Grounds for Divorce - Mail on Sunday Datagraphic

C

Clannad48

Well-Known Member
Joined
28 February 2010
Messages
1,840
Location
Bedfordshire
Visit site
Well thank you the Mail on Sunday - after managing to convince my husband that keeping a horse for our daughter isn't ridiculously expensive (well in my mind) they go and print a pet datagraphic which showes the cost of keeping pets over their lifetime - a horse came out at a whopping £326,750.00 - which works out at £12,880 per year for a horse which lives for 25 years. Now then how am I going to convince him that we really need that new saddle and bridle???????
 
Clannad48 said:
Well thank you the Mail on Sunday - after managing to convince my husband that keeping a horse for our daughter isn't ridiculously expensive (well in my mind) they go and print a pet datagraphic which showes the cost of keeping pets over their lifetime - a horse came out at a whopping £326,750.00 - which works out at £12,880 per year for a horse which lives for 25 years. Now then how am I going to convince him that we really need that new saddle and bridle???????
Click to expand...
simple just find the data for the cost of a child and show him that !!!!! the horse will seem like a bargain.......
 
Oh dear I shant be buying the Mail today then! Not sure where they got their stats from though but I am sure that it doesnt cost over a grand a month for a horse - I have 2 and they cost me less than 400 even in winter (although I do keep them at home and out 24/7!)
 
Well seeing as the Daily Fail couldn't print true facts if they tried, I can't why you're worrying! :D Perhaps change which paper you buy! ;)
 
Blimey
even when i had a competiton horse in DIY livery & factored in all vets, lorry fees. tax. insurance, training & competition fees I was running at about £10k a year.
So a kids pony at 12.5??
Sorry puppy is right FAIL :)
 
Just to give you the main figures, these are the lifetime costs - according to the Mail on Sunday for a horse that lives for 25 years

Average Price - £3000
Food - £13,000
One Offs (Equipment, training) - £1,750
Maintenance (Grooming, toys, inc. livery) - £300,000
Vets - £3,000
Insurance - £6,000
Total per year - £12,880
Total Lifetime - £326,7500

If there were just 100 pets in the UK only 1 would be a horse

Where do they get these figures from??????
 
Clannad48 said:
Just to give you the main figures, these are the lifetime costs - according to the Mail on Sunday for a horse that lives for 25 years

Average Price - £3000
Food - £13,000
One Offs (Equipment, training) - £1,750
Maintenance (Grooming, toys, inc. livery) - £300,000
Vets - £3,000
Insurance - £6,000
Total per year - £12,880
Total Lifetime - £326,7500

If there were just 100 pets in the UK only 1 would be a horse

Where do they get these figures from??????
Click to expand...

They make it up ;) Just like pretty much everything else they publish ;)

Honestly, I absolutely loathe that paper. It makes me so cross.

Oh, but this is funny :D :D

http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/toys/dailymail/
 
those figures are truly bizzare - the £1750 for one offs basically means you buy one saddle in teh 25 years, one bridle and a few rugs - end of. Forget training, boots, lorries, etc. And as to maintenance at £300,000 a lifetime I think they are living in cloud cuckoo land. I reckon they found some footballers wife who has an old horse, kept somewhere stupidly expensive on full livery and never ridden - oh hang on this is the newspaper that has looney Liz as a correspondent and it costs her over £1000 in bedding to fill one stable.
 
Does sound an awful exaggeration of the 'average' pony owner's costs. I'd imagine they've got quotes for full livery from a well known London yard. In truth very few people put a kids pony on full livery, most are in a field on grass or DIY livery round here I know of 1 on working livery and 1 on full livery (but pony is on loan). Additionally many kids ponies are natives so won't have that amount spent on feed. Including purchases costs, a new field shelter, a new saddle, some secondhand jumps, and all vets, feed, hay etc plus all lessons, riding gear etc for 2 ponies kept at home we're going to have spent under 10K, next year will be cheaper.

I'd approach with you're own figures: amazing how much of a bargain our pony is compared with those figures!
 
Clannad48 said:
Just to give you the main figures, these are the lifetime costs - according to the Mail on Sunday for a horse that lives for 25 years

Average Price - £3000 Ours have range from £1,000 to well over the £3,000
Food - £13,000 £1,200 including hay
One Offs (Equipment, training) - £1,750 Saddle £1,000; Bridle £100; Boots, rugs, etc., £2,000; training (weekly lessons) £1,400; trailer (monthly) £208 (on a trailer cost of £2,500 and paid over twelve months and not including insurance or interest)
Maintenance (Grooming, toys, inc. livery) - £300,000 DIY livery, including straw £1,500
Vets - £3,000 Including wormers £500
Insurance - £6,000 £300
Total per year - £12,880
Total Lifetime - £326,7500

The monthly cost over one year is £4,600, x by 25 = £119,600. The one-off costs (in so far as one can cost without going into fine and unknown detail) is £8,600 (assuming a horse price of £3,000), therefore the total over the 25 years is £128,200

If there were just 100 pets in the UK only 1 would be a horse

Where do they get these figures from??????
Click to expand...

My calcuations are above.... :D
 
Bosworth said:
Looney Liz
Click to expand...

People, People,

What type of horse owners are you? Everyone knows each horse needs an animal communicator, homeopathic vet, regular vet, shamen, herbalist, native indian natural horsemanship person, rugs in natural fibres, organic oats and rainforest-sourced tree fibres to make bridles and halters from.

Not forgetting the trainer, instructor, grooms, bespoke riding wear,

Honestly, the Daily Fail stats are way off.............:)
 
Irishlife said:
People, People,

What type of horse owners are you? Everyone knows each horse needs an animal communicator, homeopathic vet, regular vet, shamen, herbalist, native indian natural horsemanship person, rugs in natural fibres, organic oats and rainforest-sourced tree fibres to make bridles and halters from.

Not forgetting the trainer, instructor, grooms, bespoke riding wear,

Honestly, the Daily Fail stats are way off.............:)
Click to expand...

Irishlife - thankyou, thankyou for seeing my original post for what it was - a fairly sarcastic response to the costings listed - if anyone wants a good laugh just have a look at the comparisons with other family pets. As I said previously where do they get their figures from - expecially the vet fees, does this mean that no-one ever has an accident or illness happen to their horse, what about those horses who only every need their yearly jabs, teeth treatment and wormers as a basic.

Still I will continue to keep my horse in her gold walled stable with diamond encrusted hayrack, have the vet out twice a day to pick out her feet and give the three grooms a payrise. I WISH..... no really I will continue to wake my daughter up at 6 every morning to go down to our lovely DIY yard to look after her horse herself - I was so glad when she passed her driving test and no longer had to go with her every day.
 
Most people who have their horses in competition/schooling livery would spend around that figure just on livery & training.

Also remember that things like DIY / Part livery only exist in the UK!

In my country yards only ever offer full livery, but if you want to compete, then you have to be based at a 'registered', approved yard where prices average £800 a month per horse (posh ones in big towns etc easily go up to £1200 per month, this is just for livery and training).

If you add competition expenses, vet fees (no insurance here, only equine insurance available is death/loss of use), shoeing, etc you see how easy it is to go over the figure quoted by the paper.

That is why equestrianism is considered such an elitist sport :(
 
FrodoBeutlin said:
Most people who have their horses in competition/schooling livery would spend around that figure just on livery & training.

Also remember that things like DIY / Part livery only exist in the UK!

In my country yards only ever offer full livery, but if you want to compete, then you have to be based at a 'registered', approved yard where prices average £800 a month per horse (posh ones in big towns etc easily go up to £1200 per month, this is just for livery and training).

If you add competition expenses, vet fees (no insurance here, only equine insurance available is death/loss of use), shoeing, etc you see how easy it is to go over the figure quoted by the paper.

That is why equestrianism is considered such an elitist sport :(
Click to expand...

Good Lord!!! Why is it full livery only in your country? Is there no demand for cheaper forms of livery?
 
I have only ever heard of part or DIY livery in the UK. Definitely not available in Germany OR Italy. Not sure if there is demand, don't really know anyone who'd be happy to muck out when they can avoid it!

The figures I mentioned for full livery I was thinking of Italy; I must say that, in Germany, basic pension prices are low anyway. It gets expensive when you also want good training, like everywhere else.

It would be interesting if users who are familiar with other European countries (Spain or France for instance) could comment.

I am not surprised though, each country has different 'popular' sports and there is no question that horse riding is much more popular in the UK than in Italy.

It's the same with other sports, golf is extremely expensive in Italy (again you must become a member of a golf club and fees start from £2,000 a year, while in the UK you don't necessarily have to become a member, you can just buy 'day tickets' -sorry, don't know the terminology- without any affiliation). I guess it works the other way too, skiing is pretty elitist in the UK but definitely not in Italy.
 
The average cost of keeping a racehorse in training is quoted as being £16,000 and the DM's figure probably is about right for a horse at full competition livery/competing etc but not as an average.
 
Irishlife said:
People, People,

What type of horse owners are you? Everyone knows each horse needs an animal communicator, homeopathic vet, regular vet, shamen, herbalist, native indian natural horsemanship person, rugs in natural fibres, organic oats and rainforest-sourced tree fibres to make bridles and halters from.

Not forgetting the trainer, instructor, grooms, bespoke riding wear,

Honestly, the Daily Fail stats are way off.............:)
Click to expand...

*high five* :p
 
camilla4 said:
I think that buying the Mail should be grounds for divorce!!!
Click to expand...

You beat me to it :p

Frodobeutlin - does nobody own a horse simply because they like horses and like to ride?! I don't understand why everybody wants to be the next olympic prospect - some people like to have a run about on their leusire horse, just like my OH likes to play football on an afternoon/weekend with his friends - it's just a hobby and fun thing to do!

I also like to play the guitar, but I'm not trying to get a record label or audition for the x-factor :p

I would NOT be into horses if I wasn't allowed to muck out or groom my own horse, and was forced to compete when all I wanted to do was appreciate the horse/rider/owner/human bond.

Today I spent hours at the stable mucking out, cleaning the cobwebs and dusting the ceiling (haha), trimming my horse's heels, cleaning tack whilst chatting with a friend on upturned buckets. Going for a ride down to the stream for a swim and a splash, then turning them out into the field for a gallop, roll and nuzzle each other in the sunshine.

To lose out on that because however many thousands of horse riders in Germany/Italy are forced into thinking they must aim for GP, it's actually very sad.
 
Last edited:
FrodoBeutlin said:
I am not surprised though, each country has different 'popular' sports and there is no question that horse riding is much more popular in the UK than in Italy.

It's the same with other sports, golf is extremely expensive in Italy (again you must become a member of a golf club and fees start from £2,000 a year, while in the UK you don't necessarily have to become a member, you can just buy 'day tickets' -sorry, don't know the terminology- without any affiliation). I guess it works the other way too, skiing is pretty elitist in the UK but definitely not in Italy.
Click to expand...

You have to be a member of a golf club to play 'proper' golf, membership at our local club is about £4000 a year. They dont do 'day tickets' but you can go on the driving range, and some places have a pitch & putt, which is a very small course where you can turn up and play.

Skiing isn't elitist - only is you go on holidays abroad to ski, but lessons on an indoor slope aren't that pricey. And plus there is no snow in Britain - but there is abroad, whilst both Germany and UK have access to horses all year round!
 
Yes you're right about the skiing. The golf not so sure, OH went to Scotland a couple of years ago and could play just for the day? He definitely did the whole 18 holes.

Of course there are plenty of people who ride non-competitively, and if you don't want to compete you can keep your horses at home. But it's just a different world -- there are a million rules in Italy to keep a horse at home, nothing like the UK (if you build stables they have to be at least 30 metres from *any* house or road, the costs involved are much higher, our council even told us we couldn't have more than 2 horses! I can't even remember the reason -- all this to say, you have to have quite a lot of land).

However, how do you learn to ride? You have to go to a riding school, and all riding schools (English style; if you choose Western it's altogether different obviously) have an unbelievable focus on show-jumping.

There just aren't as many horses as you have in the UK and prices of everything are, consequently, much higher. Prices of horses themselves; H&H has a whole section for horses for sale for £1k or less, this would be unheard of in Italy (never heard of horses being so cheap).

I wish things were different though!
 
Sorry - I didn't mean to rant at you, just a well overdue vent :D

In some ways it is best the rules and regulations. Swings and roundabouts I guess.


It probably dependson the golf club I suppose. I know we can't play the full course at our local club, but we are planning on doing the driving range, and finding a pitch & putt. Didn't stop me from vomiting on their hydrangas (sp?) at our sportsmans ball which was held there :D

Whoops.
 
I'd say someone on the Mail doesn't like horses or who has a parnter that has just bought one. For what they say about keeping a horse for that price, maybe I should get a few more as my 4 cost a fracton of what they say.:D:D:D
 
I'm just smiling to myself at the thought of my pony getting £13,000 of feed. Bless him. Can see a tv programme coming on....World's Fattest Pony..............
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top