Do you think it's reasonable ...

Emma S

Emma S

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... to be charged extra by the livery yard to have an external instructor come to teach you?

My YO announced to me yesterday that if I wish to have an external instructor come to teach she will charge me £10 per hour to hire the school eventhough school use is included in my livery.

My livery yard is a riding school but the instruction goes as far as Prelim level and jumping 2' max and I want to work towards elementary/medium and Newcomers. The teaching is also very 'traditional' and a lot of the methods do not work with my horse and I want to improve so need to have lessons again.

Does anyone else get charged an extra fee for school hire for having their instructor in? If so, how much?

I'm not sure I can afford to have lessons with the extra charge as well.
 
I am in the same position as you & wish YO would let me pay extra to use the school!
At the moment I have to hack 30mins each way to hire a school for £5, or get my mum to tow me 25-30mins each way to pay £10 to hire a school.
Whilst I agree it is unfair, unfortunately it's the YO's decision. Are there no nearby places you could hire for cheaper?
 
I'm in two minds about this. I looked at a livery yard a few years back where the owner was an RI and she charged £5 (then)for use of the menage for outside instructors. I would not have used her for reasons similar to you.

However, one yard I was on did not charge. A local instructor was popular on this yard and would come 2 or 3 times a week and teach liveries for a whole afternoon, perhaps 4 or 5 hourly sessions.
At the time she was making between £300 and £400 per week. She did not have to pay for facilities and had a ready made clientele there on one site.

It did strike me as unfair on the YO and rather than liveries paying to hire the menage, the instructor should have paid a hire charge when teaching on the site.
 
Nope wouldnt be happy with that. Your paying to keep your horse there its up to you what instructor you choose. I know people who moved yards for this reason in the past.
 
horserider said:
I'm in two minds about this. I looked at a livery yard a few years back where the owner was an RI and she charged £5 (then)for use of the menage for outside instructors. I would not have used her for reasons similar to you.

However, one yard I was on did not charge. A local instructor was popular on this yard and would come 2 or 3 times a week and teach liveries for a whole afternoon, perhaps 4 or 5 hourly sessions.
At the time she was making between £300 and £400 per week. She did not have to pay for facilities and had a ready made clientele there on one site.

It did strike me as unfair on the YO and rather than liveries paying to hire the menage, the instructor should have paid a hire charge when teaching on the site.
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I could completely understand this situation, the difference with my current yard is everyone apart from me and my friend are happy hackers!
It is very much a traditional yard, all cobby & ploddy types (no offence to anyone) and the yard owner does 2 evening lessons a week that the other liveries do as a group.. but like i said they are low level and they all thoroughly enjoy themselves.
So it would only be me and my friend having lessons with someone else, just annoying when we are already paying Full livery!
 
no, we are not charged but we are happy for others to ride in the school whilst we have lessons, sometimes there will be two lessons going on at the same time in the same school-it works fine though
 
dafthoss said:
Nope wouldnt be happy with that. Your paying to keep your horse there its up to you what instructor you choose. I know people who moved yards for this reason in the past.
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I think this is what I will have to do! It is just an annoyance having to move again, we have only been at this yard since March.
 
I will also add that due to the other liveries being hackers, me and my friend are the only ones who ride in the school in the evenings, so we would not even be using the school when it could be used by someone else.
 
Thats a difficult one, in some ways I guess its like taking your own sandwiches to eat in a pub garden....maybe she thinks that her liveries are a potential source of lesson income and because you are using someone else that impacts her profits. I think she should have make it clear when you moved onto the yard though and £10 does sound quite steep, personally I think £5 would be a more reasonable charge.

When she told you didn't she provide any explanation of the charge, its seems odd to just announce it with no justification. There could be a valid reason which we are unaware of, extra insurance or something like that?

Hope you manage to work something out.
 
My former YO did this. She said it was because of the extra wear & tear on the arena and the fee wld be put to maintenance of the arena. Totally illogical. How can a lesson cause more wear & tear than, um, schooling?! I was annoyed about the flawed reasoning and annoyed by the charge, but I just sucked it up because I wanted lessons! It was GBP 5.
 
dafthoss said:
Nope wouldnt be happy with that. Your paying to keep your horse there its up to you what instructor you choose. I know people who moved yards for this reason in the past.
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But OP said she is on a Riding school yard? Not just a pure livery yard...........

I am also on a Riding School yard and until 1 month ago absolutely could not use an outside instructor. Fair enough as they are a teaching yard. For me though no one there competes at the level I do so I take horse elsewhere. Pain if you only want a flatwork lesson but now they have siad I can use someone else too but I too have to pay £10 per hour. I am absolutely fine with that as it saves me 1/2 day going somewhere else AND diesel money too.
 
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No I wouldn't be happy with this. Some YO say you have to use a certain farrier also, in my opinion you should be able to use who you want. Each horse and rider are different and expect to get different things out of a lesson, so you should be able to choose an instructor most suitable for you, horse and level.
 
It's difficult.

Most yards I have been on haven't charged.

The last one I was on did charge, it was a mixed RS & livery, they made income from teaching etc.

I didn't object to the charge because it was made perfectly clear before I went to the yard that it was the deal. I chose to accept that.

I would be less impressed had I got there and then been told.
 
No YO trying to control which suppliers I use would be a deal breaker for me. The only exception would be either on a busy yard where there is lots of choice of "on site" instructors at various levels or if I had moved to a yard specifically for the instructor. Even then I would expect some understanding if I wanted a lesson of a type the instructor cannot offer.

I livery on a riding school yard and I checked straight away that I would be able to bring any instructor on, and I can at no extra charge as long as the school isn't in use for lessons.

I couldn't have lessons with the in house instructor if I wanted due to my work hours.

I can't use the yard farrier either as he has refused to do my horse but I do use the yard vet. A couple of people use their own farrier and one uses a different vet. Not many have lessons with anyone else as we get some lessons with the yard instructor included in our livery.
 
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HotToTrot said:
My former YO did this. She said it was because of the extra wear & tear on the arena and the fee wld be put to maintenance of the arena. Totally illogical.
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That is such a stupid thing to say isn't it! :confused:

I agree with dafthoss' comments, and neither would I be happy with that!
 
Thanks for the replies, I didn't think many other people would put up with it either, the YO will not give me a reason for the charge other than 'thats the way it is'

ihatework said:
I would be less impressed had I got there and then been told.
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This is exactly what happened!

I can use a different farrier, vet, saddle fitter and dentist to what the yard use .. all the other liveries use the same people as the RS.
Just frustrating and thinking I will have to move, there have been a few other issues too and this is just the icing on the cake!!
 
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