atherstonestables
Member
Hi there, I am after some advice before making a big investment. This is not an advert because its an idea presently and I am after some sound advice please. Basically I own a farmyard that has a number of industrial units on it. We have quite a large shed coming available in early 2017 that I think would lend itself to stabling. Its sits slightly away from the industrial units and has its own private access for traffic. The shed itself is 48m long by 24m wide and 9m high to the eaves. Its about 8 years old and built to industrial specification. Its fully insulated and has a concrrete floor. Its got a some basic offices in as well as male/female toilets and a kitchen facility. There is plenty of parking space around the shed also. The farmyard is surrounded by 500 acres of farmland that is farmed by a local farmer (not ourselves but we own it). Presently each field has a 6m wide grass margin all around the outside creating around 10 miles of rides. This has coincided with one of my oldest friends leaving his job as a race yard manager in suffolk and wanting to return to this area to live.
What we are thinking of doing is putting some stables into part of the shed mentioned and then having an indoor arena/menage in the rest. The thinking is a 50:50 split so 24m x 24m of each although the final sizes could clearly be played with. We would then take back an area of farmland to turn over to grass for grazing and making hay for the stabled horses. My friend has 20+ yrs experience of managing stables with 100+ horses in that are in one way or another in race training. My friend is not a trainer. His job was to manage the facility proving full livery for the horse guests while horse training was left to others. So he knows how to run a facility of scale. We are thinking of 12 stables initially 3m x 3m. Each stable would obviously have its own water supply.
We have a log burner attached to the shed that is used to heat the industrial units but we could take heat off that put into the shed with the stables in it to ensure the shed is at a set temperature at all times during the winter months. We are looking to offer this facility on a full livery only basis with my friend running it on a day to day basis with some casual help.
We would want to supply everything basically from the feed, bedding (woodshavings as we do not have access to straw and would not be able to either due to the agreement on the farmland), water, elec, stables, grazing, daily exercising. Vet and Meds would be charged as and when required at cost price.
We would be looking for our customers to pay a set weekly fee for this service and then their own insurance for the horse/horses. Having looked at a few smaller facilities in Suffolk with my friend we feel that offering virtually everything is simpler from our point of view because we would not have to offer individual storage areas if we were to do this as DIY. So basically all the feed is stored together and your horse gets fed the same as the others.
So the question I have is is there a call for this level of facility which I would say is a bit more 'posh' for the want of a better word, than what you would normally find. The idea being that you the owner would have access to your horse 24 hrs obviously but there would be set times where you would know your horse would not be available to ride out such as daily exercise, unless of course your doing it. The idea being that
its a bit like a set routine where by you know exactly when the best time to come to your horse would be, so that it would not interfere with what your paying for in terms of it being looked after.
The rides would be available to you daily and we would put some jumps/obstacles in place to enhance the ride out. We would then gate these to local bridle ways also to allow much longer rides. There would strictly be no access to any of the farmland other than the established rides which would also include no access to crop stubbles after harvest.
What I am looking at doing is investing in the stables mainly. The indoor training area would just need to alteration to the walls and then some flooring spreading on top of the concrete floor thick enough to protect the horses.
The other investment would be grassing some acres down to grazing and hay making so whilst we have the biggest cost already the shed we still have a few pounds to spend to get it ready.
Does this sound worthwhile and if so what kind of weekly cost do you think we could charge? The location would be central midlands with the M42/A5/M6 all within a few minutes.
What we are thinking of doing is putting some stables into part of the shed mentioned and then having an indoor arena/menage in the rest. The thinking is a 50:50 split so 24m x 24m of each although the final sizes could clearly be played with. We would then take back an area of farmland to turn over to grass for grazing and making hay for the stabled horses. My friend has 20+ yrs experience of managing stables with 100+ horses in that are in one way or another in race training. My friend is not a trainer. His job was to manage the facility proving full livery for the horse guests while horse training was left to others. So he knows how to run a facility of scale. We are thinking of 12 stables initially 3m x 3m. Each stable would obviously have its own water supply.
We have a log burner attached to the shed that is used to heat the industrial units but we could take heat off that put into the shed with the stables in it to ensure the shed is at a set temperature at all times during the winter months. We are looking to offer this facility on a full livery only basis with my friend running it on a day to day basis with some casual help.
We would want to supply everything basically from the feed, bedding (woodshavings as we do not have access to straw and would not be able to either due to the agreement on the farmland), water, elec, stables, grazing, daily exercising. Vet and Meds would be charged as and when required at cost price.
We would be looking for our customers to pay a set weekly fee for this service and then their own insurance for the horse/horses. Having looked at a few smaller facilities in Suffolk with my friend we feel that offering virtually everything is simpler from our point of view because we would not have to offer individual storage areas if we were to do this as DIY. So basically all the feed is stored together and your horse gets fed the same as the others.
So the question I have is is there a call for this level of facility which I would say is a bit more 'posh' for the want of a better word, than what you would normally find. The idea being that you the owner would have access to your horse 24 hrs obviously but there would be set times where you would know your horse would not be available to ride out such as daily exercise, unless of course your doing it. The idea being that
its a bit like a set routine where by you know exactly when the best time to come to your horse would be, so that it would not interfere with what your paying for in terms of it being looked after.
The rides would be available to you daily and we would put some jumps/obstacles in place to enhance the ride out. We would then gate these to local bridle ways also to allow much longer rides. There would strictly be no access to any of the farmland other than the established rides which would also include no access to crop stubbles after harvest.
What I am looking at doing is investing in the stables mainly. The indoor training area would just need to alteration to the walls and then some flooring spreading on top of the concrete floor thick enough to protect the horses.
The other investment would be grassing some acres down to grazing and hay making so whilst we have the biggest cost already the shed we still have a few pounds to spend to get it ready.
Does this sound worthwhile and if so what kind of weekly cost do you think we could charge? The location would be central midlands with the M42/A5/M6 all within a few minutes.
