accept criticism and semi-annual performance reviews. You, the client, set the standard. They, the staff, try to meet it. In the real world, service providers ask, “how can we better serve you?” HA! In the horse world, you pay to be ordered around, disregarded, criticized, and reviewed. And you pay to please them, the people you are paying. It’s an upside down world with not a shred of professionalism in it. I have yet to meet a BO who would last a week in the corporate world.

What I finally did was to rent a barn and I hired a college student (with no attitude) to do what I asked him to do, the way I asked him to do it. If you have a barn on your own property, you are half way there. Just hire a groom. Now here’s the irony: You could bring in a horse or two as boarders. And you might find out they are completely displeased with YOU because your standards are too high! They don’t want to pay for clean stalls. They don’t want to have to keep the horse’s water clean. They would rather you lower the rent and let everything be filthy.

[soloudinhere]

[QUOTE=Weluvhaha;8716992]
The horse world is the complete opposite of the real world. In the real world, the people you pay, work for you. They try to please you, the client. They accept criticism and semi-annual performance reviews. You, the client, set the standard. They, the staff, try to meet it. In the real world, service providers ask, “how can we better serve you?” HA! In the horse world, you pay to be ordered around, disregarded, criticized, and reviewed. And you pay to please them, the people you are paying. It’s an upside down world with not a shred of professionalism in it. I have yet to meet a BO who would last a week in the corporate world.

What I finally did was to rent a barn and I hired a college student (with no attitude) to do what I asked him to do, the way I asked him to do it. If you have a barn on your own property, you are half way there. Just hire a groom. Now here’s the irony: You could bring in a horse or two as boarders. And you might find out they are completely displeased with YOU because your standards are too high! They don’t want to pay for clean stalls. They don’t want to have to keep the horse’s water clean. They would rather you lower the rent and let everything be filthy.[/QUOTE]

Hyperbole is so fun. Of course the options are perfect care or everything filthy, and nothing in between.

As barn owner, I have something you want. You are purchasing services and a space in my barn for a set price. You can demand all you want and I am free to tell you that is outside the scope of our agreement, take it or leave it. That goes for those people who want to pay less and have “everything filthy” though in my experience those people won’t even approach boarding at a nice facility.

If I got an email asking for the friggin resume of anyone who would be handing your horse, I would delete the email too. Too busy to deal with that degree of know-it-all. My barn, my property, my standards. If you don’t like them, do what everyone else says and attempt to find an employee you can boss around to your standards.

[Guilherme]

[QUOTE=BettyH;8716206]

So does anyone have any recommendations on high quality stables? In Ohio? Or heck, I am open to anywhere on the east coast? My budget is 1800 per month, but I am willing to go as high as $2000 per horse (which is double the rate of the most expensive so called “Premium” stables here in ohio) for a stable with great in-house (dressage, eventer) coaches & near (within 2 hours) of quality show grounds.[/QUOTE]

A fact of the equine industry is that boarding is, under optimum conditions, a break even business. Barns make their money on lessons, training, clinics, shows, etc.

The market, in most places, will not support rates above $600/month, and that’s in more affluent, urban area.

If you’re a 1%er that can afford $1800/month that’s a Good Thing. You works hard, get paid well, and you should be able to benefit from your work. But most folks don’t do that well and those folks also make up the “market.”

I concur that with this budget you should hire somebody, maybe a couple of somebody’s, part time to do what needs to be done to your standards.

G.

[kashmere]

Honestly, for 2k per month per horse and already owning your own facilities, you should be able to find a pretty good person (or two) as workers. It sounds like you have a lot of experience and expertise - there are a lot of folks who would probably love to learn from that and be happy to have you guide them to uphold really great horse care standards.

In order to really tailor your care exactly to what you want, keeping them at home seems the best option. Are either of your horses suitable for a working student to ride? Are you able to commit to giving a lesson every week? If you have the set up to provide housing, and are willing to mentor, you could probably save tons of $$$ and get a great set up going with a working student and perhaps hire someone part time for other barn work.

Otherwise, boarding is an exercise in compromise - always. I am in the process of moving from a place that ticks ALL of my boxes in terms of horse-centric facilities - 30 acres of gorgeous 24 hour turnout, total control over feed etc, but which lacks hardly any riding facilities, is very far away from me, and lacks the horse-specific expertise I would like in my boarding barn. I’m going to a place for which I will pay premium rates for my area (within about $100 bucks/month of the most expensive around), and it will STILL be a compromise - smaller turnout, less time on grass, but will allow me to ride 6 days/week and is a stronghold of horse/riding knowledge to put my mind at ease. It’s all give and take.

[ActNatural]

Op, I totally get your frustration. I grew up in a small barn which was run like a tight ship with very high standards of horse safety and care. I spent summers and weekends working at this barn and I know how i want my horse cared for. Since I left this barn after 12 years, my expectations have been high but never met. No one will care for your horse as well as you and there is no barn out there absolutely perfect. You have to take the good with the bad.

The horse industry is really frustrating! In no other industry could barn managers get away with charging such high prices for crappy facilities or crappy care. The customer is not the priority here.

Seriously, if you were sending your children to daycare, you’d have absolutely every right to ask what their caretakers experience is. And yes kids are different then horses but it only takes one idiots mistake with your horse to cost you thousands of dollars.

[Dbliron]

Good heavens, WeLuv, you clearly live in Utopia!

[WNT]

I do know how you feel, but at the opposite end of the financial spectrum. I have worked off my board for the last seven years at the. perfect. barn. DH and I have since purchased a home at the opposite end of the county, where we could actually afford to live and now I’m looking at 45 minutes driving one way. Other factors come into play as well, and I am practically frozen about finding somewhere closer that I can afford to move him to. My current BO and I practically read each other’s minds regarding horse care, and while horsey and I are fairly low-maintenance I would like the maintenance we receive to be to a high standard, if that makes a lick of sense. Quality feed, quality hay and enough of it, safe fencing and shelter, and clean water. I really don’t ask for more than that, we’ve made do with plenty of vaguely flat spots to ride in or roads to hack down.

[dressagegirl123]

I feel the same way you do. Even the most expensive barns don’t care for my horses exactly like I want them to. So, yup, I hired someone to care for them and my farm. Not a working student, a groom. It’s hard to find good people (giving you more appreciation of the BO’s difficulty), and you must pay well–a good, living wage. My guy has been with me 7 years, and does things exactly how I want them done. Almost. :lol: