How much would you charge a sharer?

ZoeCharlotte

ZoeCharlotte

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I've been looking for a horse to share in my local area for a while now and came across what seems to be a brilliant opportunity. Mare used to compete intermediate eventing, is a complete sweetheart, yard is 5 minutes from my house, owner is very flexible about days I can do, hacking is great, etc etc.

However, I'm a bit worried about how much of a financial contribution she's asking for, £120pcm for a horse on DIY who she says costs her £450pcm. I'm really eager to snap it up, but I'm a student and won't be earning until the summer holidays. In this situation, would it be possible to haggle a little? Problem is I really don't want to put her off me, it's a lovely horse and it's all sort of fallen into place! Advice would be appreciated and dairy milk is on offer :)
 
ZoeCharlotte said:
I've been looking for a horse to share in my local area for a while now and came across what seems to be a brilliant opportunity. Mare used to compete intermediate eventing, is a complete sweetheart, yard is 5 minutes from my house, owner is very flexible about days I can do, hacking is great, etc etc.

However, I'm a bit worried about how much of a financial contribution she's asking for, £120pcm for a horse on DIY who she says costs her £450pcm. I'm really eager to snap it up, but I'm a student and won't be earning until the summer holidays. In this situation, would it be possible to haggle a little? Problem is I really don't want to put her off me, it's a lovely horse and it's all sort of fallen into place! Advice would be appreciated and dairy milk is on offer :)
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In my area (surrey) at a good yard, it can cost about £450 a month living in at night all year round for a competition type horse on DIY, on shavings and haylage, and some hard food, supplements, shoeing, and regular worming, physio, and dentist.

If it is a nicely schooled, fit, sound horse that you can do what you want with, school, have lessons hack alone and in company and good facilities, this does sound reasonable.

If money is main issue, could you do more chores for less cost? Or help others bring in / out / muck out for cash to offset costs?
 
Im looking for someone to ride my horse a couple of times a week with no financial input but just doing the chores on the respective days and haven't had a single taker. however keeping a horse stabled, fed, shod, insured etc can easily come to over £400 so i don't think its unreasonable. if you look at it from the point of view that a lesson/hack at a riding school once a week would probably cost you that its not bad value!
 
I used to charge sharers £40 a week for three days riding or £30 for two days. However, there were no stable chores to do as I did all of them. I do think £120 pcm is reasonable. I doubt whether owner will want to haggle as is probably charging the amount she needs to help with the horse's keep. I also asked for payment a month in advance and still had to be paid if sharer was ill or on holiday etc.
 
I dont think £120 a month is a lot for a sharer to pay...1 riding lesson a week now costs over 20 per hour.

On a fit eventer you could hack for a couple of hours a day easily or hunt.

Plus you are by the sounds of it getting a decently schooled experienced eventer...so a baragin I would have thought :)

I ask £20 per week for safe childrens ponies.
 
Thank you all for your responses, I think I might go ahead with the price she's offering. While the horse isn't in peak fitness it's certainly going to teach me a lot in the long run, so I reckon it's worth it :)
 
Not an unreasonable price at all. My mare costs me almost 450 a month when I work out yearly costs (ouch). Why not say that you are feeling the pinch with money and ask if you can start at 100 and go up to 120 as soon as you are able to... ?
 
That's exactly what I charge. Try hiring a horse and seeing how much that costs! I don't think saying the horse is not at peak fitness is fair: will you be intermediate eventing/hunting? If not, grab the deal with both hands. My creature gets the same money and he is rarely very fit due to lack of time etc. The fitter the horse, the more feisty it is likely to be. My sharer does chores too and is a sweetie who offers to turn out a mate's horse so I don't have to go up on her days.
 
When I was sharing I used to pay about £90 a month then the price went up to a ludicrous amount which I couldn't afford! I knew this because the horses livery was peanuts. The owner said it was because she needed to pay for rugs. This horse had the best of everything and a million rugs! There was just no way.

It was cheaper when I had my loan horse and paid for everything myself and had her on DIY livery.

Your deal doesn't sound too bad though, around here people are asking about £20 a week for approx 3 days. I think people have had no choice but to lower prices because people just simply can't afford it anymore, me included!
 
My sharer paid me £20 a week and did as much or as little as she wanted.
In winter she did weekends only, and summer she did after school, school holidays and went to pony club camp!
 
I've just had this conversation with my sharer. She pays £10 a day for my bombproof and very well schooled cob and has him 3 days a week. She didn't realise she needed to contribute towards his keep even if she didn't ride on her days so I've just had to explain that to her. In a way the fact that my two are on full livery can be a problem because if the sharer isn't going to ride they don't actually need to go to the yard at all. Luckily once I explained it she was fine and all is well, however I did point out that it actually costs me about £17 a day each to keep them, so she knows she's only paying just over half what he costs me for her days. I know a lot of people who charge £15 upwards for their horses per day and they still expect sharers to do jobs on their days. £10 a day is about the cheapest I'd expect it to go for a reasonably nice horse at a decent yard. Think you should snap it up.
 
My sharer for the coblet doesn't pay anything or do any jobs! But he lives out 24/7 on a yard with no electricity or school (it has running water and automatic troughs though). Finding someone who is avaliable daytimes and willing to pay is not easy this time of year! There is a bit that you can school in the field, good hacking and XC jumps round all the fields but hes also 3 years old and although a little angel I wanted the right rider! Normally people charge £10 a week down the field, at my other yard the usual is £25 a week plus jobs on your days.
 
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