Oakwood Equestrian Center

Girls had a successful day at CMDA kur for a cure!

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"I didn't think riding lessons would cost that much..."
Well. We wish it didn't. But, if you don't own your own horse and you ride a school horse (horse owned by a riding barn), there is a harsh reality behind the expenses.

As the cost of living for everyone increases, our horses are no exception to that. The days of $5 60lb good quality hay bales is over. Grain is no longer $15 per 50lb bag. So how much does it actually cost today (in 2023, in North East America)?

Let's break it down...
Hay $12 per 40lb bale - 1 bale / day = $360 / month (no access to pasture + free choice hay)
Grain - $30 / bag - 1 bag / week = $120 / month
Bedding - $7 / bag - 3 bags / week = $84 / month

(For reference, these numbers used to be $5 / bale, $15 / bag, $5 / bag )

So far, for just basic supplies for your horse we are at $564 (in comparison to 5 years ago it being $270), excluding any labor costs or facility costs....let's keep going.

Your stall fee (mortgage/rental) will run $350 / month on the low end (with an indoor arena). I have seen dry stall fees cost as much as $500 as well.

The following fees would be divided amongst horses on the property...

Insurance $50 / month
Manure removal / arena/facility maintenance $50 / month on the low end
Utilities $75 / month

Without labor, we are at $1,089.00

Let's say your horse gets a total of thirty minutes of care each day (turn in, turn out, stall cleaning, water bucket refills/cleaning). That 30 minutes probably doesn't include blanket changes or any additional services aside from general care.

Good barn help will not get out of bed for anything less than $20 / hour, so totaling per month your horse would cost $300 per month, assuming your horse didn't recieve more than 30 minutes of care each day. If you run your facility plus teach, you can't be in 2 places at once, so some help is necessary, especially if you don't cut corners in your care.

We are now at $1389.00

We have not accounted for vetting, farrier, or supplements. Let's do that now.

Farrier - $250 every 5 weeks (low end) so let's call it $200 every month (my personal farrier charges $275-325 for 4 shoes, but to keep Facebook from resulting in uproar over expensive shoeing costs - I've estimated it low)
Vet - assuming your horse is healthy annually you would spend maybe $700 so let's say $60 per month if divided
Supplements - that tried and true schoolmaster you ride probably needs some joint support, so let's buy a lower end joint supplement at $50 / month

We added an additional $310.

Your school horse now costs $1,699.00 per month, and there are many more costs associated (like your tack, equipment, tractor, trucks, trailers, etc)

Okay. So how does this school horse pay for himself? Let's say the horse does two 1 hour lessons per day, 5 days a week. That means the horse can produce income 40 hours out of the month. To break EVEN (theoretically, because any horse owner knows the pricing listed above isn't even as comprehensive as it should be) you would need to make sure the horse worked twice a day, 5 days a week, and charge $42.50 per lesson.
Realistically, If you do not overwork your school horse, the horse is probably working 30 hours per month, which would bring us to having to charge $60 per one hour lesson to break even.
But wait....Our instructor hasn't even gotten paid yet! So let's give them $20 per hour, which of course is low. And for reference, that would mean your instructor makes $600 per month.
Now we're at $80 per lesson.

So when you call any facility, and their lesson price is $80 or less, think of this cost break down!
We don't do this for money. We do it because we love to share our passion with the next generation of riders. We wish this weren't the case financially, like the rest of America and how the economy is. We want so badly to have horses be affordable for everyone, but these are the real, true, uncensored costs of owning a horse today. If riding schools don't charge what they need to in order to stay afloat, I fear one day the horse industry will not have school horses, and the only people who will be able to ride are the ones that can afford horse ownership outright, and then pay for lessons on top of that.

*disclaimer* these prices are based on our experience of pricing in the industry. Pricing may vary based on care and diet provided to horse, area of the country, and specific horse requirements. This pricing is assuming the horse is receiving top level but basic care (free choice hay, quality grain, etc). There may be cheaper options available and there may be more expensive options available. I'm sure there will be many comments that say "those are low" or "those prices are high". We are happy to share receipts as these are the legitimate prices we pay!

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If I believe in you, I will push you.

I will not validate you if what you’re doing doesn’t serve you. I will always encourage you and try to frame things in a way that helps you understand I’m on your side- but the tone overall is not to validate, but to improve you.

I will never degrade you or insult you, but I will require your best. Because I believe in you, because I see where you can be, because I know if you dig deep into your self love you’ll find you deserve more, and you can be more.

It’s because I know you deserve it. It’s because your horse deserves it. It’s because I love to teach, and I love this work. Truly caring for someone isn’t about validation at all- it’s about opening the future for someone to the possibilities, and guiding them through it.

In a lesson, mindset is king

I’ve had my share of lessons where I expected to work on more advanced stuff, only to be taken down to the most basic level of work-
Maybe how i held my reins needed refinement. Maybe my position. Maybe my horse didn’t stand at the block and the lesson became about how to stand at the block instead of riding.

These types of interruptions of my agenda used to bother me. All kinds of judgements would creep up about what I’d paid and what I was getting for my money, whether the teacher thought I wasn’t as skilled as I thought I was, you name it- a swirling cesspool of needless thoughts took over and prevented me from actually learning.

Thankfully, a decade of being repeatedly humbled by very good teachers with a keen eye for basics has helped me understand the basics ARE the lesson. Anything else is icing on the cake.

I’ve learned to become much more open- whatever my teacher says we need to work on is where we go, and if it detours from there, so be it. It’s all good learning, no matter where it goes, even if it isn’t where I initially thought. I have a good grasp on where I’m going, so my feathers aren’t ruffled near as much when my plans get derailed.

The obstacle IS the path, as the zen saying goes.

A great teacher can help you learn, but only you control your mindset. And this is THE limiting factor in your learning, but luckily, it is entirely in your control.

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