Any advice for someone who doesn't know one end of horse from another. How expensive is this likely to be?

[Spero]

Grateful for any advice, just starting on my research here for next year.

I am not remotely interested in horses, but my daughter is. Her only dream is to have a pony. We live within half a mile of a riding centre/stables so I was wondering if it is feasible to think about getting her a pony which could live at the riding centre and she goes round a few times a week to do whatever it is you do with these animals.

Once she is in secondary school in 2016 I expect to free up about £500 per monthin child care costs.

So if I can take the hit on buying a pony (I assume a few thousand or depends on what you want?) I assume if there is space, he or she could live at the riding centre if I pay for it.

do you think £500 a month is feasible for livery, saddles, whatever else? Tack seems eye wateringly expensive from the little I know.

i have heard of people sharing or loaning out a pony - would this be a good idea in case the reality of a pony doesn't quite meet my daughter's dream? I think she is quite realistic has she has been having lessons for two years and been on pony camps etc so she knows the score.

I did know a pony who liked to play fetch...just sayin' .

"I hope that whoever I approach is going to be keen to discuss options with me and take my money - rather than dismiss me as some clueless townie who doesn't understand that a horse is not a dog"

The ones to watch are the ones who dismiss you as a clueless townie AND take your money.

And horses have this funny way of pulling you in. I started riding at about the age of 8/9. Took my mum about year to get fed up with watching and join in, when she was pushing 40. True, she had ridden a bit as a teenager. Perhaps a fairer comparison would be with my dad and my brother, both of whom can put a headcollar on and bring a horse in. They can also groom and often recognise when something's not quite right with a horse, though they're not knowledgeable enough to say what.

I'm not saying you will get sucked in Spero, just that I wouldn't be surprised if you did

Spero Realistically, if you are the one paying for the vet treatment, most people will expect the decisions to come from you. Yard owners will usually take responsibility in an emergency, and for routine things, but in a lot of cases, they will usually expect you to be the one making decisions about what to do.

If you don't want this, I think you need to be clear with the yard owner upfront about this, and agree on how you will deal with decisions on vet treatment, feeding, shoeing etc. There are yards out there who will usually be willing to provide more help with this sort of stuff, but they are more expensive, and you will need to make what you want clear in advance. A lot of yard owners don't want this kind of responsibility for someone else's horse.

There will also potentially be situations when it has to be your call e.g. colic surgery vs put to sleep (hopefully this never happens, but it happens often enough that it's something worth thinking about). I don't quite know how to phrase this- but if you never want to make a decision about the pony, then don't buy one until you trust your daughter to make those decisions herself. You wouldn't necessarily need to do lots of research in advance- a good vet should be able to explain your options well enough in each situation and allow you to weight up the pros and cons.

I know you've sort of ruled out sharing, but I do think it could be a very good option for you in the right set up. All the decision making stuff would essentially be done for you by the owner. Your daughter would get to have her fun and have a pony to love/enjoy and gain a lot from sharing. A lot of sharers do get the chance to do things like compete and essentially treat the pony as theirs on their day. It would also be a cheaper option. In the right set up, this would make your daughter more ready at, say, 16, to have her own pony and make many of the decisions about it herself.

Part loaning a riding school pony could also be a very good option. It would also have the added benefit of knowing that there would be competent people around to supervise and teach your daughter.

Coming at this from a slightly different angle, I've tried to think of the things you (personally) will actually have to do if you want to buy a pony.

-Approve the purchase. You could get an agent to do all the looking for you (which will be expensive) but you would still have to A) give them an idea of what you want and B) make the final approval of the purchase. Taking this out of your hands too much is also quite risky unless you can find someone you trust absolutely to be your agent.
-Comply with passport legislation. Realistically, this is a tiny bit of admin to change the ownership when you buy it, and the livery yard owner will probably keep the passport and ask the vet to update it when needed- but certain things are your responsibility in law. You'd also have to replace it if it was ever lost or damaged.
-Insure the horse. You will need public liability, and you'll probably want health cover as well.
-Make the most serious health decisions for your horse.

The obvious way around this would actually be to loan the horse rather than own it, as then all these issues would be the owner's responsibility, although you'd obviously still have to find the horse in the first place.

I also agree with Gabilan that the people to really watch are the ones who realise you're clueless, and want to take your money or sell you a completely unsuitable pony. There are a lot of unscrupulous people out there unfortunately.

I haven't ruled out anything.

And I don't understand why horse ownership is so different from anything else.

If my car breaks down - I take it to the garage and get their advice. If my body breaks down I take it to the hospital and get their advice. Of course the ultimate decision is mine but if the mechanic or the doctor says - I really think you should do X, then I am going to do X. I don't have the knowledge or the expertise to do anything else other than trust the experts!

Why should it be any different with a horse? If the vet says - its not looking good, but there is an X chance of this at Y cost, then I can make a decision. But it will be using the vet's knowledge, not mine.

Sorry, maybe I am being dense. But I really didn't think it would be very difficult to find someone who was happy to take my money and to look after any horse I bought. My original question was whether I could find someone for £500 a month!

The answer seems to be - yes I can. But a lot of people seem to think that I can't even go down this road without dedicating an enormous amount of time I don't have to gaining knowledge I don't want. This is what I am having trouble getting my head around. I am prepared to throw money at this problem as I will have £500 spare a month. But I certainly won't have 2/3 evenings or all day Saturday spare!

" I don't understand why horse ownership is so different from anything else"

Well decisions are different with a large animal. So for example, I had to have my old horse put down because of a tendon injury. Had he been a dog or cat he would have managed fine with 3 good legs and a bit of a limp. However, a horse is a working animal so it isn't going to be able to work whilst lame. Plus, a horse is physically too heavy, in most cases, to cope without being fully weight bearing on all 4 legs and runs the risk of going down and never being able to get up. (I know one person who delayed a decision about getting an elderly horse pts because he was a farmer with a tractor and hoist, we can't all have this). Further, if a horse is down and cannot get up, its body weight alone can cause it to suffocate.

Which reminds me, they get cast. They roll close to things, get their legs stuck and cannot get up until you pull them off the wall. This takes a minimum of two adults. You can end up doing an emergency drive to find the nearest adult, all before the horse's body weight does it untold damage whilst it's stuck upside down.

Back to the tendon injury. My horse might have had reasonable quality of life or might not. I decided to have him put down. It is a decision that will haunt me to my last day on this earth and not one I would wish on anyone. With a smaller animal you can wait until they have decidedly less quality of life. With a horse you must step up and make the decision sooner.

Then there's the decision a friend made about her five year old horse on the operating table for an intestinal injury. It could have been repaired but horse's digestive systems are not well evolved and he would have been at risk of colic and adhesions for the rest of his life. Even had he lived, he would have been unsellable. Do you want to be left with a 500kg animal that costs 500pcm to keep for another 20 years, that you might not be able to ride? Do you want to make that decision whilst the animal is on the operating table?

Short answer? Their weight alone makes their anatomy complex. Combine that with a digestive system that is NOT well evolved and the most highly complex and delicate lower leg that you'll ever see and veterinary decisions become complicated, expensive and quite frankly, heart breaking.

I would not change them for the world, but they are not easy.

I know horses are big, complicated beasts. I totally get that.

So somebody, somewhere has to have the knowledge to deal with that. And it really, really isn't going to be me. So I will ask someone else to sort that out and I will pay them money to do so. Or I will ask someone knowlegeable if I can share their pony in exchange for some cash.

I struggle to see why this is a problem - its how we have to operate in a world where we can only ever understand a tiny fraction of what we deal with every day.

I really am struggling to understand why it has to be me personally trying to roll the horse over or diagnose its colic. I will pay someone else to do that for me.

at the risk of incurring another round of 'but you do realise horses are nothing like dogs!' after 30 years of pet ownership, I am quite aware that animals can suffer and sometimes the kindest thing to do is to kill them. I wish we afforded humans the same compassion and dignity. I am quite confident I can make the right decisions about treatment or euthanasia, should it come to that. But I will be making decisions off the back of someone else's much superior knowledge, as I do in so many other situations in my life.

"I am quite aware that animals can suffer and sometimes the kindest thing to do is to kill them"

It's not just that though. The decision is more difficult with horses. 1. They weigh more. And yes, I know you know that. But, this means that whereas you can pick a dog up and carry it to the car, you cannot pick a horse up. This affects the stage at which you make a decision. You will generally shoot a horse for a broken leg when you would heal it in another animal. When we had to have my mother's pony put down we deliberately moved her, whilst she could just about walk, to an area with access for heavy lifting equipment. If we'd had her put down in the stable, with no access for a hoist, she'd have had to be chain sawed into pieces to be removed. Yes, she'd have been dead but we'd still have known about it. I'm experienced enough to help my mother make these decisions but IMO it is not a decision I would expect anyone else to make no matter how much I paid them.

1. Their lower leg structure makes them especially vulnerable to injury and again makes decisions far greyer. Yes, you can ask someone for advice but you'll get conflicting advice as to whether to let the pony end its days in a field or whether it's better to shoot it now. Without more knowledge yourself, how do you negotiate that?

1. Their digestive systems, fascinating though they are, predispose them to colic. If it gets to that stage, operations can save them but, because of their weight, GAs are always dangerous for horses. Equine vets with expertise to operate are not as widely distributed as those for small animals. I've known horses suffer horrific deaths on lorries on the way to the operating theatre.

1. You're not making a decision about a pet but about a working animal. The goalposts are rather different.

Now I know that you'll be guided by other people in many decisions in your life. But presumably there will also be other areas in which you don't want to have to make complex decisions or rely on someone else's advice?

They are large animals with complex management needs and whilst you can pay someone else to help make the decisions, IMO if you could learn a bit more about them along the way it would add to your enjoyment and make it less likely that an unscrupulous yard owner fleeces you.

I imagine I will have to learn along the way. But I honestly don't see the problem here. If a dead horse has to be cut up to be removed, well that's what is going to have to happen. I can't see the difficulty here. I imagine my response would be to see if we could move the horse before shooting it so that we didn't have to do that but if we can't, we can't.

Sorry, maybe I am just abnormally hard hearted. But I have had enough encounters with serious illness/death etc not to agonise about these things. You do what you have to do. If I don't know what to do, I'll ask someone. If I need to pay for that advice, I will pay.

hopefully these gruesome scenarios are not likely - but if they happen, I will deal with them. With lots of help and advice from others, no doubt.

Crikey gabilan, talk about going off on a tangent.
I'm assuming that if your car breaks down you have a full working knowledge of engines? Or do you just take it to a mechanic?

Spero, I think you've got all you're going to get from this.

• there are many establishments (called livery yards/riding schools) who will take on the entire care of a pony for a fee. This is a totally normal practice.

• £500 should easily cover this, especially for a grass kept pony or one on working livery.

• 11 is too young to be looking after/riding it unsupervised, so you'll need to pay for lessons or go with her until she's a bit older. As with any other hobby.

• if you're paying someone else to look after it, then 3 times per week visits are totally fine.

Basically, what you're proposing is a very common arrangement.

Points to remember;

• a horse is not a dog.
• some businesses are better than others, so try to choose a good one.

HTH

I think the thing is with ownership, there's the potential that decisions/conversations involving you could happen quite frequently, and that's what you have to be prepared for, and the time it takes in understanding what the situation is all about. How often that will happen in reality is largely down to management and chance. Horses are complex creatures, whose lives and susceptibility to illness/injury are made more complex by our interference (in way more ways than with any other domesticated animal lol). Period.

You may be lucky and coast through with no problems at all, but knowledge is power, forewarned is forearmed etc. Tbh you'll just have to weigh up the time risks in any opportunity that comes your way in terms of suitable ponies/where to keep it. But it is entirely possible that you will find one that suits you.

Spero you've been very patient!

I know someone who has paid for livery for her two son's ponies for the past four years at my friend's livery yard. My friend is a good instructor too so they have lessons there as well. My friend previously taught them at a local equestrian centre, so she knew the boys, and she found them their ponies. Neither the boys nor their parents have had any interest in the looking after of the ponies, they left it all up to the livery yard, giving them full permission to make medical decisions. It's worked very well. The boys are just giving up at the ages of 16 and 17. The yard is helping sell the horses for them. It's been an arrangement that worked really well for all of them.

Youbastard, yes, i know, I know, I knew that about 3 pages back but I am like a moth to the flame I am.

Could you just run that dog/horse point past me one more time as I am still not quite sure about that. Then I think I'm done.

honeyroar, that sounds great arrangement and just what I want!

I am quite happy to sign whatever disclaimer they want about chainsaws etc and when they are to be used.

"so try to choose a good one"

All I'm saying is a bit of knowledge might help in finding a good one, so you know what to look out for, potential time risks (do they over stock the paddocks, what type of back specialists do they use, are they pro natural balance shoeing etc). All things that your dd might learn to be concerned about.

My original question was whether I could find someone for £500 a month!

In answer to only this question the answer is, for what you are looking for, no. If you are wanting someone else to cover every part of care of the horse then it is going to cost more than £500 a month.

The board for the horse alone is going to cost between £450 and £650 depending on where you are, and that isn't factoring in everything else it costs to keep a horse.

There are some places that will supervise vets visits, farrier visits, worm the horse for you etc, supervise your child so she can ride etc but you will pay for each of these individually on top of the basic board.

This is a 'decent' stables near me that provides livery and will do everything for you - with a breakdown of costs.

www.hargatehill.com/prices/livery/

Stable - £26 = £104
Hay - £18 = £72
Straw = £72
Feed = £40 ish
Put in Feed/hay/water (each) = 50p x7x4x3 = £42
Muck out - £5 x 7 x 4 = £140
Make haynet/feet - 50p x 7 x 4 x 2 = £28
Turn out + bring in = £3.50 x 7 x 4 = £98
Wash legs = £2 x 7 x 4 = £56
Change rugs = £1 x 7 x 4 = 28
Pick out feet = 50p x 7 x 4 = £14
Boots on and off if your horse needs them = £2 x 7 x 4 = £56 (I wont count this as most don't need boots - some do)

Any further services are charged at £10 per half hour

Wormer - £20 each and £10 to do it every 12 weeks = £2.50
Farrier - £10 to hold every 6-8 weeks and £65+ for shoes = £35
Dentist - Twice a year is recommended though some only do once = £50+£10 = £5
Supervise your daughter riding £10 x 2 x 4 = £80
Riding lesson = £30 x 4 = 120

Insurance £50

There will be other things on top of this but this covers pretty much most of it.

Total = £986.50

Some yards will offer full livery for £450-600 a month for basic livery but you would still pay extra for supervision of your daughter riding and holding for the vet/farrier etc and that wouldn't include all the horse related costs of course.

To be honest it would probably be cheaper to have the pony on DIY and pay a groom for an of hour a day (though most say a minimum of 2 hours), then just get the livery to bring in. You could get a groom for £10 an hour so £70 a week.

So basic of approx £550 + £280 = £745

Whichever way you look at it, for the level of involvement that you are looking for, you are looking at a lot more than £500 a month.

I am talking about the Northwest so you could find prices more down there.

I seriously would love to know of a yard where you can keep you horse on full livery, all in, and still have change left from £500 to pay for all the other stuff that a horse needs... If you find it - point me in their direction as I will move my 4 on there!

Couldn't resist posting.

I have the least horsey parents in the world. We saved up for a sensible Fell when I was 12. We had a field and a stable. I did absolutely everything. I had an Arab at 14 and a warmblood at 17. I remember one occasion when I was late at school that my parents caught the pony and brought it in to the stable. That was it in terms of involvement. They never did anything because I never expected them to, because when we got the first one, that was the agreement. So Spero you are being entirely realistic, you did not have to morph into a stable hand if you daughter has a pony, just get a sensible one.

I seriously would love to know of a yard where you can keep you horse on full livery all in,

OP is not talking about a horse on all singing all dancing full livery; they're talking about a child's pony which will almost certainly be grass kept or on working livery.

If horses and ponies cost a minimum of £900/month to keep, no one would have one.

It always makes me laugh though, and you'll probably find this OP, how some horsey people will sigh wistfully for the good old days, when 'well, we had to do it all ourselves when I was little. If you wanted a pony in my day, you had to work for it! None of this fancy livery. I looked after my pony singlehandedly from age 9, and it wasn't even broken in as in those days you did it yourself, that's how you learned, see? Never did me any harm! Kids today have it too easy...' etc etc blah blah blah.

But then when asked the question the OP has, it's all 'oh no, a horse is a complex and dangerous creature, you must do it all by the book and it will cost £5000 a month at least to do it properly, and that's without the vets bills which will definitely be astronomical, in fact just don't even think about it. Get your daughter a rocking horse instead. You could just never understand what would be involved'

Cheers AuntieDee. so, what are the likely deductions from that cost if you factor in:
The horse can be available during the week and on Saturdays for riding lessons for other children?
My daughter will go at least 3 evenings a week and all day Sunday to do what's necessary?

Would I anticipate any reduction? Or should I factor in cost of counselling for her due to having such an uninvolved, unsafety concious mother?

You also seem to have forgotten wear and tear and the chainsaw, for which I am presumably liable.

Bugger me, Auntie Dee, where the hell do you live? For that price round here (Berkshire, dahling, I make no secret of the fact I live next door but one to the future king's MiL!) I could pop Spero's daughter's pony in a friend's yard - this particular friend has been head groom to some of the best eventers the world has ever seen. 2 particularly tall ones, one of whom might have just won a big competition, and his antipodean mate who has won a lot of gold medals. For that price she will not only keep the pony, feed it, bed it down, pick it's feet out, hold it for the vet, farrier and physio (AND make the crucial decisions as to when to call them out,) she will also ever ride the pony or teach your daughter on it, 5 days a week. And there will be plenty of change left over.

Alternatively, Spero could take her daughter and her pony to the yard I used to keep Big Horse at, and they would have a top dressage rider (and by that I mean one who has own national prizes and features regularly in horse and Hound magazine) while Spero and her daughter go to the on site gym and relax in the clubhouse overlooking one of the indoor schools.

Or if you are in Scotland you could livery at one of the largest competition centres in the UK, with all the facilities and expertise on hand, and have someone do all your jobs for you while you have a nice glass of wine in Palomino's bar, and STILL have change left over.

It IS possible to have a pony and pay someone to look after it, and not spend Auntie Dee's careful breakdown of how much someone will charge each day to put a bucket of water in (top tip here, auto waterers are fab!)

Yes, horses go wrong, and when they do it is a real problem and a worry - as well as a drain on the pocket. But you could say the same of a car crash, or a burst water pipe, or any number of life events that knock you sideways and you are not expecting. But I think Spero is aware of this.

When I was little (much younger than 10) my dad and his mate in the pub bought a pony for us all to share. We kept it in the garage at home some months and other months we out it in a field of cows at my dad's mate's house. By the time I was 15 we had 4 horses and ponies in the garden (an ordinary suburban garden) and about 8 acres of small parcels of grazing dotted round the village. We won at local and county shows, and hunted regularly. And get this - all the horses lived well into their 30s despite being owned by a family with no prior knowledge of horses, no land and no money! I've spent most of my adult life telling people horses are accessible and are (with proper supervision and education - this is the key, and it CAN be bought) very good discipline for children. And then you get numpties coming along who say "oh no. Horses are not for everyone. You have to be born with The Knowledge, and have bottomless pits of money - it is not for ordinary people. Ffs.

Spero, make sure you get a good adult advisor on side (they do exist, and in larger numbers than some people would have you believe. Most people are involved in horses because they love it, and are happy to offer good advise.) make sure you keep her in a peer group of kids her age and ability, whether that be a riding lesson group or Pony Club or the school team. Kids feed of each other's ability and confidence. And have a pot of money for rainy days. And learn to enjoy your pony, when you get it. Even if it is from the bar at the show where you applaud your daughters efforts.

OK. Short(ish) answer which occurred to me after I turned the computer off last night:

Because horses can be complicated to look after, there are people who will scam novices. Not many of them, but enough. And because horses are expensive and there's a fair bit of money involved, there's quite a high incentive to scam someone. This does, sadly, sometimes cause dangerous situations to arise (see up thread, passim). Are horses unique in this? No. Would I nonetheless advice someone to be aware of it? Yes.

All of which, as I know you know Spero means finding someone you trust before you throw money at them. Can you find someone to do this for 500pcm? Yes, I think you can. It's a pony, not a thoroughbred training for Cheltenham. FWIW I think your daughter's lucky to have someone who wants this for her, so I hope it all works out well for you both.

You could even discuss leaving an amount of money for the livery to use for vet expenses up to a certain amount, but it's worth some consideration as to the level of cut off of involvement in financial decisions, so you're not effectively handing over a blank cheque or leaving yourself open to avoidable costs. That's where some background knowledge might be helpful, but if it's not possible and worth more to pay more for peace of mind, then that's absolutely fine and achievable. But a bit of knowledge now will help you to find someone you'll be able to trust to take care of things, as you'll need to be asking the right questions.

Anyhow I'm going to bow out now, as I'm finding the scoffing and ridiculing all a bit unnecessary.

I would say totally doable for 500 pounds month. We have our ponies in two of the top showing production yards and pay between 115 and 125 pounds a week. That is all in - everything done including being ridden every day and produced to HOYS standard. We wouldn't have to see the pony from one week to the next and actually at this busy time of year we really only do see them at shows..

Of course we do have to pay for a few extras like farrier, vet, physiotherapist etc but their basic welfare is looked after and I'm sure you can find similar for less - even without have to have them on "working" livery..

" actually at this busy time of year we really only do see them at shows.. "
that sounds a bit sad really tbh

I can't believe this s still going

Spero i live very very close to you Somerset/wilts border so ifyou want a breakdown of costs in this area I can probably give a you a good idea.