Horseback Riding Horse Purchase

Horseback Riding

Once we had purchased a horse for my daughter we began searching for a boarding stable for the horse. The cost is somewhat similar to the cost of putting your kid into an apartment at college. My first impression was that there is a wide range of accommodations available for horses. Some of the stables are very nice, well kept, have indoor arenas attached for the horseback riding lessons, and lots of grazing space. Others are dumps, with little in the way of facilities but a lot cheaper.

Our experience was that there are some stables which are run more as a hobby, usually located at someones home. Others are first class, located on a large piece of land, and with excellent facilities including indoor and outdoor riding arenas, tack rooms, waiting rooms, areas to park and store trailers, large grazing fields and more. Being somewhat cheap, my first choice was with a stable run by a well intentioned young woman whose husband was in the army and gone quite a bit. After all, the main goal was horseback riding, right?

There were only a few horses stabled there, but the facility was nice enough. However, after a short time the horse began acting up. Every time my daughter went to take a horseback riding lesson he was skittish, and did not seemed pleased. My daughter told me she thought something was not quite right, but we did not know what. We had also contracted with the stable owner to do some additional training of the horse when my daughter was not taking horseback riding lessons.

Well, one evening we showed up unannounced and found the trainer in the arena with the horse on a long lead, using a whip and really whacking the horse in frustration. As it turns out the stable owner had little, if any, experience in training horses, and got quite upset when the horse would not follow instructions. Another lesson learned about the proper training of a horse for horseback riding skills.

We took more time looking for the next stable, and finding a riding instructor and trainer who had a lot of horseback riding experience, great reputations and were willing to work with my daughter and her horse. This second stable was, of course, somewhat more expensive, but what a difference it made! The owner, riding instructor, trainer, ferrier and barn manager took a lot of time to talk with us, explain everything to us, and set us up with a great situation.

Within a very short time the horse was happy, my daughter was happy, and most of my problems went away. My daughter began to learn how to properly ride her horse through her horseback riding lessons, I learned how to help, and best of all they gave my daughter a job cleaning out stalls. While the boarding expenses, riding lessons and training costs were higher, everyone was a lot happier and I learned a lesson about being too cheap.

As it turned out my daughter could not decide whether she wanted to ride English or Western, so we needed additional tack until she could decide. A few more bucks and once again the world was right for my daughter and her sport of horseback riding.