What should I pay?

WelshD

WelshD

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I'm about to advertise locally for someone to back and do the basics with my 11hh pony

At this present time I cannot afford to send him away to breaking livery

He has been fine with everything so far so I'm not expecting problems

What would you expect to pay a professional and a non professional (but experienced person) per hour for this? Should I cover expenses like fuel as extra or pay a higher hourly rate to cover it?
 
I charge £15 per session for people on the yard, £20 within a certain distance, and plus fuel past that. I have recently been told by a lady whose horse I am doing that I am too cheap, which surprised me. There are some very good freelance people out there, and some rather poor, very expensive ones.
 
I would charge £20 per hour plus travel.
If you could find somewhere that does breaking livery but will do grass livery with 3 sessions a week maybe, that may work out cheaper?

Either way, the more lunging in tack/desensitising you can do yourself beforehand, the cheaper it'll work out :)
 
Thanks everyone, I did have a figure between £20 and £30 in my head so good to see I'm not a million miles off

I'm lunging, longreining and walking him out in hand trying to expose him to as much as possible too

I'm spoiled really as he is behind the house so no livery bills and I have flat space for riding so I'm reluctant to spend £500+ a month plus transport when he could stay here and be looked after by me with a rider costing me half what I could be spending by sending him away

Hope that makes sense - I'm not trying to economise on the quality of the work just the overheads!
 
Is this forum inhabited by midgets? This is an 11HH pony!:D

Just curious, but how do you break an 11HH (or smaller) pony?

The girl who is helping me with my youngsters at the moment has a Shetland filly she is breaking for her daughter. But that's an easy one. You just ride them like a balance bike....

(I'm kidding! But still curious. How DO you break them without a disposable 6yo child??:eek:).
 
Same as a normal horse then get your child on once the ground work (lots of long lining) is done. This is how we did Titchy, started off as a lead rein then did the ground work, and he has been fine (until I clipped him but that's another story!).
 
Dry Rot said:
Is this forum inhabited by midgets? This is an 11HH pony!:D

Just curious, but how do you break an 11HH (or smaller) pony?

The girl who is helping me with my youngsters at the moment has a Shetland filly she is breaking for her daughter. But that's an easy one. You just ride them like a balance bike....

(I'm kidding! But still curious. How DO you break them without a disposable 6yo child??:eek:).
Click to expand...

I have backed small ponies using a "disposable" skinny teenager, we have done as small as a standard shetland, getting them riding well off the lead before then putting on a smaller child on the lead, if that is the job they are going to do. It helps for the future if they are ridden independently first as they are more confident, as long as the rider is not too heavy, rides well and sessions are short it works well.

Not sure how it will work for the OP as she will need 2 people probably unless she can find a tiny adult that is happy to work alone and be the first one on while trusting the OP on the ground.
When I work with youngsters I find it best to have them at the yard, I can work with them twice a day, if I want, get to know them properly and their character, it is never so satisfactory to go out and do the job off site and can often take far longer, costing more in the long run, with more room for things to go wrong along the way.
 
I was looking for someone to back a Welsh A last year at my home and I could find no one even though I offered hourly rate, mileage, free livery, just about anything apart from blood.
Most want them at their yard which I can understand but after being stung on breaking a larger youngster I am very reluctant as the pony has had everything else done, I just
need a competent adult to actually get on it before I put someone else's tot on it.
 
honetpot said:
I was looking for someone to back a Welsh A last year at my home and I could find no one even though I offered hourly rate, mileage, free livery, just about anything apart from blood.
Most want them at their yard which I can understand but after being stung on breaking a larger youngster I am very reluctant as the pony has had everything else done, I just
need a competent adult to actually get on it before I put someone else's tot on it.
Click to expand...

The problem is that the competent adult has to get on an unknown pony and trust that you really have done the work to prepare it, trust that you will keep hold if it over reacts, whatever you are paying it may not be worth the risk and can ruin the pony if it goes wrong at this critical stage, if you have done the work correctly you should be able to put an older child up and take it from there.
 
Unfortunately I do not have an older child and of I would not just expect someone to turn up and hop on.
My most successful backer has been an ex race jockey as they get them going forward, do not fiddle with their mouths but are confident enough to hack them out and cope with any hiccups.
 
Yes I do do small ponies myself, not quite a midget but not big, and still ride Welsh A's for people when they have problems. The point about trusting someone to have actually done the work they say they have is a good one, I did get stung a bit a few years ago doing one that had been returned from the breakers as there rider was off for non related surgery (yeah right!) which stood bolt upright when I asked it to move forwards! That said, I hopped on in the first session recently, as I had seen the lady long reining etc, and after leaning over and moving around, it just felt right.
 
When my children were smaller I would send ponies we had backed our selves to local M&M producers to learn leg aids that small children could not teach a pony, not that they were any way naughty. One report I got back was, 'there's nothing wrong with this pony' and I said no that's not why he's with you but to learn to jump and learn leg aids and he is exactly I described him, they had expected trouble.
I have paid large amount of money in advance to someone to back a pony( lovely ex jockey moved out of area), the pony had been lunged, long reined, sat on but my friend who would finish him off had a premature baby had nether the time or in a fit condition to finish him. They took eight weeks and he could hardly walk the straight side of the school, I could have cried as he was such an easy pony. There seems to be obsession with schooling when young ponies have a very low boredom threshold, and getting them 'on the bit' seems to the be all when the pony can only just about get its self balanced and understanding basic aids.
Their are lots of people out there who think they know what they are doing and do not as well as people who are not open about a ponies problems.
I am quite happy to pay someone to visit my yard daily to do this, but I now want to make sure that I get what I am paying for.
 
When I was around 12 my mum offered my services to help someone back an 8 year old welsh ex brood mare. The little darling bucked me off on a daily basis for about 3 weeks, but we then went on to have great fun together . This was way back in the days before H & S, as long as there was no blood or bones sticking out I was just chucked back on again. I suspect social services would be called in if a mother volunteered her child for this nowadays.:D
 
Honetpot - an almost identical position

I have a friend with a competent 11 year old who has offered to back the pony but she won't have the knowledge to go from there in that she can ride but not fully understand the progression process

I would be happy to entrust the pony to a child if they knew what they were doing and it would seem that although they often have their own ponies or ride for others

The pony will hopefully go on to be a lead rein or first ridden pony so I need to know the foundations are in place before I start the search for the next rider
 
We are often asked to back/train horses and ponies at the owners farms but we've tried it that way once or twice and it really doesn't work so these days we will only do the work if they can come and stay at our farm. There is so much more that can be done in shorter time frames when they are right outside your door. You can also work around the weather easier that way or take 20 mins here and 20 mins there, rather than always stretching training times to one hour, which sometimes is too much for a young horse. We much prefer to do it slowly at the beginning and then once the horse 'gets it' we can step up the pace. Most owners who send their horses here ask for 60 days training but to be honest if the owners have already put in the groundwork time then most youngsters only stay here for 30 days. Occasionally we get a bit of a dufus horse (we have one here at the moment) who is at 40 days training and is only now coming along well. The owner of this horse generally sends us horses for the 60 days but there have only been a very few who have not gone home to her at 30 days. We charge a flat rate for horses/ponies to come here but of course there is livery on top however it still works out far cheaper pro rata than it would if we charged at an hourly rate to go to someone's home to do the work.
 
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