Competition Livery Prices

I think that's our point, humblepie. ;) In fact the market often won't bare a 'strictly business' set up as the prices would be beyond what owners consider 'reasonable'.
 
humblepie said:
My comment would be that if a business owner is paying rent or a mortgage, business costs and taxes, paying staff properly etc, etc and looking to make a living out of it, £150 a horse per week is cheap. Often yards will be relying upon unpaid labour be it working pupils, family or friends so as to be able to subsidise a lower rate than would they really should be charging if being run as a profitable business.
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Maybe not enough however as an owner if you had a choice of somebody at £200/wk or £150/wk which would you choose.I still think the OP is placing to much enthasis on the facilities as to me if you have an indoor school or not makes no difference.You are as the rider paid to do a job and it is a competetive market out there. I know of one very good local rider that does it at £120/wk but they are on a family farm so can do it. However these are the people the OP will be competing with.A lot of riders go into this thinking its going to be easy it is bloody hard work and the ones who really make it work have to become very hard faced and business savvy very quickly and you end up having to take horses you really dont want.A very high profile rider has built up a very successful buisness now from very humble begginings but you cannot do that without treading on toes and so has a mixed reputation should we say.What I can say when I had a horse with them,they were nothing but honest with me about everything which goes a long way in my books.
 
TS - I agree that owners have unrealistic expectations and often should expect to pay more. I know racing is an industry whereas eventing is not as such but compare the costs of training a racehorse against eventing and you can see why racing is the industry with the wage agreement in place for staff. I think an average figure of keeping a horse in training is currently is £16000 -£18000 p.a. Again fully appreciate racing has serious prize money but there are a lot of horses that win nothing.

I appreciate I have strayed from the OP's post and will now go back into hiding.

OP - good luck with your venture.
 
Popsdosh - I agree with everything you say and that is the difficulty that anyone starting up who has to pay rent etc will be competing for business against someone with few bottom line costs. It also depends I suppose on whether it is a business to make a decent living or a business to enable the rider to have horses to compete.
 
I am afraid to say however you wrap it up Humblepie most owners within BE cannot and will not run horses at such a high cost and those that can will not pay that sort of money to an inexperienced rider when you can send it to the top riders and most of them are not bursting at the seams with horses.
 
I would say to the OP, you have to charge what you have to charge. There is no sense setting up an unsustainable situation. I don't know how well supported you are so have no idea of your margins but I do know a couple of people (in another country) who were only able to give up occasional part time work even they reached 4* level! And both still do a lot of teaching. I do know it's easier to make a living riding here , relatively speaking - but I know more than one rider who also, say, works in a pub to make ends meet.,

I'm not saying this to be unhelpful, quite the opposite. When you're starting a business it's useful to know how your competitors are operating and what, comparatively, you have to sell.
 
Agree with TS it is very easy to have a romantic view of the whole idea ,however the ones who make it are the realists and keep control of every cost.A lot will depend on what your per/box cost are up front for example if paying £25 plus you are already disadvantaged.
 
We don't event so slightly different market but we charge £185/week there is no extra payment for competing (owners pay transport costs or take horses for us) but Mr W keeps any prize money. Mr W has previously evented up to intermediate and did ponies etc before concentrating on dressage. He has won a national title and been to the nationals several times as well as the regionals up to AM. He has competed upto Int 1. Of course we would like to charge more but we could out price ourselves, and realistically he's not a 'big' name (yet :p) so we need to stay competitive in the current market.

We have very good facilities (waxed surface, solariam, cctv, alarmed yard etc but no indoor school). We try and set ourselves apart from others doing similar things by having a USP, ours is attention to detail and high standards of care. Most people joke their horses and equipment leave cleaner than they arrived! Also mr W does ALL the riding with me doing some hacking and groundwork, that's opposed to some yards who charge a fortune and put Anyone on.

It's a buoyant market with quiet periods but generally we are full and have wonderful supportive owners.
 
I would echo the points above about the difference between taking a horse to produce and having a full livery client who you exercise during the week - the latter will care more about a smart yard, lighting and location etc and will pay the premium to be in a more expensive part of the country eg near london, the former less so, so I think you need to decide whether you are just looking for the former or for both as that will influence what you can charge and whether the smart yard is the right place to start. That said, I agree you need decent facilities as otherwise it becomes difficult to do what you are trying to do.
 
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