Should/Can I Buy A Horse and Ride It Each Day To The Office/ XC Practice?

I rather like horses--brings back the riding lessons from childhood--so I'm biased in favor of this plan, although I would also share the others' warnings that horses are pretty high-maintenance animals, so maybe you do all that care and feeding and grooming, plus invest a lot of $ into vet and other expenses, and so on... to ride two miles a day.

Of course, you could hire a groom to take care of the horse, saving you a lot of work and helping reduce unemployment.

Maybe better than buying a horse for a two-mile commute, you'd be better off to dive into this whole thing--take up something like show jumping, dressage, etc. to, as it were, amortize the investment and get more time on your horse... maybe even win awards for your equestrian performances.

Or rent a horse from a local stable for those times when you're in the mood to ride to work, then return horse to stable at the end of the day. Make sure it's a horse that takes kindly to riders it doesn't know.

dpmrunner wrote:

Maybe better than buying a horse for a two-mile commute, you'd be better off to dive into this whole thing--take up something like show jumping, dressage, etc. to, as it were, amortize the investment and get more time on your horse... maybe even win awards for your equestrian performances.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying-- how does doing more with the horse (jumping/dressage/whatever) make up for the upfront cost of maintaining the horse?

Also-- assuming that size of pasture is not an issue-- how many hours a day does one need to spend to take care of a horse?

Here's the place I was talking about. You can adopt a Nevada Mustang from the Federal Government:

http://www.kbrhorse.net/wclo/blmnev01.html

4runner wrote:

[quote]dpmrunner wrote:

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying-- how does doing more with the horse (jumping/dressage/whatever) make up for the upfront cost of maintaining the horse?

Also-- assuming that size of pasture is not an issue-- how many hours a day does one need to spend to take care of a horse?

Re. the first point, mainly kidding around... but figure if you're going to have a horse, why not take the time to enjoy the animal's capabilities? (But then again, if he just wants to commute via horseback, I suppose it wouldn't make sense to go all out... again, more or less being facetious).

Second point: I have seen varied estimates but I tend to trust university sites:

While I'm less of a fan of "yahoo answers," I thought the comment on this site (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100523163822AAxtUQw) was pretty much on target, based on people I know who have owned horses:

"Also consider if you want to give up a huge chunk of your life, something not tallied in the bill. Forget a social life unless you can afford full board which generally is $450-550 on average a month. You'll me mucking, cleaning, grooming, working, etc. It takes up as much time as a part time job does a week 20-30 hours."

Which isn't to say not to do it--just consider costs (time and $).

Variant of Murphy's Law: "Nothing is as easy as it looks."

I hope you aren't planning on jetting off to Stanford, Berlin, Diamond Leagues etc... stables cost a fortune.

Way better to make some horsey friends and borrow theirs for effect a couple of times.

I think he should just run to work.

Thanks.

Just wanted to make sure that dressage/jumping really wasn't so profitable as to make up for the cost of the horse...

none of the horse sports are profitable except racing and in racing most of the meaningful profit comes from having a high fee stud. You make your money in the breeding barn.

trigger and buttercup wrote:

none of the horse sports are profitable except racing and in racing most of the meaningful profit comes from having a high fee stud. You make your money in the breeding barn.

Yes, and even that is only profitable for a smaller minority of owners. Overall the game is a money loser but you have the potential to hit it big.

If you do get a horse, you might want to consider investing in "body glide?"

Also if you ever decide you want to "compete" or show off your horse, we do have a great show out here in the West.

Good Luck.

Rojo, don't do it!

Horses are pure evil, and if one doesn't want you on its back anymore, you AREN'T. There isn't an experienced horse person out there who hasn't been thrown good at least once. If you've not yet been thrown, it's still coming if you buy a damn horse. Horses suck.

You should use www.666energy.com to get to wherever you need to go.