To not want to spend more money on horses?

[tommyknocker1982]

My wife and I are at loggerheads on this, so I'm looking for outside opinions...

Bit of background - we're in our 40's and both work, and we have 2 daughters, 15 and 12. I don't ride but my wife and daughters do. We bought our first horse a couple of years ago. I was firmly against it, but my family appealed constantly, and my wife provided a breakdown of the costs, which turned out to be a wild underestimate.

A year later, that horse had some health issues and my wife said he wasn't suitable for our youngest daughter. So, I switched to work full time and we bought a second horse. Since then, the horse related costs have escalated endlessly (vets, van hire, trips to the saddlery...) and I'd guess we now spend around £25k a year on horses.

I've agreed to getting a 4x4 and horse trailer, but the next ask is that my wife wants us to move to a "house with land", so that she can keep the horses at home.

And this is where we clash. Acres of land in the south east is expensive, and would mean either moving into a worse house than we have now, or taking out a huge mortgage. I don't want an equestrian lifestyle. I don't want the extra maintenance, I don't like the smell, and I don't want to live in a rural backwater so I can have animals staring at me through my kitchen window. Am I being unreasonable to say "no, I don't want to spend any more on horses"?

I Am Being Unreasonable - I should agree to my wife's demand. Live a life I don't want, and probably face more escalating costs even with them living with us at home.

I Am NOT Being Unreasonable - I say "enough is enough". We spend enough already and need to draw a line under it.

YANBU, and I say that as a horse owner. Given the average lifespan of horses, and the fact that your girls will have less time for them once they go to uni, it would be cheaper to put them on full livery, removing some of drudgery from the horsefolks' lives and giving them more time to ride. Doing everything yourself is a real arse-ache, and I do not miss dragging barrows of muck onto a windswept, rain driven heap twice a day one bit.

Oh your first post made me giggle. You need to read Skint Dressage Daddy https://www.skintdressagedaddy.com/about/

I have had the horses at home for over 35 years (all funded by me). It is a huge amount of work; still very expensive and incredibly tying. The cost of having a house sitter to look after the animals is often more than the cost of the holiday.

Honestly? Your wife sounds a bit deluded; she should be working full-time to pay more towards the costs of her hobby and you would be mad to buy a house with land. Your £25k p,a, will increase hugely with the cost of maintaining said land unless you do it all yourself which is really difficult when working full time. You would also need to fork out for a lot of equipment for maintenance. It doesn't sound as if either of you have any experience of land management. As your kids get older, living rurally turns you into a permanent taxi driver.

I have no idea how people make money from running a livery yard as they mostly seem to massively undercharge.

Yes I know what you mean about the livery yards. When our girls started off at a riding school which offered lessons & livery, the owner said they made basically nothing from the livery, and all the profit was in the lessons. It was difficult to book the arena because it was always used for lessons. At our current yard (not a riding school) the owner practically works himself into the ground. He's like the Terminator, he just never stops.

I'm sure the owner at your current yard does it because it's his passion (at least I hope it's his and not his wife's!).

It's not your passion or dream, so you need to stand your ground.

No move to the country, and no increases to the horse costs!

At this moment I’m tempted to get our own ‘escape to the country’. We’re moving yards again from a small affordable diy yard to another due to planning for development (in Greater London area).
Other opinion is full livery at £700/month which would take half my take home salary (key worker on minimum wage) for 1 horse.
i say that in jest as diy livery with assistance if needed suits us and our lifestyle.
I don’t have a ‘competition’ horse, we’re happy hackers with an odd dressage test, he’s a pet just like my other pets who is expected to do approx 5 hours work a week.
My horse is with me for the rest of the of his days no matter what happens, without him I’d look at part loaning

HW has been pulled out of school! And I think they also have mentioned they have a groom / other people to help….

I've only seen snippets of the HW videos so don't know what help they have. They seem either very rich or it's all edited to only show the glossy side, or both? Maybe when mum isn't holding the camera, she's pulling up ragwort and ramming in fence posts :)

You will be if you buy land.

If a fence is down or a stable is leaking you can't just leave it until you can organise a handyman when there are animals involved.

I took a quick look at Harlow White’s channel. She is a sweet girl and has the most angelic palamino pony, who looks like he is made of pure gold, but he is kept at the most luxurious full livery yard - she says so in the video. Pristine stables, indoor school, outdoor school, covered horse walker…

But then I think it’s fine for a pony to be on livery so that children can get to their own ‘indoor school’ in the morning!

That’s not very up to date 😅. She now has multiple horses at their property paid for by her internet career. Some get replaced quite quickly if she doesn’t gel with it . She is homeschooled so she can concentrate on being an influencer with her horses. She’s a nice kid but her mum is basically using her for fame and money

"If she doesn't gel with it" presumably being a euphemism for "if it doesn't win" and/or. "if she wants to pass it on before anyone else realises there's something wrong with it"?

Alternatively..

My hobby is motorcycle racing, my wife has been supportive up to now, I spend around £25k a year on bikes and race meets and my wife has moved to full time work to fund it. I need more, I want to move closer to the specialist engineers for my machines, get more bikes and visit more tracks. The problem is this will be expensive, I need property with garage and workshop space, we can just about do it with a much larger mortgage.

The problem is my wife is complaining that it's too much, she likes where we live, doesn't want to disrupt the kids education and she doesn't want the burden of a large mortgage. She just doesn't get how important this is to me.

In this hypothetical scenario, do the posters who suggested this man should 'suck it up' give the same advice to the hypothetical wife?

Ah yes, you are completely correct - the video came up in the 'featured' bit of YouTube but I have just checked and it was five years old.

I have no idea how people make money from running a livery yard as they mostly seem to massively undercharge.

A lot of them inherited the place or are older and bought when land was cheap and it's long been paid off, or diversified into livery from a standard farm.

There's also often a house there, so no rent or mortgage.

They overstock the land and overgraze the fields to pack enough DIYers on there to make a reasonable profit, which they barely spend any of on maintenance.

The ones who are renting the premises or are relatively young (ie not ancient) but have bought the place...
and built proper stables with adequate space and ventilation, separation of hay storage to combat dust, proper rooves and suitable floor drainage, walls built to withstand extensive butt scratching and lined with kickboards, (as opposed to getting their mates to throw up some basic building made of unreinforced breeze blocks with a tin roof, partitioned into 10x12ft spaces and called it stables)...
those ones tend to be running strictly full and part livery in order to make it pay.

I suspect costs for livery could well rise drastically in the future as those original lot die off, land gets split between multiple children or sold for building etc and the numbers of cheaper DIY places reduces.

There'll always be some though because the other reason people get into it is because they've got several horses of their own and rather than a house with land they've obtained a small yard instead and are running a livery business for the purpose of keeping their own horses for free plus making a small profit. They're better off than they would be working elsewhere and paying for livery themselves. Not necessarily financially but in terms of flexibility of working hours so they can ride throughout winter and compete whenever they want, not having to deal with workplace culture because they're the boss so have nobody micromanaging them and no underlings slacking off, not having to deal with livery yard drama because they're the owner and can oust troublemakers and having automatic holiday cover for their horses from the liveries.

The difference here though is that the OPs daughters are as invested in the horses as the wife it isn’t just his wife . In your scenario you need to have 2 kids also racing bikes and then the answers would be the same .

Potential for horrendous vet bills as the horses age. Particularly if you do the right thing and keep retired horses in their forever home.

I used to ride and once you get good there are plenty of opportunities at yards to ride really nice horses and ponies the owners don't have time to exercise.

Check out the rural properties though before giving a complete no. There may be a compromise.

I was a very horsey teenager and left my mum with two horses aged 18... (She did ride, but they were very much mine). One of them died last year and I'm 38... I'm also getting ready for the "horse" conversation with non horsey DH as it's really all I want in life and my kids are getting old enough to spare the time. You actually sound INCREDIBLY supportive - I know my DH will not want it at all.... My dad constantly complained about the horses when I was living at home (mostly that he never saw us rather than the cost).

I wouldn't want horses living at home for other reasons, we have known some people with them on their land and it's SUCH a bind. Can be really hard to go away and get them looked after, like needed a dog sitter but much more difficult. If there's 2 living together it can be really difficult to separate them so I also can bet you would end up with 3! I would always stick with a livery yard even if money no object.

Well yes but that gets tricky when they are so in the public eye and people see it all develop, so she gets a lot of criticism which is obviously not fair as she’s a child and not responsible for those decisions.

I agree and it's another thread but it's why I hate seeing parents turn their children into clickbait for goodies and money.

Check out the rural properties though before giving a complete no. There may be a compromise.

I can't think of what the compromise might be? Is there one, they either move and have the at home or they don't, there's no real in between?

I'll bet the "compromise" in this case will either be his wife wanting to reduce her hours even more or pay a groom!

I don't know why we're bothering though, you can tell by the tone in his posts that it's going to happen. I have a feeling that he actually likes being a horse Dad more than he's letting on!

No, it's not going to happen. I'm good humoured about it all but I've researched into what's involved - everything from field rotation, weeds poisonous to horses, cost of hay, beddimg and grooms in the south east, all the way down to post ramming attachments for mini tractors. I wouldn't make a decision simply by browsing equestrian properties on Rightmove. And it's a definite "no" from me.

Stick to your guns on that!

Very pleased you have made a stand on this, i thought from a couple of your posts that you were seriously thinking about making the move.

Now it's a question of how it plays out with your DW - will she continue to sulk/threaten/manipulate to try to get her way, or accept how far you have already bent for this hobby?

Good luck OP.

Just leave her.you will never change a horsey woman.its not a hobby it's a lifestyle.she would be miserable and never forgive you if you forced her to give up members of her family..you will be miserable and resentful if you stay.