Some advice re: costs - livery and pony purchase

[gomez]

A bit of general advise on costs please. We are currently exploring options for DD's, who is 10 and a fairly competent rider, first pony. Have been quoted 65 per week for full livery in a yard with an arena and lighting. Fab hacking out the back of farm. We are in Central Scotland but not sure what is norm / reasonable. Budgeting max 5k for a M&M WHP - will that get a decent pony - around from 13 2 to around 14 hands. Again is that a reasonable sum? Thanks.

You will have guessed that neither DH or I ride.....

[Callisto]

£65 per week sounds reasonable if the hacking and facilities are good, though I have no experience of keeping a horse at full livery. Don't forget that full livery doesn't include farrier and may not include worming which are both regular costs. It won't include vet bills either.

TBH £5,000 should get you an exceptional WHP. It is a buyer's market at the mo and there are lots of ponies on the market right now because their owners can't afford to keep them.

I can't stress enough the importance of trying and trying again. Don't buy the first pony you see, make sure you get it vetted by an equine vet, and try and find someone with lots of experience and no vested interest to help you find a pony. Word of mouth works well but Horse and Hound is great too. I don't know about internet sites, but personally I'd avoid anything where the sellers can advertise for free.

There are, unfortunately, loads of unscrupulous sellers out there, with all the sob stories you want. Trust your instincts, be wary if the yard/field is a mess. Make sure you see the pony in it's paddock being caught and tacked up. Ask loads of questions and if the answers don't add up walk away. Don't buy just because you feel sorry for the pony.

HTH and that it doesn't put you off!

[gomez]

Thanks Callisto - have costed insurance, farrier and worming too as adding an additional £60/70 ish per month.

Who would you recommend for insurance BTW?

Re: pony purchase we have both the owner of the livery and the stables where she has been having lessons on the lookout - wouldn't dream of buying without their assistance or without vetting as we, clearly, know nothing!

Thanks for you help.

[marialuisa]

£65 for full livery sounds like a bargain to me. Here in the East Mids it's around £75-125 pw!

Agree that £5k should buy you something rather good, in fact I'd wonder if you need to spend that much TBH.

[frostyfingers]

Make sure you get someone else to test drive the pony in addition to your daughter. An experienced lightweight adult, or a teenager will provide a valuable 2nd opinion.

[frostyfingers]

Also, make sure that when you go to see a pony that it isn't tacked up and ready to go. Ask if you can catch it, or see it caught, groom it and tack it up. There is nothing worse than a pony that doesn't handle well - it's all very well an adult being able to do it, but your daughter needs to as well.

And another thing, although this is more once you've decided that you think it's suitable, don't just take someone's word for it that it loads well into a box or trailer. Ask to see for yourself.....

Finally, if you are keen, make sure you go for a 5 stage vetting - more expensive, but worth it.

Can you tell I've had a bad experience here?!

[gomez]

Ah thanks for the advice guys. Interested that £5K might be a healthy budget - may adjust expectations on that one.

Thanks again.

[shufflebum]

£5k will definitely buy you a decent M&M with a good track record. Are you looking for something to go out and show? As a first pony I would lower the budget and go for a middle aged and safe all rounder that she can do a bit of everything on to get some experience.. But if you are loking for a worker (whp) there will be loads available mid september after the champs are over. Are you on a showing yard?

[PortiaPony]

Thats a reasonable price for Central Scotland - i'm in the Falkirk area and while we now have the horses at home, have been on a few yards. 5K will buy you what you want, in fact you will probably find it for £3k but always nice to have more in the pot than necessary! If its a showing pony you want then there's a scottish showing forum that would be a good place to put a wanted add. Let me know if you want the web address of it.

[seeker]

A few more questions to ask yourself.

How often is your dd going to be able to ride? Who will exercise the pony when she can't. Remember the long dark winter - presumably she won't be able to ride much during the week then. You need to be sure that the pony won't be too much for her at the weekends if it's not doing any work during the week.

What will you do if she goes off riding? She will say she's not going to - but she might.

What does she want to do with the pony? Show? Compete? Or just mess around and have fun? If she wants to compete, will you need a hores box?

Has she got people to hack out with? Presumably at 10 she won't be going alone.

She'll still need to have lessons. Is there another horse she can ride if hers is lame or gets a rub from its girth or something?

Loads more (did this recently ourselves) don't want to bombard you!

[gomez]

Questions, questions....

We live less than 10 mins drive from yard so anticipate 2 or 3 nights where she should be able to ride plus weekends. (Either a grandparent/dad or nanny will take her to yard after school depending on day of the week.)

Owner of stables can and will give lesson(s) - she is very experienced, judges at various events etc. She may still go to her current stables for the odd lesson and polo crosse (but they are too far away for livery, an hours round trip)

There are two others girls of a similar age with ponies there - they will ride together or with a mother of one of them who also rides. Or indeed I guess one of us can cycle or walk out with her. But, no she won't be riding alone yet.

If/when she gives it up there are two younger children coming up behind her and I guess we just sell it if needs be??? Although of course she currently assures us that hourses are her life and she has ambtions to be an equine vet.......

Horse box - we have a v70 which would be suitable for towing and yard has two which we may borrow - we discussed this as she is keen to attend Pony Club. She has been attending a Pony Club Centre so is v. keen to turf up with her own pony to 'proper' Pony Club. When asked by the owner of the yard what she 'saw' when she imagined herself on a pony her reponse was jumping so I am guessing that is what she wants to do. She has already come off and chipped her jaw bone so I try not to think about that too much .

PP - I think I have found the forum by a goodle search so thanks.

These questions are all great. I must admit that I am not entirely convinced and am just slightly unsure about the whole idea,so thinking about all these things is helping me. I am just not sure that I am prepared to really support her in this when she is still so young and dependant on adults to make it happen. Different when she is a teenager and be more self-sufficient around the whole thing.

I suppose I think it is a bit unfair on the rest of us who will to a certain extent have to live around this pony too - when we are not getting the benefit so to speak. I need to think some more.....

Anyway thanks again.

[seeker]

Do you want more searching questions to think about or have you had enout for now? My dd has had a pony for 6 months now, so we are still new to all this too!

[gomez]

Can I ask you one? How much does it impact on the rest of the family?

Practially how does it work for you daughter - aside form the fact ponies clearly eat ten pound notes for pudding

[seeker]

Hmm.The short answer is "a lot". Do you mind if I now go on a bit? Feel free not to read the essay which will follow!

Dd's pony is kept at working livery at a yard 20 minutes drive away from us. There is public transport which she uses in the holidays, but in term time it takes too long. That means (skip this bit if you know) that she earns some of her keep by working in the riding school attached to the stables. Dd also does about 6 hours work a week in the stables to contribute. The good thing about this is that she gets exercised every day - the bad thing is that we have to trust the yard owner that she is being ridden properly. We do, mostly.

Dd has a lesson every Saturday morning. This means that someone has to drive her to the yard, then pick her up later. She tends to spend Sunday afternoon there - once again, take and pick up. She also goes to Pony Club on Thursday evening and rides on Tuesday evening. She sometimes works on a Wednesday. Her little brother often has to tag along on all this ferrying. Luckily there's a lovely pub opposite the stables with a big garden, so we quite often go there for lunch or a drink and a kick-about. He has also become worryingly good at pool!

On show weekends, she spends the whole of Saturday shampooing and primping the pony, then we all spend all day on Sunday at the show. This is crashingly boring with brief moments of excitement - it was entertaining watching the worst excesses of comptetitive "pony mothers", but that wore off after a while.

Apart from all this, we spend quite a lot of time talking about, thinking about, planning for and worrying about the pony. Or at least, listening while dd does.

But dd is exctatically happy, the pony is a much loved member of the family and we wouldn't have it any other way. But it does take over your life. Be prepared!

[Pixel]

If you are looking at full-livery it's not going to affect the rest of the family quite as much as if you were doing all the work yourself. They won't have to wait until the horses have been fed before they get their dinners.

However you will still find that a 'quick' visit to the stables will magically turn into several hours as you end up chatting to people or gazing lovingly at your horse or just unable to tear yourself away to go and do something useful but boring (look at the state of my house as illustration of this ).

[marialuisa]

Pony has taken over our lives in a big way, sucked me back into riding (have got a loan horse for myself now) and DH has started to learn (he's not a natural).

Can I ask why you're thinking about a show pony if your DD sees herself jumping? I ask because my own DD is much more into x-country, show-jumping etc. although the owner of the yard we use is very much into showing. Although the owner's show ponies can all jump a bit, they're not really up for anything beyond a potter in the field and x-country is a complete no-no in case they get injured. Your budget could get you a very nice, confidence building jumping pony for your DD to do PC competitions etc. on.

[gomez]

Thanks Seeker - but christ it hasn't made me feel any better .

Marialuisa I didn't think a working hunter was a show pony so it maybe that I have got the lingo wrong, apologies.

Thanks again for your input. DH(who is incidently allergic to the darn things) and I are having the chat this weekend. I want to wait until she is a bit older and more self-reliant. I am not going to be a popular mummy.

Cheers.

[seeker]

Is there any possibility of a pony share? Dd used to 'loan' half a pony and that worked well. Half the bills and the responsibility and no guilt if you can't make it to the yard for a day or two.

[gomez]

Thanks again for all you advice.

Things have changed slightly from the original plan (just forget the old tough mummy routine that lasted about 5 mins...) and we have agreed to a pony loan for 6 months in the first instance to see how DD copes with the responsibility. The pony owner wants to keep him for a younger child comming up so there is the possibility to extend the arrangement if things work. He will probably be too small for DD next year however but it does at least give us a relatively easy in and importantly an out if things don't work.

[Callisto]

Sounds great - tell us more about the pony?