Which Option Would You Choose

[rizzodm]

1. Dressage lessons 1x a week. Use of horse anytime you want to ride. Horse is older but still fun to ride and lots of years left. Will not be able to advance through the levels but good for basic dressage.

2. Own your own horse. Now that your paying the bills you can only take the occasional lesson.

Dawn

[Mimi La Rue]

#2 :yes:

[arabhorse2]

Either way, you're only take one lesson a week? Get your own horse. :D

[rizzodm]

More like occasioanl clinic and see if I could work for lessons.

[lalahartma1]

#1 for a while until you get bored.

[arabhorse2]

Hmmmm. Then don't buy a greenie, because with your schedule you're going to want a horse that already has some experience and knows how to handle different situations.

You don't have to buy, you know. There are a lot of nice horses for lease out there. You can get your feet wet, and not be the ultimate decision maker.

Horses are expensive. What happens if your buddy goes lame, or gets sick? Can you afford two horses if you can't ride the first? Plus, vet bills are outrageous, and you have to be willing and ready to make some hard and fast decisions concerning care when it's your own animal.

[bort84]

#2 for me. But I'm fairly experienced at maintaining/training a horse, so it kind of depends on what you're looking for. If you wanted a year of learning before investing in a horse, I'd definitely do #1 but I'd try to make lessons 2x a week whenever you could afford it. Also, with #1, how much are you paying for the horse? Is it like a lease where you have to pay his bills?

[rizzodm]

Lala, I am bored with 1 right now:(

The whole what if the horse gets lame or sick thing keeps me from jumping into ownership.

[rizzodm]

#2 for me. But I'm fairly experienced at maintaining/training a horse, so it kind of depends on what you're looking for. If you wanted a year of learning before investing in a horse, I'd definitely do #1 but I'd try to make lessons 2x a week whenever you could afford it. Also, with #1, how much are you paying for the horse? Is it like a lease where you have to pay his bills?

Lease is cheap $50 a month owner pays farrier and vet. The draw back is I am topping out on what I can learn on this mare.

[Angel Undercover]

Number 1. Personally, I'm at a stage in my riding where I will benefit the most from being able to move up to different horses as my riding progresses. I can move from a mare that I can show up to around 3', to a horse I could show AA, or my coach's old grand prix horse. And all of these horses have been there done that, so I can focus on me. I'm also a student right now with very little time (or money!), so it doesn't make sense for me to spend $600++ a month if I can really only ride once or twice. I'm considering pbing but I'm thinking that even 3 rides a week may not be feasible if I get the job I'm hoping for.

If you are getting bored with #1 right now, can you find a similar scenario with another horse? Or maybe try to mix things up a bit with current horse? Can the horse jump at all? If not can you hack a bit for a change of scenery? Good luck, I was in a similar situation not long ago, and it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do. :)

[Trevelyan96]

Why limit yourself to those 2 choices? I would look for a part lease on a more advanced horse or something with more potential. There are a lot of them out there.

[Wonders12]

It's really hard to answer this question because we don't know your riding level. I would say 1 because (usually) the lesson is going to take you farther than a horse can (if that makes sense). Plus, is you can use the horse whenever you want without paying the bills... that sounds pretty good to me.

Also, I'm leasing a horse but more or less in the #2 situation and I'm soooo glad I don't own my horse. Something happened, I lost a lot of my income and was in a car accident so I get to pay for that too. Now the horse will be going home in a few weeks (for unrelated reasons) and I'm glad that's 1 less thing to worry about.

I'm so sad he's leaving, but at least then I'll be able to eat more than PB&J :winkgrin:

[bort84]

I'd definitely look for another lease option. I had a great part lease for awhile on a lovely ASB mare because I wanted to keep riding saddle seat some but had another dressage/jumping prospect at the time. I did a half lease, and all I had to pay was half the board. The owner paid for the vet and farrier. She just really wanted to keep the mare in the barn (she was the barn manager). She had a cheap pasture she could keep her in, but it was far away, and she liked having her close. Plus, I put a lot of work into her green mare, and it was a win/win situation.

If you're not ready for ownership yet, there are likely some good lease options out there.

[Ambrey]

I agree, don't jump into ownership without full understanding of the costs involved and a "slush fund" for emergencies. Are there any more advanced horses around for lease? It seems to me that in my area, everyone's trying to lease out their horses.

[rizzodm]

Thank you everyone for your input. It would seem fate may have decided for me. I went out to ride yesterday afternoon and my leasee was lame. Probally kicked buy another horse we don't know yet but she was hurting. The vet will be out tomorrow. So my trainer has another I can ride. He is a warmblood trained through 3 rd level and is a been there done that kind of guy. He is used for lessons but I can ride him for my lessons and the days he is not being used. Funny how things work out.

Dawn