Equestrian business

Thinking about what does (and doesn't) happen at the barn set my mind off on a trail of its own. After all for eight years my own life revolved around the economics of equestrian business.

If there are forty owners paying $250 a month, the manager is banking $120,000 a year. That sounds like an awful lot of money. But it isn't. To start with there are two wages to pay. The average annual individual income in Britain is about $40,000. From that, and what follows, we can assume that neither the barn manager nor the help receive anything near the average income, or even the median which is lower at around $30,000. Each horse requires hay for six months of the year (owners buy hard feed), say $500 per animal. The farmer receives a market rent - I'm surmising about $250 per horse. Fences need upkeep. There are repayments on the loan used to build stables and an arena. (Owing to the recession hardly anyone wants to pay extra for stabling so the building stands almost empty.) On top there is insurance, local tax, company tax if a profit is declared (which seems unlikely), a truck and a quad bike to run, and electricity and water bills. As for pension contributions, who knows? I'm glad not to have that kind of a headache to worry about.

But it happens again and again: someone who has worked as a groom or rider does the arithmetic - number of horses x barn bill - and is hooked.

I make rough calculations all the time at work testing the validity of assertions and ideas. I looked at the economics of an equestrian business over here a couple of years ago too. It required sailing even closer to the wind financially than we did in Transylvania. Over there increasing costs ate into business viability. Over here costs are high already. It's shocking what a shoestring most equestrian businesses operate on. A sound business decision can be to walk away. That was the right decision when I left Transylvania, and it was the correct choice again when I was offered a barn to rent.

Thinking of this, I am diplomatic with the barn manager and don't criticise her to other boarders. I can guess what a struggle the place is keep going, and I can imagine what hours she works for how little financial reward. Having had eight years of such adventure, I am grateful as an engineer by profession to have an alternative.

Comments

[Martine]

I ran a livery yard here in Ireland for 17 years. We consistently made a loss, but it did help reduce the costs of keeping our own horses, as we could write a lot of expenses off against my husband's tax. I think that's the only way it can work, when the costs can be written off against farm income or riding school income or whatever.

At one stage, I worked out what I was earning per hour. Excluding the time involved in caring for our own horses and excluding stuff like hedge cutting or fence painting which was hard to quantify, I reckoned I was earning £1 an hour (this was in the late 90s). Pretty meagre given how physical the work was.

You sound like a very understanding livery client - a type that's hard to come by!

[White Horse Pilgrim]

It's good to hear from you, Martine. I can see just what you are saying. I ran a riding holiday business for eight years. I had a lot of fun doing this, however it was extraordinarily hard work and money was a regular worry. I fear to think what my hourly rate was. By my mid-40s something like fifteen thousand miles in the saddle had left me physically unable to do the job. At least I left in time and have some good memories.