I was having a chat with some students at TAFE today about the recent studs they’d been to visit as part of their course. It was pointed out (and amazed students) that one of the studs made all that they needed to cover the costs of employment of staff, maintenance of the property and care of horses in their stallion fees alone. The rest was profit.
On the Thoroughbred studs I’ve worked on, the main funds do indeed come from stallions and / or the cost of agistment / livery.
As the owner of a gelding that I ride on a weekly basis, I am thankful but surprised to find that it can cost me as little as $50 / month to pay to keep him on someone else’s property and this can include having access to jumps, large paddocks to ride in and an arena.
What you want in a paddock – plenty of grazing, strong, visible fencing and established trees.
He is currently in an area where it costs around $50 / week for the same facilities – thankfully I am able to work a few hours a week at this place rather than have to pay to keep him there. However, both of these fees are at a lower rate that one would expect to pay to enable their racehorse to have a spell between racing preps or a broodmare or yearling that is being housed on a stud.
My aim is to have around 150 acres where I can agist and rotate 50 horses over this amount of land. Of course, the 50 horses will be owned by other people paying to keep their equine/s on the property.
I am considering based on good grazing and fencing and some appealing facilities for horse riders (arena, jumps, round yard) to be able to feasibly charge $60 / month. For a year with 50 horses, this would total to an agistment income of $36,000.
Another paddock offering the shade of an established tree and a strong water source.
It isn’t unusual for a trainer to be paying around $20 / day for the agistment of a racehorse spelling between racing preps. Now arguably because this is for a couple of months, allowing the horse to recuperate before continuing to race, you would need a bigger client base to keep your paddocks with paying customers all year round.
However, it would be possible to have a smaller property, say 40 acres with 15 yards and to keep these yards full at $20 / day. Keeping 15 spellers on the property all year round (perhaps based on having a client base of between 60-100 horses) at a rate of $20 / day would bring in an annual income of $109,500.
Obviously it depends on where your interest lies, but for either form of agistment, there would need to be maintenance of fencing, pastures, a decent feed regime set up as well as the provision of roughage and perhaps the putting on and off of rugs.
Arguably with 15 spellers to look after, it would be possible for one staff member to deal with the daily feeding, checking and rugging – currently I work on a property and am in charge of 30 horses during the day and have previously been on a stud with one or two other staff and been in charge of 200 horses between us. 15 to look after in a day isn’t asking too much of one worker but with an income of over $100,000 it would be possible as the owner/manager to consider the part time or full time employment of two staff.
Whatever discipline you prefer, it’s worth considering what other places are charging for agistment and what services they offer as part of the package. As a riding property, as soon as you provide facilities like an arena and an area for trails or jumping, you can look at increasing your fee and allowing access to these facilities.
As a spelling property, perhaps a round yard and a walker are needed to be able to lightly exercise the young racehorses. Private paddocks will also cost more in fencing whereas with a riding agistment property, communal paddocks may be the way to go to spend less on fencing but still earn a decent amount due to more horses being paddocked together on a larger size of land.
If your passion is with caring for horses – whether they be yours or someone else’s – and you have the land to establish such a set up, perhaps spelling or agisting is the way to go.
“Closeness, friendship, affection: keeping your own horse means all these things – Bertrand Leclair”
tag: spelling, agistment, maintenance, fencing, horseriding, property management, trail riding, life with horses, pasture management
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