Advise on Working Livery

J

JessieB

New Member
May 30, 2008
6
0
0
Hi everyone!

I'm new here and this is my first thread! I'm hoping to buy my first horse (whoopee!) next year and as I work 9-5 have been looking into working livery. Does anyone keep their horse on working livery at the moment and how many hours do you get to ride your horse each week?

How many hours does the yard use your horse for and are there any 'set in stone' rules as to how many hours they can use your horse for? Shuold your horse just be used for riding lessons or can people book your horse to take it out on a hack?

Is it usual for them to ask you to pay for new shoes and worming too or should a % of that be shared?

Any advise good or bad points welcome! Many thanks:cool:
 
Firstly, welcome to NR! :D
Not sure on some of the more owner-y side of things, but at my RS there's quite a lot of working livery horses/ponies.

Basically they get used for about 4 hours a day, except on their 2 days off - both days are closed to clients, one day the horses can be ridden, but the other horses can't be ridden at all, as it is their day off after all hehe:)

The horses are used in lessons, and can be taken out on hacks, but only if hacks are booked, and it depends on how 'bombproof' the horse is, and the ability of the rider; generally only RS horses are used on hacks, as they tend to be the more well-mannered ones.

A lot of the working livery horses are slightly harder to ride, as obviously they haven't been bought with the fact tha all abilities will ride them, so most of our working liveries are only used in the intermediate to advanced groups.

I'd say one of the best things would be your horse gets schooled quite nicely, if used in the higher, more advanced lessons, with a good rider, although this can backfire, and horses can learn very bad habits.

That's probably about as much as I can offer in help, as I don't have my own horse, so yeah, good luck with it!:):)
 
Hiya,

Welcome to NR

The one thing that puts me off Working livery is that I like to make snap decisions about going for a hack or doing a bit of school work with Tyler and if on WL that may not be possible if he has been used for a lesson already.

I tried it for one week as I bought Tyler from a RS and didnt like it. moving him to a full liver yard within a week. I have just recently got my RI to school him twice a week for me.

It can work for some people and I have heard both good stories and bad stories. There have been a few threads about it on here.

Personally I wouldn't go for it (I am waaay too jealous and possesive (xcuse the spelling lol, but it can work :) )
 
I couldn't do it either.
Several friends of mine have used working livery in various parts of the country and they all had one thing in common - they hardly ever got to ride!
Their owners would turn up, hat in hand, to find that they were either still sweaty and tacked up from their last ride, or out in a lesson, even if the owners had specifically said they would be coming. Only one is still on working livery, all the others moved away, saying that they felt that they paid the bills but never got to spend time with their horses.
If your horse ends up being a favourite with pupils, or is very good for novices, then they will be busier than horses who are only suitable for fairly advanced riders. The yard I worked at had three horses on working livery, but we tried to be as flexible for the owners as we could, but sometimes it just couldn't be helped. The owners were all ladies of a certain age and were very understanding, and for them working livery was great because they either didn't have time to ride regularly or because they had health issues which restricted them.

As has been said, a bonus of working livery is that your horse is regularly exercised and, if used in the right kinds of classes, can be schooled and trained to a pretty high level. The downside is that you have little to no control over who uses your horse and how often, and sometimes tack is "mislaid" or swapped out as well.

It was never an option for me - I monitor my horse's exercise and feed accordingly and he is so sensitive and easily upset through misunderstanding that I am careful who rides him, although I do love watching my best friend or my RI on him :D Plus, I consider doing all the jobs part of the perks of ownership, whereas most working livery arrangements I've come across mean that the horses are looked after with the rest of the RS horses.

At the end of the day, it's down to personal choice and depends on the yar that you use. Some people find it works really well, but other people aren't keen.
 
As the owner of a RS I don't like working liveries as I think they are seldom fair to the horse. I like to plan my horses work carefully to get a mix of experienced and less experienced riders and working hours according to how they are going . That is very difficult to do if I also have to factor in owners use.

I think they can be useful if your riding time is severely limited or if your horse needs more work then you can give but generally I would suspect that in that case you would be better off in a share or having RS lessons/hacks
 
At my local RS it is inclusive of all food, bedding, wormer, hay, shoes etc. Staff care for it 24/7 but you are welcome to help out whenever. The horses are only used for 2 lessons sat, one lesson wed and one lesson friday. RS does not do hacks and horse would NEVER be used for more than 4 lessons a week.

It doesn't suit everyone and obviously your horse has to be suitable for the RS:)
 
There are pros & cons - a lot depends on the horse & the RS so it's impossible to generalise.

I would strongly advise that you get everything laid out in writing if you go down this route - eg hours used & when, who pays for shoes, what happens if your tack is damaged, who pays vets bills if horse is injured in a lesson, what happens if horse is out of work for a while, what level lessons he's used for, size of riders, how horse is kept etc etc etc!

Just because you work 9-5 doesn't mean you can only do working livery. If you get a horse that can live out most of the year (& a yard that allows this) then your stable jobs are significantly reduced & the need for daily exercise isn't so great unless you need him super fit for something. Or on a yard it may be possible to share things like bringing in & out with another owner so it's easier to fit around work or some places do assisted DIY. If you get somewhere with a school then the hours you can ride are much more flexible, being seen on the roads is usually a bigger problem than being able to see enough to ride.
 
I work 9-5 but have the horses on grass livery.
I could never let anyone else have that level of involvement with my horse, unless it was one person e.g. a trust sharer, etc.
Winters are really hard, it's true, but summers are fun and can ride whenever and however long I want + weekends feel so free :).
 
Joy was on working livery which is how I found her and ended up falling in love and buying her.

The first thing I did was to move her ASAP.

The RS expected to use her most of the time, in fact her owner only had her on a Sunday

Not only that she was badly in need of schooling, still is actually but I use her for hacking out and not in the school which is what she was used for. It struck me as poor that she needed schooling and bringing on and this wasn't happening.

Not only that but I bought Joy as a pet, the way the school horses were cared for was not the level of care I would wish for any pet of mine. The RS horses were economic entities.

Had Joy been kept on working livery then I would have been unable to affect her way of going or have had little impact on how she was cared for. That's not what owning a horse is all about for me so WL would not have satisfied my ownership ideals.
 
Hi Everyone,

Many thanks for your advise. The RS I ride at look after their horses very well but yes there would be restrictions on when I could ride my horse, which to be honest like 'xjenniferx' I would have issues with.

The RS and livery yards in my area all charge a fortune for full and part livery and others just offered DIY but nothing in between so my search has been very frustrating - however - i have just found a lovely farm 2.5 miles away that offers assisted DIY which is perfect (and very affordable!). I didn't know the farm was there (geographically challenged!) they are full at the moment but have Assisted DIY spaces for the end of next summer (perfect). I'm so glad I started all my research a year early!

Thanks again for the advise and for welcoming me to the site! :D
 
the RS i used to work at paid 50% of evrything for the working livery horses, eg shoes, vets fees. they were quite flexible in that if the owner turned up to ride, they would usually use a different horse in a lesson so the owner could ride theirs. the horses were used maximum of 3 hours a day but most did 1 and a half or so. most f the working liveries were teenages horses that helped out down at the Rs so that may be where the favorable treatment came from..... i think its a useful idea but could never do it as i would hate anyone but me to ride!!!
 
our WL ponies do a maximum of 8 hours a week, 3 of those on a saturday morning (and they rarely do that much - sometimes in the summer holidays not very rarely in school term time). we don't do school rides on saturday afternoon or sundays so owners can ride and use the facilities, as we are as much a liveryyard as a school we need ot accommodate the liveries happily.

we do hacks and lessons, so horses - depending on suitability of course - do both. we ask owners to let us know if they are definitely coming up after work, for instanc,e so we can swap their horse from the after-school rides if possible.
 
I don't think you would ever build up a firm and loving relationship with your horse if he was in a riding school enviroment. After all how would he know who his owner was if all and sundry are riding and caring for him, also I would be well jealous of anyone else on my horse, buts that's just me.
My boy is ex riding school, they were looked after 'just ok', but he has blossomed this past year, we have an amazing bond now, but it took several months before he relaxed and I won his trust. He would be horrified if he had to go back to a RS.
I'm lucky in that I can manage DIY, but if I were you I would explore all options including getting a sharer before going down the W/L route.
 
nonsense - my pony has been on working livery for 20 years and there is nothing wrong with our relationship. we have plenty of working liveries, i've seen it from both sides f the fence as owner and staff. if it's a good school and the pony's welfare is the most important, then it can work very well.
 
we have a couple of working liveries where i work and they treat them the same as full liveries (as in YOU pay for everything) only difference is they get used sometimes in lessons.
They are very fair over it though, the horses are only used in lessons that the owners are happy with (i.e- if you have a youngster u may only want it to partake in lessons where riders are of a good stage 3 stage 4 standard, u wont want beginners on it) and the hours it is used is strictly worked around the hours the owner is there. So owner gets complete say in what horse does and when which i think is fab as i know many riding schools that treat the owner as a sharer.
 
I had Ziz on working livery when I first got her, it was almost perfect for us, she got ridden and kept fit by both clients and working pupils, she was given a variety of work and was cared for much better than I knew how to. I was the odd one out at this yard though in that I actually turned up to ride her a lot and it was the difficulty of managing my time with her that caused me to leave that yard. I learnt loads while I was there about welfare/care and that has definitely stood me in good stead.
 
Mehitabel said:
nonsense - my pony has been on working livery for 20 years and there is nothing wrong with our relationship. we have plenty of working liveries, i've seen it from both sides f the fence as owner and staff. if it's a good school and the pony's welfare is the most important, then it can work very well.
Click to expand...

Its different for different horses, ecki hated being used in a r.s! She put up with it for about a year then started bucking(tellin me she was not happy) so we moved. Best thing i had done!! I have a much better and stronger relationship cause she knows who her mummy is
 
We only have 1 working livery at the yard.It works out ok as his owners are away during the week and only have a lesson on a Saturday. On a Sunday we ask them if they will be down,if yes we may use pony for 1 lesson at opposite end of the day but if we can get away with not using him at all we will.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
newrider.com
Top Bottom