Owning a horse

[chanel925]

asking on behalf of a friend

Please tell me what horse ownership involves with rough costs. Thank you

How long is a piece of string!

Area of the country?!
Grass-kept or full livery?
Shaggy native cob or ex-racer?
4 year old or 24 year old?
Shod or barefoot?

As the pp said there are too many variables and those variables are also affected by where in the country you are .

Much more than you think ..

It depends, livery can be thousands a month at the posh yard, it can be £30 a week for a super stripped back set up. And everything in between.

she might get lucky and have a super low maintenance horse who costs nothing, she might end up with a horse that costs £10k a year in vet bills three years in the bounce.

It ain’t cheap basically

Everything you have, plus your heart and soul. Worth every penny!

Need a lot more info! What flavour of horse ownership are they thinking of, a couple of little rescue ponies to keep in their own paddocks or looking to get into a horse sport on a serious competitive basis on a high end yard? Are they wanting a horse / pony to ride or just have as a pet, and if the former, for an adult or a child and do they already know how to ride?

Set-up costs to acquire the horse/pony and necessary equipment could range from a few hundred pounds to £25k +, then ongoing costs again anything from a few hundred a month (but this is assuming own land and doing all work yourself) to many thousands per month if you want to be seriously competitive without making it a full time job.

And time input needed, again in my personal horsey scene I know people across the spectrum from spending near enough every waking hour 365 days a year on their horses to maybe just turning up when they fancy a ride or when they want to enter a competition, maybe an hour a week max (these people pay for full livery + I.e. not only for someone to do literally all the physical work of caring for the horse but also all the thinking work of organising vet care, maintaining tack and equipment etc, and for exercising and training the horse so it is fit and ready to go when they want to ride - this obviously isn't cheap!). I would say in general the more you pay someone else to do the hard work for you the less time you need to spend, but doesn't always exactly correlate.

It was horrifying enough but hay has almost doubled in price this year! Five day livery in the Midlands i pay approx £550 to £600 a month including my feed, shoes are £130 every six weeks, insurance is now £85/month as i had to max out a claim recently, then there are extras for vaccinations, dentist, physio, saddle fitter. rug washing, STUFF, if live on crap for a month i may afford a lesson. Is it worth it? Hell no 😂

I asked Gemini once and it gave me a three tier breakdown. The costs it gave were absolutely astronomical - even at the lost possible option of the three scenarios it gave me. So that crushed my dreams of horse ownership for good.

North of England happy hacker on part livery. No competitions, just love and fun. Factoring in all the hidden extras and the bits you don’t always think about, it costs me about £1k a month. If you start having health issues and need the vet, it spirals really fast. Unless it’s going to be every day and become your whole world, it’s much cheaper to part loan.

I am doing the most basic of basics, and still the costs horrify me when I add it up. As a PP said, with the weather last year and this, and with no one going into this year with a surplus, hay/haylage is horrifically expensive (if you can even find any!) and we have next to no grass so and still feeding huge amounts when I would be predominently on grass by now. I reckon my feed bill is £50 per week, which is unheard of this time of year.

Tbh I am looking to get out of horse ownership over the next couple of years (eldery horse dictating timeline) and whilst I will miss my boys, I look forward to free time and money!

DIY livery £40 a week
hay £7 a small bale. Every three days need one of those
bedding about £15 a week
shoes. £110 every six weeks
vet bills and meds - last year £1,500
saddle £800
feed £30 a month including supplements
about 2 new rugs a year £100 each
back lady £80 twice a year

probably missed something

Super helpful thanks

Need to add lessons and competitions to the list above, and assume the vets bills include dentals

This sounds much(!) cheaper than what we spend in London 🫣

My horse costs me a small fortune. I log everything I buy/spend on a spreadsheet, in the same way I do our household bills. I have owned mine for about 16 months and she costs me approx £600 a month. It is scary how much this is. I go without on a regular basis and am always overdrawn. My insurance premium is high as I have cover for everything. I have a co pay insurance and she has had some very expensive illnesses. I think I have spent in excess of about 15k on top of what she cost. I now have drained all my savings 😬 the bank of mum and dad have also had to bail me out. HOWEVER I love my horse to bits and I’m so grateful to have her in my life

I keep my ponies on our farm. We grow and bale our own hay and straw.

livery - free (but taking up a stable that I could get £30/week for)(stable/field/no other facilities)
hay - free (but selling to liveries rather cheaply for £4/bale)
straw - free (but selling to liveries for £3/bale)
native ponies, so no hard feed given
supplement - garlic mineral field lick £45/last about 2 months
feet - barefoot and tough, so £25 trimmed every 12 weeks
vaccinations and teeth - £125/year (teeth done every 6 months) each
worm egg counts &worming - £150/year each
insurance - VERY basic cover - £50/month each
saddle checking/reflocking - £200/year
lessons - £40/week

North Yorkshire

South West based

Livery (DIY) - £160 per month
Hay - £80 per month
Vet plan (vaccines/dentist/worm) - £20 per month
Rider insurance - £10 per month
Farrier (barefoot) - £30 every 2 months
Hard feed - £50 every 3 months (hardy native type)
Saddle check - £25 every 3 months

Ad hoc
Physio - £70
Clipping - £45
Lessons - £45

Reality is piece of string question. I am SE and daughters horse
stable and livery £550 per month
hay & bedding approx £130 per month
feed £50 per month
farrier 90 every 6 weeks
lessons £80 per week
comps approx £300 per month not including week at Hickstead in July which is eye watering
new saddle when horse and daughter both grow / change shape
physio - £100 every 6-8 weeks
plus insurance and vet bills 😭😭

I would say easily £1.5k - 2k per month when add it all up.

350-500 part livery (muck out and walker in winter) inc hay plus 1 bale of bedding a week
40 4 extra bales a month
60 insurance
30 farrier
35 bag of feed

I had a 7k vet bill the first year of owning my horse. Id advise taking out insurance.

I have four
north west diy
£140 DIY stable plus £30 per individual paddock rent if you want one
£30 feet every 6/7 weeks
hay £6.50 per bale, ponies one each week in winter and horse two
bedding £7.50 sawdust or £11 shavings (one or two a week in winter)
feed around £25 a month for top spec mash and balancer
I do the horse health programme at c.£180 pa which includes one dental check/rasp, some worm counts and annual vaccinations. I also pay extra for strangles vaccinations
Joint supplement for my dressage horse and prascend/equioxx for cushings and arthritis for my oldie.
£50 physio every 2/3 months
saddle fitter £50ish annually
I don’t pay for decent insurance as I self insure but I do have Harry hall external injuries cover and have claimed more than my premiums back over the past six years
one of the ponies had to have tooth extractions and my horse had fillings last year, that was £2.5k in one month
rugs about £100pa
pony club inc camp/british dressage membership and competing/lessons/riding club shows I categorise separately
I added it all up and excluding my lorry costs I spent £30k last year

I keep my horse as econimically as possible but I am experienced, having been a head girl on a 5* event yard for 7 years before changing careers. I think what you need to pay depends on your experience. For example if you need extra help to manage your horse, pay for clipping, lessons etc this will all cost. If you're not confident to diagnose and treat minor injuries you will spend more on the vet etc.
Also very much depends on the kind of horse you have - I know my horse is a low maintenance girl that doesn't need shoes or lots of hard feed but if you buy an ex racer you're looking at potentially remedial shoes every 5 weeks which will cost an awful lot!

Monthly costs of what my horse cost me last year in the South West:
£195 a month for DIY inc. hay and straw
£15 a month for barefoot trim (every 8 weeks)
£14 a month for Harry Hill PL insurance and external injury cover
£20 a month on pony nuts and a balancer
£50 on extras (hoof balm, fly spray, treats, rugs, boots etc etc)
£10 a month Dentist (done annually)
£10 a month vet care (vaccinations, worm counts etc)

Total £314 a month
I also had a £220 vet bill for a nasty scrape.

@renovationqueen I think is unusual in how cheap it works out. Maybe because we're in London everything is more expensive.

DIY livery here is £250 (without hay or bedding although at the moment they are out 24/7 but that's only in the summer)

£90 for farrier every 6 weeks (appreciate that this is not necessary with barefoot horses)

£65 per month on feed at least (but ours are not on pony nuts plus they take supplements)

£50 on extras at least

Our dentist charges £40 and our vet is much more expensive than £10 per visit 😭

Boys also need annual sheath cleaning at £40 (I appreciate many can do this themselves)

We clip our own horses, but if you don't, you need to factor in a clip (at least £30) every few months.

Sorry I should have been clearer £10 a month is for an annual dentist visit - he charges £100 including sedation.

I specified South West because obviously London is going to be much more expensive across the board and like I said it very much depends on what horse you have - mine is very low maintenance.

It costs your soul, your life and if you're really unlucky a big vet bill with no horse at the end. But I'd do it all again.

All of it. All the money. And then at least 2 credit cards worth.