Do you own your own livery yard?

[Berkeley]

Morning everyone. Hope you all had a good weekend. the other post had very few viewers so I thought I would edit the title as I really need some help.

Right, after 20 years of thoughts on this I am looking into owning and running my own equestrian business - a livery yard.

I am at the reasearch stage and would be most gratful for those of you who have done this to provide with any help and advice you can give me. I am stage 1. I know this question is like 'how long is a piece of string?' however I would really like to hear how you did it, the money involved, if you bought a house and business in one and loaned one off against the other, the risks, the falls, the highs.

I think I am ready to go forthwith!

 

[TopTotty]

Hi there, Just a quicky - you say you have your stage one, what other experience do you have?

 

[Divasmum]

I think they mean they are at stage 1 of their planning not BHS stage 1!

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

Ehmm, you say you have Stage I; I am going to be brutally honest with you here (please forgive if I offend) and say to you that if you are thinking of running a Livery Yard you need far far more than this very basic qualification in the Equine Industry!

Of course it depends on what sort of "business" you have in mind, but I certainly wouldn't trust my horse to someone who didn't have something like a BHSAI or similar, sorry but I wouldn't and I would be surprised if anyone else would either.

It depends on how you are thinking of doing things. For example I live on a farm and have a few acres spare plus a couple of looseboxes which I let to DIY liveries which means that I don't take any responsibility for anyone else's stock and they have to take full charge themselves.

OR you can go the way of buying an equestrian property with all the trimmings and opening a livery yard where you will be responsible for "doing" the horses yourself, i.e. full livery where you will have to ride some possibly very challenging horses plus handle them on a daily basis; through to part livery (where the owner will do some, you will do some under mutual agreement); or cheap-and-cheerful part livery where you rent out the facilities and they are responsible for doing the horse themselves.

If you are going to be offering full or part livery; you will be in the situation where you have to be confident at dealing with difficult/challenging horses and be prepared to ride fit horses in full work, perhaps prepping for competitions, hunting or whatever.

Of course, you may well have loads of experience elsewhere and be very confident; HOWEVER if you want to attract owners you would need to be BHS registered which again poses the issue of your experience/qualifications.

There are equine colleges which offer Foundation Degrees, part of the syllabus being an optional element of "business" related to the equine industry and without wishing to come across as patronising I think this might be your first step. Not that qualifications are the be-all-and-end-all, but in a competitive industry I think you may need to seriously consider it.

OR the other thing you can do is to purchase a fully-equipped equestrian centre and then appoint someone qualified to manage it!