What is a reasonable financial contribution for sharer?

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Katypoo

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We are looking to find a rider for our beautiful skewbald mare. She is 7 years old, 15.2hh and very honest.
We would be looking for a confident, experienced rider who wants to ride 3 times a week (weekdays) to hack and do a bit of dressage. She is on full livery (£128 per week) so no chores needed, with amazing riding straight onto the new forest.

We would like to get a general idea of what contribution we could reasonably ask for.
Has anyone had a share similar to this, and how much did you pay/charge?

Many thanks
 
Katypoo said:
We are looking to find a rider for our beautiful skewbald mare. She is 7 years old, 15.2hh and very honest.
We would be looking for a confident, experienced rider who wants to ride 3 times a week (weekdays) to hack and do a bit of dressage. She is on full livery (£128 per week) so no chores needed, with amazing riding straight onto the new forest.

We would like to get a general idea of what contribution we could reasonably ask for.
Has anyone had a share similar to this, and how much did you pay/charge?

Many thanks
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I have a similar set up, excellent honest horse, full livery and endless off road Hacking. I was very lucky to find an excellent quiet rider, who is a lovely person! I don't charge, as the arrangement is mutually beneficial. Horse gets exercised by a great rider for free, and she gets a lively Horse to ride. She does however always pay for his shoes, out of her own choice.
 
amymay said:
No weekends would put many people off.
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Agree. I work weekdays and exercising mine in the week for me is a bit of a chore, it's the weekends where the fun is to be had. I think if you want your horse exercised and schooled in the week you'll maybe need to pay someone to do that.. or no charge but then you probably won't get the experienced riders you want.
 
i've a sharer i charge 10 euro a week for and she has unlimited riding during the week but no weekends. The weekday thing suits her as she can only come up when kids are at school. I consider it a mutually beneficial thing as she is helping to keep my horse fit and schooled.

If i was a sharer who was a good, experienced rider who could school properly, then i'd probably get frustrated not being able to ride/compete weekends. I consider my sharer kind of doing me a favour so i just charge to cover cost of shoes. If she had free rein and could do what she liked at any time i'd up the charge.
 
As a loanee myself I would be willing to pay up to £50 a week depending on facilities on the yard (indoor / outdoor arena etc. )
 
I agree about the no weekends it's a drag riding in the week in the winter if you work full time it's just schooling in the dark, you might be lucky to find someone who can do weekdays but in my experience they are hard to come by, I have found some lovely people that can ride really well help ride mine but they do work in the week so are limited to riding weekends but I don't charge any money for that. I think the average is £10 to £15 a day for a share but I think someone would want a weekend day for that
 
I'm sure there must be people around who want to ride just during the week. I would love to find exactly that as my weekends are spent on the east coast sailing but weekday evenings are all free.
How much you can charge will depend very much of how experienced you want the rider to be. In general, the more experience the rider the less they would be prepared to pay. Good riders don't generally need to pay people to ride horses.
So it really boils down to
Need rider to share cost = lower level rider that wont significantly improve horse.
Need horse exercised = average rider but probably paying less that first option
Need horse bringing on = experienced rider who may do it for free.
 
If you were offering the same but to include one weekend day and your arena is floodlit so they can ride after work then you could potentially be looking in the £25+ bracket.
However if you can't ride after dark and need someone who can make it on a weekday daytime only your pool of potential sharers drops massively as does the attractiveness of the share. You may still find someone who thinks it's a great deal anyway and is willing to pay you huge sums but you need to remain conscious that it could be viewed negatively, that what you are looking for is someone to exercise for you without paying a professional to do it? What is your definition of experienced and confident as again that would determine who is likely to benefit from the arrangement.
From a sharers point of view things that would make it more attractive are often weekends, chances to compete, jumping (why couldn't a sharer jump her for example) and access to transport for outings.
 
I used to charge her £50 a month (it was only supposed to be a short term share over the summer) but she started taking the mick and would turn up to ride him 6 days a week right up until November! She wanted the agreement to continue for another year so I came up with a share agreement that she had to sign which stated the sharer would ride my horse 3 days a week, I would have him the other 3 and then the other day was his day off (we would alternate weekends/competitons). I worked out on average what he cost me over the year and divided that into money per day and she paid half of his costs. She was allowed to treat him as her own, clip, pull mane etc and was allowed to have lessons and take him off to compete on her own.
 
I used to pay £60 a month for 4 plus days a week and some weekends but horse wasn't at a livery yard so cheaper to keep. Still had access to a school, jumps and good hacking though.
 
It boils down to why you're looking for a sharer.

If you need the money, you may find it difficult if you don't offer a weekend day.

If you need your horse exercised, you may want to look at charging only a nominal fee.

Eg, I have my share horse Mon-Fri, he's on full livery, and I pay £70/pcm (basically, the cost of his shoes), because his owner doesn't have time to ride during the week, and wanted somebody to keep his fitness and schooling ticking over. (And to give him a lot of love! He's a very affectionate boy and really thrives on attention.)
 
Depends on the area a little but round here I would expect it to be £100 - £150 pcm as the average.

I've known a few that did weekdays only, typically people with children who don't have time at the weekends due to family commitments but do have time during the day in the week. However they were generally not looking for anything too challenging and other people to ride out with was a huge plus. One of my sharers fell into this category and paid £50 pcm for one day a week, no chores.

The other group was students who have time in the week. Bear in mind round here you can pay £40 - £50 for an hour at a riding school so sharing starts to look like a cheap option even at the prices I mentioned.
 
It’s really how long is a piece of string.

None of my sharers have guaranteed weekend riding. All have option of 2-3 weekdays riding and having lessons / schooling / hacking.

However I have two horses, I often compete one or go away altogether. So there is very often weekend riding available, and I like hacking in company with a sharer on other horse / boxing out to hacking when not at work. So hopefully everyone stays happy.

In reality, can you not offer some weekend riding even if it is adhoc? I’m a firm believer horses do better busy :-)

There definitely ARE part time workers who prefer to ride mid-week, and spend weekends with husbands / children, but might take a while to find one.

I have decent horses working elementary / medium, good facilities and I either ask for regular help with mid week chores or a financial contribution. And have strong preference for someone that can hack mid week, even in winter. It narrows the availability, but there are people out there. I expect something, but whether it is a financial contribution meaning I can buy in a bit more assistance from yard, or help with mucking out out and chores, doesn’t really matter.

None of my sharers come close to sharing the full monthly cost of keeping my horses but they all help and are part of the team of looking after and enjoying the horses.
 
My current situ is that I'm helping someone out as he needs some love, attention and exercise, and they have no time. I can do him whenever I want with no cost and I'm not even expected to do the chores side, but I always do.

I'm not sure the mid-week thing would be a huge issue for the right person - part time workers, shift workers, students etc. I actually prefer doing him during the week, it's quieter.
 
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If depends what you want from a sharer.
If you need help financially then work out exactky how much your horse costs to keep. Include everything then work that out per day.
Then ask for 3 days or however many the sharee does.
The figure maybe shocking but it is a realist cost of keeping a horse!

If it's time to lack then just ask for an amount to cover shoes etc.

Always get a contract and make sure the sharee knows exactly what they can and can't do!
 
I currently pay £100 for riding twice during the week (evenings, after my little one is in bed) and I do a weekend day every other weekend. There are no official chores needed but i always skip out before I leave.

When i had my own horse I actually charged a little more, about £120 a week for 2/3 day with no chores and was flexible on days
 
I charged £60 a month for three days a week including a Saturday, but that included mucking out on those three days and bringing in on the two week nights during winter and being responsible for field checks in the summer. They had to do these whether they rode or not so you could probably charge a bit more, although the no weekends might be a problem I suppose it might suit a shift worker, a stay at home mum whose kids are now in school or a retired person but it's still a pretty limited market.
 
The right amount IMO is so variable depending on area / level of schooling of horse / type of horse / type of livery / type of facilities / what they can do with the horse / numbers of horses for share in the area / numbers of sharers in the area.

The best share arrangements (had a few sharers across my two horses over the years) work where sharer and owner both feel they are happy and getting a good deal, and the sharer would be sad to lose the horse, and the owner would be sad to lose the sharer.

What financial or chores balance is needed to achieve this varies massively, and depends on the circumstances and motivation of the owner and sharer for entering into the arrangement.

I want all my sharers to feel they have a good deal that they value, and I want to feel they are a net benefit to me and my horses. The details of how this is achieved are less important.

It has required me to give a lot of thought to what I want from sharers, and what benefits my horses, and assuming it is within my gift, I invest time in working out what sharers most want from the arrangement, and how they can achieve that.
 
Thanks for all the replies - just to clarify the situation.
Livery has top facilities including floodlit school and hacking direct with no road work onto the New Forest.
My daughter owns the horse and is a student at uni but doing a year out so she can only ride at weekends. It won't be worth funding the horse if she can't do that as she is paying herself. There will be occasional weekend riding but not a great deal. We would be happy to take the sharer out with us and compete in different classes, but would not consider them taking her on her own as we have had loading issues after similar.
As we are bringing her on she is reluctant to let them jump but that would depend on the riders abilities.
We are considering a sharer for two reasons - financial and horse fitness.
 
Katypoo said:
We are looking to find a rider for our beautiful skewbald mare. She is 7 years old, 15.2hh and very honest.
We would be looking for a confident, experienced rider who wants to ride 3 times a week (weekdays) to hack and do a bit of dressage. She is on full livery (£128 per week) so no chores needed, with amazing riding straight onto the new forest.

We would like to get a general idea of what contribution we could reasonably ask for.
Has anyone had a share similar to this, and how much did you pay/charge?

Many thanks
Click to expand...


£ 15 per ride is what I think is minimal and fair
 
My sharer pays £100 a month.
It's DIY so she usually mucks out and occasionally puts my other horse to bed as well.

She usually does 3 days a week although varies a bit with my plans for him and her work shifts - she prefers weekdays when work allows so she can spend weekends with her partner.

The horse is fab - real chilled, genuine schoolmaster, competed at novice BE although I want him to slow down a bit now he's 18 but she's welcome to have lessons, take him to shows ect ect.

Think we both have a good deal - I get help timewise and financially
So I can concentrate a bit
More on my young horse who is starting eventing this year, and she gets to enjoy a really nice, fairly talented horse.
 
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