Is £17.50 expensive for a riding lesson??

[gingertoo]

Ds (10) would like to have riding lessons. I've contacted the local stables and for a half hour lesson in a group of six it will be £17.50!! That seems expensive to me.......or am I just out of touch with these things??!!

I started a thread on this in the tack room - my daughter had a half hour group lesson yesterday and it was £18.50, it's £20 for a private half hour

will look for the other thread and bump it up, prices varied wildly

there is a club my daughter could join that meets fortnightly for £20 an hour but it's a bit of a free-for-all - maybe you could check out alternatives?

here is the other thread

Thanks Will have a look!

Have just been discussing with dd why she can have ballet lessons and not riding lessons. Pointed out that a horse eats an awful lot more than mrs X. Also, for a ballet lesson to work, you only need one mrs X, whereas for a riding lesson every child needs to have a horse. So no, £17.50 does not seem excessive to me.

£20 for a hour and £11.50 for half an hour here for shared lessons. The posh stables up the road charge 50% more. Maybe phone round and go and get a feel for what others are offering.

Sounds reasonable to me - step away from the riding lessons, unless you have VERY deep pockets. Be wary of going to places that are too cheap, chances are the horses will be nags (well, unsafe nags are often the best bet)and the lesson run by unqualified staff.

It does look as though £17.50 is quite an average cost - I'm astounded!I suppose I've got used to paying around £5 for rugby, hockey, music etc so it seemed like a HUGE amount........May have to talk him out of this one as pockets are NOT deep!! (plus I've two younger boys - Could maybe stretch to this for one but def not for all three.) Good advise, I think, LucyEllensmummy, ' step away from the riding lessons!

I had riding lesson as a child and I think my parents paid about £8-£10 an hour at a well run BHS aproved school. That was 30+ years ago so I would say what you've been quoted sounds fair

we pay £15 which is for about 2 hours - which includes catching horses, grooming, tacking, riding 20-30 mins and then stable management afterwards

When I started riding my parents paid £1.35 an hour (I am very very old ). Our local stables charges £14 for half an hour for younger children and £18/hr once they can ride well enough to join a class. In my day we started in a class from day one so not sure why now most riding schools seem to insist on private lessons until the child can walk and trot well (on a pony of course!).

I agree it is expensive, but that seems to be the going rate. We pay £18 for an hour's lesson and in fact that is only half an hour group lesson plus a half hour ride out.

Most of the other stables near us charge £23 and upwards for an hour's lesson.

Thanks for your replies.

Have found another stables near me that does a 'taster fun morning' during the holidays which includes an hour of grooming, an hour of mucking out and an hour of riding for £15!!

Have managed to persuade DS that it would be a good idea to have a couple of mornings at half term and a couple of mornings in the Easter hols to see if he really wants to learn to ride!! (I realize, though, that this could backfire terribly - it could make him want to learn to ride even more!! Lol)

My DD rides and I pay £18 for a 30min long private lesson. The group lessons are £16 for an hour in a class of no less than 8.

I pay £10 for 30-45mins for a group lesson at the local riding stables. It's a real working stable, nothing fancy, but the horses are absolutely the centre of the place and looked after incredibly well. The class has around 5-10 people.

Have just seen an earlier thread - the horses are certainly not nags and the staff are properly trained.

That is quite a lot IME. We pay £21 an hour for DD. Up to 10 pupils. Same price whether they are going for a hack or having a lesson in the indoor/outdoor arena.

Tis a bit scruffy maybe but very relaxed and welcoming. Ponies well looked after and calm.

My stables is the same as Orm and paolo. Not a Boden-esque Joules Pony Club type stable. Lots of muck, a cobwebby dingy tackroom full of chickens, dogs, cats and kids. All the horses are v well looked after and the staff are lovely but it is deffo NOT what I would call a 'lifestyle' stable.

(it is BHS registered / approved though)

It's better that way tp. I couldn't stand the snobby gymkhana type of place. Ours is also full of dogs as it's a working farm, and hound puppies and mousers.

Agree, ThoughtPolice and OrmIrian. Our tack room/office is a portacabin, there is no indoor schooling ring and it's on a working farm. Definitely not a 'lifetsyle' Pony Club type place!

Enquired about another place near us that has lots of off road hacking on private land. A half hour private lesson or one hour group lesson is the same £32! Don't think my ds will be going there any time soon. Can't believe how expensive that is.