Horses and London living

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TheShark

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Just wondering if it can be done? And how much you need to earn to take on a nice room in London (doesn't have to be completely central) and keep a horse?

I want my own soon and I'm not sure about the best way to take things forward. I commute in each day at the mo and am sick of it. but i'd continue if it meant I could get a horse (prob on part livery).

However, if it's going to be beyond me living in London then I don't want to bother!

Also - what do you guys think of the 16.3hh grey mare >>>>

I think she looks gorge but am a bit biased towards grey mares at the mo. Would it be a concern that she was broken at 6?

Any advice gratefully received!
 
It is certainly possible.

I work in central London and live in Harrow so on the outskirts of London. I have a pony on assisted grass livery and I rent my own one bedroom flat.

My rented one bed flat costs me £750 a month plus bills but I don't share it with anyone. If you want the price of rooms try the spareroom website - when I was living in a shared house with friends I paid £450 a month plus bills that was about 2 years ago though.

How much you need for the horse will depend on the horse! I have a native pony living out and I would say the basics eg livery, feed, jabs, teeth, insurance, shoes come to £250 a month and then on top of that I have lessons and compete. This is on assisted grass livery with a good doer native - part livery for something that would need to eat more and be living in would be more.

I earn just over 34k and that is plenty to fund both myself and my pony BUT I don't run a car and mainly hack to shows that saves me a lot of money - I get the tube to the station nearest my yard then walk 15-20 minutes. The journey from work to yard is really long and can take 1.40 mins some days but it is worth it. I do manage to save some money each month too - I am trying to save up enought to be able to go part time as some point in the distant future!
 
Yes it can be done!

I lived in Bromley in a one bed flat (£750pcm), but at the moment I think you could get better for your money, so maybe £650ish. I did drive, but was 20 mins on the train to work in central London.

My horse is kept on full livery, £400 pcm but includes bedding, feed and hay. She is a fairly good doer and could live out, so I could have saved money there. She is bare foot so just a trim (£17 every 6/8 weeks), £30 insurance and that is about it. Obviously you need to take into consideration vet bills/worming/rugs/tack, but there are ways and means!

I think the main problem is finding a decent yard in an area where you can commute from without it becoming a nightmare. Also if you need to rely on public transport, that may make it a little more difficult.
 
I think it can be done, but you need to be v selective on where you live and how far to livery yard. IMO it's quite tricky without a car, v much limits you to certain yards and they tend to be the rather expensive ones(!).

I live in North London, horse is at Bury farm - about 20mins from home in the car, and i work in canary wharf, which is about 40-45mins commute. so i can just about go work to yard in a little over an hour.
in general there seems to be more option on yards in north london (lots in mill hill area), west london (short bomb down the a40 gets you out pretty quickly) and east london/epping way. South london is a bit trickier i think but i'm sure some people manage somehow!

i have full livery during week and DIY at weekends and that costs roughly similar to my rent ( i think i pay c750per month rent but could be wrong...terrible that i don't know!)
so as a very rough guess i would say if you were on part livery and renting a house in an area similar to mine you could get by with maybe £1200 a month on horse and house, so you'd maybe want to be earning £2000 a month to live comfortably(or quite well!), so that means post tax income of 24k, which means roughly 30k pre tax salary?
this is a very rough estimate, i'm sure other people will completely disagree!
I certainly know lots of people with incomes well under this (and well above this) who all manage fine...!
 
I lived in Fulham for 10 years and kept my horses down the A3 - in my case I worked in Datchet so possibly didn't make the best choice in having all 3 major parts of my life in different directions! How about looking at your rental costs, and then which area you could go to/has access - and then go for a share in that area - see how you get on? also your costs are then fixed so nasty surprises while you work it out

and yes I do like the gray mare - she is advertised on another site and I had a bit of a double take - she has the same name as my (gray) horse - although he doesn't really look like her apart from the colour!
 
Hi I live in South London and keep my horses in Surrey. But I have to have them on full livery as I simply can't get down every day, especially at this time of year. Takes me about 45 mins to get to the yard. It is definitely possible to do it without a car, I survived for 3 years taking the train then cycling to the stables. Yes it's a lot of work but it kept me very fit. Since I've learnt to drive it's much quicker now and I can go down nearly every day
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