Horse loan- please help!

[Loanhorse]

Hi. Deliberately posting on AIBU not tack room as some ex horsey people may also be able to help but may not check the tack room. After posting here before and receiving some brilliant advice we have decided to loan out my daughters horse on a part loan basis. We just cannot decide on a fair price to do so.

the horse in question is great. Safe and bombproof. Doesn’t ride in an outline and doesn’t school fancily but will do whatever you ask of him schooling wise. Happy to pop a jump, loves cross country. Hacks alone and in company. Loves a gallop in the fields and will keep his rider safe. He’s a saint of a horse who has given my daughter huge amounts of confidence but can step up a gear for a confident rider too. He is on full livery so the loaner will not need to do any yard chores.

yard facilities are fantastic and include an outdoor school, a grass dressage arena, a grass showjumping field, and a full cross country course (liveries can use this anytime they want as long as it’s not being hired out, it’s free 70% of the time) on road hacking which leads to country woodland trails, off road field hacking for either casual hacking or there are tracks in the field set up as gallops.

these facilities are available to use until October time. After this there is only the flood lit outdoor arena with some jumps to set up in it and the hacking in the fields although they can’t be used as gallops in winter. And the on road hacking. Then it all reopens again in the spring.

What would be a fair price to ask for per day, or for 2 days for this? We don’t want to take the piss but also don’t know the going price or what would be fair or realistic. The loaner will not need to contribute to food, shoeing, vets bills etc but will need to have their own insurance for public liability. They will be able to use our tack and can do anything they want riding wise during their days. We are not in a particularly expensive area eg southwest, very much somewhere in the middle

any help for a fair price for this would be greatly appreciated!

How many days a week will the loaner have sole use?

Charge them the livery day rate x however many days they have sole use.

Standard around here (Home Counties) seems to be about £10 per day.

There are some that advertise at more or less, eg for a set up like yours on full livery, so no jobs. They are sometimes advertised at £15 per day. Or more if the horse is a competition horse and ready to go out at more than a basic level, eg competing Novice/Elementary+ and gaining good marks etc, on a yard with decent facilities etc I’ve seen at £15per day.

Unfortunately, as much as I think the poster above is right- divide your costs x number of days loan- I think that would come up a lot higher than many people are willing to pay.

Locally full livery is £20/day based on 3-4 days / week.

For unlimited rides it’s easily double.

£10 a day. Is he on DIY or livery? Definitely only £10if you expect the sharer to muck out etc.

Non-horse person.

Am I being thick or are people suggesting that you could get two days of access to a horse for £40/week and not incur additional costs (other than insurance)?

You'd essentially have risk free access to a horse for what sounds like just livery cost, and none of the maintenance fees?

Why on earth would the casual rider want to own their own horse? This makes it sounds like that's a massive surplus of horses in comparison to the demand if horse rental is so cheap.

Exactly. Full livery means you don’t even need to take care of the horse afterwards, you take it out and hand it back and someone else does the hard work. But locally usually need to contract out a minimum of 3 days / week (paid in advance for the hear) to make it worthwhile for the owner.

When I loaned, I paid £120 a month for two days use.

2 days per week that is.

It depends how much it is costing you.... that's your starting point.

£10/ day

I used to pay £110 a month but was very lucky to have as many riding days as I wanted
Standard seems to be £10-15 a day
Maybe work out what the min you would accept would be and be flexible for the right person?
My last share was for 10 years and I'm a very experienced horse person/rider just not financially able to have my own

Why are you considering loaning the horse out? The horses loaned out that I know are loaned for 2 reasons

1. To help pay the bills

Or 2. Because the horse needs a more experienced rider than the owner and it's a way of getting training

If it's cash you need, then I'd say £20 a day, bearing in mind you aren't asking for anything in the way of jobs.

I pay £15 per day without yard chores, London. Is about the going rate, but I doubt it even touches the sides of the costs of keeping a horse on full livery and vetted etc. Several other owners at the yard have opted to put their horses on working livery (it’s a large riding centre) rather than loan, as it’s far more cost effective and I suspect just as importantly, avoids a lot of sharer politics: I know that before me my owner had a succession of teenage girls who clashed personalities with her daughter etc and made the loan dynamic painful. Would a working livery be an option for your horse?

My dd loans and I used to loan. I would pay around £30 to £40 a week but that covered everything. Shoes, vets, clipping etc. I would ride 2/3 times a week and do a bit of poo picking, groom, wash when I was there. Only thing I'd pay out for apart from the weekly fee would be my own insurance.

I charge £120 a month for 2 days a week. One wheelbarrow of poo picking a week in summer (horse out at night) and skipping out stable in winter when they’re in at night.

horse costs me £300 a month diy, plus hay, feed, bedding, shoes, wormers, vaccinations, dentist, saddler, physio. Sharer is happy and so am I. I don’t use share money for horses keep, I put it towards anything “extra” they need such as new rugs etc.

Depends on if there are jobs to do and how good a rider the sharer is.

I've had several shares and never paid a penny for them. The owner gets a day off and their horse is exercised and looked after for them. They'd usually have to pay some to do this - the sharer gets a horse to ride in exchange for doing the jobs for the day. Win-win.

If the horse is on full livery or the sharer isn't such a good rider then, yes work out how much the horse costs per day and split it.

£10 a day for horse on full livery (ie no chores required) seems ridiculously cheap to me but i would try and work out a rough basic cost of what your horse costs you per day by adding up all costs for a year and dividing by days in a year or monthly costs if that’s easier.

@Wenfy

I'm guessing that because of owners like this there isn't much of a market where someone has a stables and has a fleet of horses that they then lease out.

Is there a secondary market where someone could contract for four days/week leasing and then sublet the horse out for short periods at a higher rate?

How many hours per day can you use a horse for?

I pay £140 a month for as many days as I want(currently do 2)

I'd say it depends on the reason for loaning. Do you have a lack of time? Money?

I think £10-£15 a day. The facilities sound great so if youre doing it to help cover costs you might ask for more.

People do it for a mix of reasons. Owners often need their horses ridden more than they can manage, or they might do it in order to help with the finances or chores. Loaners do it for the low price, for the freedom of a loan compared to lessons and not having to commit to their own horse.

But it's not always easy to find the right match. The owner wants someone competent and reliable. I recently saw an advert of facebook by someone whose daughter had decided that lessons weren't for her - after about 2 lessons and starting to trot... would you lend your precious horse to that girl?

The sharer generally wants a horse they can have safe fun with, at times that suit them. Some of the horses up for loan are really not for novices and would chuck you off as soon as look at you. Some are only available midweek. Some have flaky owners who forget to buy feed or don't pay the farrier, so the farrier refuses to shoe the horse (yes, really!). The sharer doesn't have any say in how the horse is kept - they might think the horse needs a vet, but the owner won't call a vet. They might want to compete, but the owner won't allow it. They might think the horse needs more attention, or less hours being ridden, or any number of things, and at some point they may decide they'd rather have their own, regardless of the cost.

@DuesToTheDirt

That make a lot of sense. I'll hold off on registering HrsShr or AirHorse and trying to create a disruptive peer to peer horse sharing market.

I was already to start tagging up lampposts and bus shelters to mark them as horse sharing spots al la ZipCar.

Wow this seems cheap. I had horses for 25 years but haven’t since my old showjumper passed away.

The cost per day for that sort of yard will be a lot more than £10/day.

I’d pay £200/ month for a part loan that gave be access to 2 days a week (or say £120/month for 1 day a week). I’d be happy to contribute some of the care for that too and still consider it a complete steal!

Having a fleet (ha, love the imagery) of horses for hire is much less of a thing than it used to be 75 or 100 years ago when the countryside/roads were safer for riding and health and safety culture more relaxed so it was possible to rock up to a stables on a whim and pay to take a horse or horses out for the day even if you weren't a very experienced rider. Essentially these days insurances and other business costs of running such a thing make it virtually untenable commercially - a single owner loaning their own horse to one person is not viewed as a commercial operation so doesn't have the same costs. Riding schools where you go for lessons or supervised riding are a different thing of course although many schools these days are struggling to turn a profit too.

Like others have said a share arrangement is usually very much between one owner (and their beloved pet) and one carefully vetted and chosen sharer selected for their riding ability and personality match to the horse, often the main motivation is to ensure the horse gets exercised and cared for on days it's not convenient for the owner to go to the yard so the financial contribution is usually minimal. 'Sub letting' very much not encouraged or indeed allowed 😂on their designated days the sharer can usually ride for as long as they want to within the boundaries of the horse's fitness, TBH most riders are tired before the horse is. But like I say most owners wouldn't be delighted to find their sharer was making their money back by offering pony rides to any interested third parties lol!

£10 a day seems really cheap to me, would love to know where the yards are that only charge £70 or even £100 a week for full livery with good facilities in the Home Counties!

OP I'd charge 1/7th of your weekly livery bill for each day the sharer rides, obviously that isn't full keep costs as you have farrier, vets, insurance on top but it's better to charge a little less and get someone really reliable and flexible than go for top dollar and end up with someone demanding or flaky...