How much do you charge a sharer to ride your horse ?

My sharer is fine paying 140 a month and half shoes she does only do 2 days but that is because her job means she would not be able to keep her own horse and wasnt getting any enjoyment out of paying 35.00 a week for one lesson I would like to add the price was on the advert and it was stated that they could do up to 3 possibly 4 days a week And the response was unbelievable I ended up choosing out of 5 girls and thats within the add being up for 3 weeks !!
 
lexiedhb said:
Those who say I charge £X because my horse is on full livery- well you chose to have it at an expensive yard, why should the sharer pay through the nose?

To whoever said "surely a sharer should pay half"- that only works if the owner is prepared to relinquish half responsibility, and allow the sharer to have half input into things like feed, rugs, shoeing, what the horse does and when .... all management aspects--- which in reality will never happen.
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You see, I actually do this, and am more than happy with the agreement. It just goes to show that what might be completely unreasonable for one person exactly suits another!

I pay slightly less than 1/2 my share horse's full livery costs (which admittedly are very reasonable) in exchange for freedom to hack, jump, compete etc 3 days a week. I also have input on feed, rugs, tack, fitness regime - all these things are decided between us.

Full livery is a must for me. I can't always guarantee that I will get to the yard, or that I'll arrive at a reasonable time to bring in / feed etc. I could probably keep a horse of my own at grass for the amount I spend on the share, but there’s no way I’d have the time to care for him or her properly, so it would be irresponsible. As it is, a quick call to the YO to say I’m stuck at work sorts everything.

I’ve been offered rides for free, or money for schooling, but in those cases everything is (rightly) on the owner’s terms, and that just doesn’t fit with what I want at the moment. I think it all depends on what the owner and sharer want from the agreement. In my case the owner needs a financial contribution and I need flexibility.
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See you say this but actually if you said to the owner - I would like hoss on XYZ mix, and owner did not agree, then it would not happen. Same with any aspect of its care.

I am asked what i think with regards to my share horse, but the decision is ultimately the OWNERS.
 
When I advertised for a sharer for one of my two horses (both safe, sane & lovely horses) I wasn't charging anything, I just wanted one of the horses excerised (kept fit) and a bit of grooming - no other chores.

In the adverts I put that the sharer could come with me on beach rides, hacking and hunting .... I advertised for two weeks in the local paper, I got one reply, she was ok but she moved away a couple of months later:rolleyes:

I now have to pay someone to come and do it!:confused:
 
You advertised for only two weeks and only in the local paper? no wonder you didnt get much response!!

My share horses owners found me on

newrider.com
 
Ella19 said:
Surrey prices are riduculous whichever way you look at it. Yard rents are extortionate especially if you have half decent hacking. My GRASS livery is £240pcm and if you have your horse on part your looking at £500pcm and full well over £600pcm this is for a yard with some form of sandschool, hacking and a field that's it!

So that helps to justify the share prices round here. Last YO rented riding school ponies out for share for 4 hrs a week for £200pcm
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I was going to write, my friends grass livery in surrey is £200+ but then I realised thats you!

Hi :) :)

These posts really annoy me! People seem to forget that it varies depending on whereabouts in the country you are, the type of horse, what the sharer can do with it, and the reason for the owner getting a sharer.

I got jumped on by some people before telling me i was ripping my previous sharer off. They paid £150 a month to ride saturdays, sundays and another day in the week if they wanted, but usually they didnt. This was in ascot - expensive area. Hacking in windsor great park, good school, could do whatever they wanted on a well schooled nice allrounder. They were very happy with the arrangement and it was saving them loads on the cost of a riding school. They didnt want to commit to a full loan or buying their own so it was perfect for them. Less so for me as I needed the money but I never got to hack or even ride in the light of day through the winter!!!!!!! DIY round here is expensive so along with all the other costs she was paying well under half the running costs of keeping a pretty low maintenance pony!!!!

I personally didnt see it as her doing me a favour, but opinions on that will differ!!!!!
 
I've had several shares, in different parts of the country and haven't paid a penny for any of them. The owner gets all their chores done for them, and in return I get to ride. Without a sharer if the owner wanted a day off or a holiday, they would have to pay someone to catch, muck out, feed etc, this way they don't.

My personal feeling is that if you can't afford the horse without a sharer you need to take a long hard look if you can really afford a horse at all. What if your sharer moves away and you can't find another one for months?
 
Mine paid me £25/week and had 2-4 days no jobs. She helped with the mucking out and haynets though. I was a student with 4.5 horses, a law degree and part time job at the time and no money so it was a big help. I think it's cheaper round here though.

Now she is too big to really ride my girls (5'10 and still growing) she comes and potters on the old dear or rides Icey for a little while and just helps me with chores or puts jumps up for me. No money.

When I get her horse on loan (yes I am trying to take on another hairy, for my sharer! She's too useful with the holidays, sickness, working late, breaking and competing sides of things to let her go share with someone else and my girlies are 14.2/15hh) her mom will go back to paying £25/week and the full cost for shoes and I will budget somehow! My rent is quite cheap and the boy I'm looking at is a good doer, I'm down to 3 of my own and not a student now. Also negotiating for his owner to insure and vaccinate as she will still have some use of him. Any shortfall I'll cover as the cost of keeping Alex.

£25 ish seems going rate round here but beware you may get an invaluable sharer and end up dependant!!!
 
Tapir said:
I've had several shares, in different parts of the country and haven't paid a penny for any of them. The owner gets all their chores done for them, and in return I get to ride. Without a sharer if the owner wanted a day off or a holiday, they would have to pay someone to catch, muck out, feed etc, this way they don't.

My personal feeling is that if you can't afford the horse without a sharer you need to take a long hard look if you can really afford a horse at all. What if your sharer moves away and you can't find another one for months?
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Good for you - but whats the point in having a horse if someone else does it and rides it all the time??!! ;) There are different sides to it.

I can afford my horse without a sharer, but I am saving at the moment to buy a house so I would rather reduce the horsey costs and put more money into savings. Current pony isnt really suitable for sharing as he is a baby and needs lots of work. I would never charge someone to share him because helping me school him WOULD be doing me a favour. However it is a different story for a well established schooled horse. When he is sold and my other boy comes back off loan, I will look at my financial situation then, and consider whether to get another sharer.

Everyone who shares/has a sharer has their own personal reasons for doing so, and I think as long as you come to an arrangement that both parties are happy with I dont see the problem. If the sharer thought they were being ripped off or taken advantage of Im sure they'd say something or stop the share. Mine paid £150 a month so £37 ish a week for 2/3 rides. So £10/15 a ride on average (excuse my rubbish maths!!) is hardly a lot. She was riding at a riding school spending £30 on just one ride on nowhere near as good horses. With mine I helped teach her a little, she hacked out and jumped and generally did what she liked. Don't see the problem myself.
 
My sharer pays £20 per week and rides when she wants to...normally twice a week, but the option is there to ride another day if she wants to.

However, she doesn't do anything with him other than ride. I am still up every morning and every evening, but due to other commitments in my life I can't ride as much as he needs, so it works out well for both of us.

x
 
xRobyn said:
I charged mine £10 a week (and half towards feet trimmed every 8 weeks) for up to 6 days riding. Apparently it was too expensive :p
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;) How unreasonable of them...

When I am home from uni I have a pony 7 days a week for £10 a week plus half her shoeing every 8 weeks (fronts only)

And in winter I get her free, because it saves her owner mucking out!!

I am incredibly lucky!

I am in east yorkshire so prices are generally cheaper.
 
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I guess at the end of the day if the share if too expensive then you won't get a sharer! :p As long as owner and sharer are happy with the arrangement then there is no problem! ;)

I got a sharer primarily to help with the costs of livery and I also enjoyed seeing somebody discover all their 'firsts' again - you know, riding unsupervised, hacking out on their own, going to shows, riding on a farm ride. And what made it even better was that I was able to provide a safe horse that would look after them as well. :)
 
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I no longer share Arion but when I did - the guy rode him once a week for £15 - he normally just hacked him out for a few hours, didnt have to worry about shoes or mucking out as he was on full livery.
 
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when i put my boy on share (2006-2007) I calculated how much i spend per month, then divided it by the number of sharers.

I was down south at the time so I had two girls sharing him. I still paid towards him so I could keep an eye out on what they did etc but he was kept at his present yard so had yo keeping an eye out too.

I think in total they paid £20 per week. That was to cover bedding, feed, haylage,shoes and livery. I let them arrage between themselves who rode on what day and it seemed to work out ok. I got him bak wen I came home at weekends/uni holidays so they got a wee break from it too
 
I had a girl share one of my ponies, she paid £20 per week and could ride as much as she wanted - normally 5 times a week. I only wanted the pony ridden and groomed and given attention, but she did do yard duties too just becuase she wanted to. This covered the full set of shoes, and also little extras such as going to shows, clipping etc.

I would consider whether you can afford the livery without a sharer as you could have one that just gives up after a while and it can be hard to find a good one. Then you will be left with the full bill yourself.
 
I think part of the problem is that what we call "share" on here covers an awful lot of arrangements. We need a couple more terms that everyone understands to convey the types of arrangement!

Historically I always thought (based on what my horsey reference books said back in the dark ages) that a share was a proper share between two people who shared responsibility on a proportionate basis (normally 50/50) for all the costs and responsibilities, and often although not always actually shared ownership of the horse. I know people who do this now and they say the share their horse, but there isn't an owner and a sharer there are two joint owners with equal rights and equal say over the horse. So in that situation they obviously pay equally.

Then there are people who need a financial contribution to their horse and arrange for someone to care for it and ride it a certain amount of the time in return for a contribution to keep. In my mind that is what used to be known as a part loan. The owner retained ownership, and some responsibilities (so not a full loan) but the loaner took on responsibility for some of the chores and costs and maybe joined in some of the decision making.

Then there are the situations that are "helping out" or mutual benefit. I think these get confused with the Part Loan type situation and that is why these threads get a bit heated. In my mind, if someone struggles to give their horse enough exercise or can't get to the yard often enough or wants more time to themselves then the "sharer" is doing them a favour, admittedly it is a favour that the sharer probably enjoys most of the time and that the sharer gets mutual benefit from. Personally I think it is cheeky to charge in this situation, the "sharer" is saving you the time/cost of doing the horse yourself or employing someone. Hopefully the sharer appreciates the opportunity to ride someone's horse and is therefore prepared to be flexible and help out and the owner is grateful for the help - win win situation. The downside of this for the sharer is normally that they don't have any say in the decision making, and they are "just helping out" rather than being a contracted loaner or part owner.

Personally I wouldn't pay to share unless I found a horse and owner who were incredibly suitable and were prepared to genuinely share the horse rather than treating you like the hired help. I am always willing to help friends and acquaintences out with their horses.

I know many other decent riders who also wouldn't pay to share. One said to me recently "I'm not going to pay for the privilidge of schooling somone else's naughty horse and then have to muck it out afterwards!" and that wasn't an isolated comment. I have riding lessons in a group in a riding school with several experienced riders, there are various reasons why they don't have their own horse at the moment, many have done in the past, some have worked with horses too and they are all extremely wary of sharing, despite being pretty much perfect sharer material.

When you share a horse you get emotionally involved as well as financially, you put in effort and time and it can quickly be snatched away from you. One of my friends shared a horse, (which the owner hardly if ever rode) and spent a year schooling it and making it rideable only for the owner to try to sell it from under her for twice what it had been advertised at before the sharer started schooling it - to say she was gutted would be an understatement.

People compare the costs of sharing with the costs of riding at a riding school and it is a totally unfair comparison. For a start at a riding school you pay for the instructor's time and get tuition in return. You are fully insured. You get a range of usually reasonably well schooled horses to ride. The horse is completely prepared for you and dealt with afterwards. There are staff and facilities on hand. You can cancel at short notice at no inconvenience. There are no expectations of you and nobody is relying upon you. If the horse gets injured or has an accident it isn't your problem, neither is it your problem if it learns a nasty habit. If the horse is unsound you ride another, if the horse isn't much of a jumper you ride one that is etc. Most importantly you are treated as a client, you don't have to deal with the (possibly unreasonable) expectations of a (demanding) owner.

Can you tell that I've come accross lots of sharing horror stories??? :D
 
I paid around £86 PM for 2-3 days per week although could only hack with owner and other sharers. Owner had around 8 horses on loan.

I would be paying people to ride my nutcase though lol!
 
My sharer pays £20 a week and she seems to get whatever she wants :-( I seem to have lost all say over my horse, she tells me as and when she is coming and then makes out that I own a poorly schooled horse. I have told her no cross country but she has gone against me. Getting contracts signed this week and if she goes against them then we are kicking her into touch. At the minute I think she should be paying all costs!!!!
 
I paid £120 for three days nearly four years ago on DIY, I also got extra days for no charge if the owner was on holiday.

Three hours of riding at a riding school a week would have cost me £75 or £300 a month so sharing was much cheaper and I could compete too which was a major bonus as could not do that at the RS. I could also have lessons on my share horse and getting to the ride the same horse all the time meant I could concentrate on improving riding without having to get used to a new horse each time.

I now have my own pony and even on DIY grass livery he costs at least £200 a month to keep so sharing is definately cheaper than having your own and there is a lot less worry too.

Yes the owner gets some help and money but the sharer in lots of case also saves money and gets benefits too that they could not have at a riding school.

I see no problem with sharing a proportion of the livery and feed and shoeing costs to a sharer depending on how often they ride, if they are riding a horse than is capable of doing all activities and maybe they can compete and have lessons too. However if the horse is only able to do restricted activities such as gentle hacking then perhaps it is not fair to charge so much.
 
See I could have lessons on the horse I shared but not compete. I can compete in RS horses, and very capable they are too.

To be honest in lessons it was a great experience to be able to ride a "private horse" and he did improve my riding, but by the same token he (and therefore his owner) was benefitting from the training too. The owner wasn't having regular training on him at the time. The instructor (who knew him before I started riding him) commented upon how much he improved while I was riding him.

I don't doubt for a minute that the work I did with him would have helped improve his value which as the owner was looking to sell was a big advantage to her.
 
Suzie86 said:
Good for you - but whats the point in having a horse if someone else does it and rides it all the time??!! ;) There are different sides to it.
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shares are only usually for a few days a week. So the owner gets, say, 3 days/evenings a week off and the sharer gets to ride on those days with the owner riding/looking after on the other days - hardly someone else doing it and riding it all the time.
 
Tapir said:
shares are only usually for a few days a week. So the owner gets, say, 3 days/evenings a week off and the sharer gets to ride on those days with the owner riding/looking after on the other days - hardly someone else doing it and riding it all the time.
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aaah but if someone got a sharer so that they only saw their horse 4 times a week, then why buy a horse, why not just be a sharer of someone elses ;)

All I'm saying is if there are people that want to pay to have horses but someone else do a lot of the riding and looking after it, but not get a money for it then fine thats their choice. But some people (like myself) don't need the help or the extra help with exercising, but are just looking for a way to make horse ownership a bit less expensive.

The arrangements you had sound fab and you were very lucky. Just saying not all owners will be as generous as yours :)
 
My sharer doesn't pay but i see it that she does me a favour in helping keeping him fit and doing long hacks which i find boring! She's the mum of my friend so i can really trust her not to be silly with him. I don't expect her to do any chores but she always does his stable if it needs doing and other bits like tack cleaning, dragging the school or sweeping the yard.
 
I can see both sides of the sharer/owner debate.

But when people say that they could keep a horse themselves for say £100 -£200 a month, especially in an expensive part of the country I laugh hollowly :eek: Yes, that may cover livery, maybe even feed and a contribution towards the farrier but have they taken into account

Original purchase price (some one either had to pay a hefty price for a nice horse OR put countless hours into making a safe, sane ride)
Insurance
Wormers
Back/dentist once or twice a year
Vaccinations
Tack/Rugs
Vet bills and or insurance excess

Now if you were to add all put the first on that list and divide by 12 you're probably looking at another £50/60 a month conservatively. Even when I had a horse on cheap grass livery, unshod and with no physical issues he cost me at least £150 month and that was years ago. Last year a DIY stabled at night good doer was costing me £300 a month or over £3.5k a year....no new rugs/tack, no vet bills, no competing or any other luxuries.

I agree with the people who say that you shouldn't be 'charged' to school someones nutter but a sane hack/RC type horse is worth it's weight in gold (look at the purchase prices!) and it's not unreasonable to contribute both in time and money to have the experiences both good and bad that are not generally available in a RS. After all, how many people wouldn't put some extra fuel in a car after borrowing it as a thank you and a realisation that the cost of running a car is much more than the price of petrol at the pump?
 
E_Lister said:
;) How unreasonable of them...

When I am home from uni I have a pony 7 days a week for £10 a week plus half her shoeing every 8 weeks (fronts only)

And in winter I get her free, because it saves her owner mucking out!!

I am incredibly lucky!

I am in east yorkshire so prices are generally cheaper.
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Should have added, Phil wasn't stabled so no chores to do, but I didn't actually need him to be worked, i like her and she wanted a horse. She was paying £20 for 3 days :p

Of course there will always be more and less expensive options. I didn't actually need money, but I believed that paying some money would be - well, I can't think of the phrase but someone else on this thread used it. Made us both feel like we had a responsibility.
 
lexiedhb said:
See you say this but actually if you said to the owner - I would like hoss on XYZ mix, and owner did not agree, then it would not happen. Same with any aspect of its care.

I am asked what i think with regards to my share horse, but the decision is ultimately the OWNERS.
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This is clearly true for you, but that doesn't mean it is for me. That was all I meant by my post - that different people have different needs / wants from their share agreement. Mine is more similar to the first arrangement KristmasKatt mentioned. Obviously my co-sharer and I need to reach agreements and compromises, but between us we have more or less full responsibility.
 
I've never understood the argument of making sharers pay to HELP the owner out with their own horse. If you haven't got the time, energy etc then don't make someone else pay to help YOU out. I sometimes think horse owners know they can make a small fortune from a sharer who will happily pay the extortionate cost just so they can have some 'pony contact' time outside of a riding school.

I saw one locally being advertised which was £15 per ride that you had. Plus shoes on top. I went to look at another where the owner wanted the horse ridden once a week, there were no livery, feed & hay costs and it was only shod on the front. She wanted £40 a week and the rider to pay for their own insurance.

Also, whoever mentioned about different terms being applied. I think it's a very good point. A true half share would be one that if the other party was away, the sharer could make a decision with regards to vet treatment/a potential PTS event as an example.
 
Dobby said:
Blimey guys! I'd be able to keep my own for some of these charges!

I share one horse and pay for his shoes and ride about 3/4 times a week, and the other I muck out and turn out her other horses every morning and get to ride a few times a week, no money either way.

I'd never consider paying £100plus a month! You could save up and get your own after about a year!
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I keep my own horse for £150 per month so some of these costs are quite expensive. My OH shares a 16hh cob/hunter 2 days a week (1 weekend day) and he pays £15 per week and a third of the shoeing bill which is £20 every 8 weeks.

I shared my pony when I did my a levels years back and only charged £60 a month all in- she rode 3 days a week.
 
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