It's quite a hot topic!
There is regular posts made about how much people are paying for varying degrees of livery [Full, part, assisted, DIY, schooling, backing etc], and the answers themselves vary from very cheap to very expensive! Some offer exactly the same but prices can have as much of a £100 per week difference.
Today I'm going to talk specifically about schooling livery, as we offer it as a service.
First of all lets break down what you get.
The horse in for training is usually on full livery, after all you've sent him away, you can't exactly come and muck him out and turn him out every day can you! So this includes, turning out/bringing in, mucking out, grooming, changing rugs (if needed), filling haynets,
waters, feeds. When previously doing assisted livery jobs, I would charge between £10-£15 a day depending on the exact specifics. Assisted also meant that they were paying for their own hay, bedding and feeds, so that charge was purely my time and fuel. If you added on those expenses as well (I don't supply hard feeds as everything has different diets but that's a topic for another day!), depending on how much hay the horse eats and how messy they are (and what bedding you use) you're looking at at least another few £'s a day.
So let's say we're standing at about £18 a day give or take (it is very variable as you can see!) This is before we've even thought about tacking the horse up to ride or train..
My hourly rate for lessons/schooling freelance is £25 per hour or £17 for 30-45 minutes, I'm an Enlightened Equitation Teacher, following french classical principles and I am fully insured. If anything I am one of the cheaper instructors in our area, but I am still training and constantly trying to add more feathers to my bow, so am happy to be cheaper. Let's say as an average we do 45 minute sessions, some days may be longer (especially if hacking) some may be shorter (when doing groundwork for example) so lets add on £17 to our £18.
But wait, what about our time tacking up and untacking as well? Freelance I have always charged an extra £5 (or depending on what the client wants, I take it out of schooling time, still technically being paid though) It's not unfair to say it can take 15 minutes either side for retrieving tack, grooming and tacking up and then the reverse when you've finished. So that's an extra half an hour on top of your 45 minutes training. But of course we don't add this on to our schooling liveries.. Just think how upset you would be too find that you've been underpaid half an hour everyday though.
Now what about maintenance? We've had liveries break fencing, cause wear and tear on stables, some have even damaged equipment..but we've never charged extra for those things, and I think most places do take it on the chin as an aspect of having horses. Don't get me wrong if a livery horse somehow destroyed a stable, I probably would be sending an invoice somewhere, but in reality we don't tend to have any major problems! There's also field maintenance, poo picking paddocks, making sure it is all clear between horses, another time consuming (and back breaking) activity. Most freelance poo pickers (now theres a job description) charge about £10 an hour but no extra charges added here of course.
Most of the time whilst our schooling friends are with us they need to see the farrier or maybe the physio. Now of course we don't cover these bills but we must supervise the horse, so yet again more time (admittedly not every week but something to consider!). Most livery yards would charge a "handling fee" to hold a horse for the farrier or vet etc about £8 per half hour but again here, no extra charge added.
Quite often I have to refit tack as it is not correct and making the horse uncomfortable and causing a degree of pain! Being a HM Saddle fitter quite often we change the saddle (at discretion of owner of course) to one of ours. This of course means fitting it for the horse in question, a service that would cost you £35 usually but you guessed it, no extra charge, and a much happier comfortable cooperative horse by the end!
And of course the biggie is insurance. I would like to assume that most people that work with horses on a regular basis have some kind of insurance but we all know that isn't the case. I have the insurance I need to safely ride, teach and handle horses on a day to day basis meaning both myself and the horse is covered should anything happen. We always advise that your horse be insured also. Something else that costs money of course!
So We're at £45 per day.
This would be your freelance cost full livery + average hay and bedding, schooling, tacking & untacking, poo picking (20 mins-half hour per day).
NO maintenance fees, NO handling fees, NO saddle fitting fees!
Now lets play the numbers game.
So lets imagine in one week, your horse has had 7 days Full livery, they've been worked for 7 days (we do often give them a day off but just for the purpose of this), they've seen the farrier, physio and they've had a saddle fit. Let's estimate this at
45 minutes exercise
+ 30 minutes tacking/untacking, washing off
+ 25 minutes turnout, muck out, haynets, water etc
+ 15 minutes bring in, groom, rug changes
+ 20 minutes poo picking
=135 minutes (2 hours 15 minutes) per average day
+ one farrier visit (approx 60 minutes)
+ one physio visit (again 60 minutes)
+ saddle fit (another 60 minutes)
= 1125 minutes (18 hours and 45 minutes) for our busy week.
At minimum wage (£8.21 for 2019-2020) those hours would give you £153.93. Now remember back at the beginning when I said my hourly rate was £25ph.. Now I don't expect to have £25ph for poo picking or mucking out (as awesome as that would be!) I have and do charge more than £8.21. This works out at £21.99 a day (Remember the £45 a day that we calculated earlier as a freelance rate - excluding the handling and saddle fitting fees)
Even on a "normal" week using the above = 15 hours and 45 minutes at minimum wage that's £129.30 a week. Do you think this should be a minimum wage job? We, as professionals have put thousands of pounds and hours in to training, expanding our knowledge to better the horse, spent thousands on fencing and stables and general maintenance, electric and water bills, some places have to pay rates for their facilities, some people have to pay staff. We only take in one horse at a time so they have our full attention alongside our own horses, of course bigger yards take more at a time but they still cost the same to hay, bed, feed, the time is the same for one horse or ten! At the end of the day you are paying to educate your horse, by professionals who have more knowledge than you (or you would do it yourself!) and are insured to do so. As the saying goes, pay peanuts get monkeys.
Would you be happy with minimum wage for a laborious and often dangerous job?!
I have seen people charge as little as £65 a week and ask myself how?! That's £9 a day.. for full livery and "training"? Truth is cheaper is not always better, they are likely to be cutting corners to make it worth their while. Not riding at all, no insurance, using rubbish hay and bedding or cutting corners in the training itself, using questionable practices through lack of knowledge. I have also seen people charge £250 per week which is perfectly reasonable given all the above but it is still only £35 a day. And before you say "that seems so expensive", those that have dogs, how many of you have boarded them in kennels? Average cost between £20-£30 a day. And yet no one complains that this is expensive!
Remember you are investing in your horses education, give them a bad time and they'll remember and you will end up with more issues than you started with, give them a good experience with someone reputable, kind, patient and knowledgable and you'll have a horse set up for life.
And what do we charge I hear you ask?
£150 per week. £21.42 a day.
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