Equestrian Center

[H.B. Userman]

I've never heard of this. This will be an interesting market analysis. I would love to hear any positive suggestions.

I'm appraising a proposed boarding facility that will be using the concept of "natural horsemanship". It's basically the "green" version of raising and training horses. There'll be a 20K sf Coverall arena, a high end tack room and 2 story lounge overlooking the arena, 2,500 SF earth-berm home (living quarters for 2 trainers) and all the other neccessary components EXCEPT for stalls! The horses will be contained in tracks instead, outside.

If anyone knows of a facility, anywhere with a similar concept please inform me. Thanks

 

[nauthead]

That's a new one on me and I'm in the county that claims to be the horse capital of the world. I'm not sure how a horse person would react to a boarding facility with no stalls.

 

[Pamela Crowley (Florida)]

What does it have to make a 'horse' facility?

 

[Sheikh Yerbouti]

I know less than nothing about horses, but the phrase "natural horsemanship" comes from an outfit in Pagosa Springs, CO called Parelli Natural Horsemanship. I guess they have a pretty large following. You might google them to find out what you can. Maybe they know of some other facilities like this.

 

[Wendy]

Wouldn't some kind of shelter for the horses in a Wisconsin winter be prudent?

I know the wild one survive outside......I could probably survive in a cave with a fire, but I don't want to. Seems like a horse might like to get out of the elements as well.

When we had horses, they were happy to help themselves to the comfort of the barn on a nasty night (they had the freedom of pasture or barn as they desired). And this was in Florida.

Intersting assignment - Good luck!

 

[Ken B]

I would think Ray Miller could be a pretty good source of info on this topic.

 

[PLCG]

There'll be a 20K sf Coverall arena, a high end tack room and 2 story lounge overlooking the arena, 2,500 SF earth-berm home (living quarters for 2 trainers) and all the other neccessary components EXCEPT for stalls! The horses will be contained in tracks instead, outside.


The arena and home sound spacious and high end but how do you train these horses in the winter when living outside is going to give them heavy coats? Hard work would get them wet and then you have to get them dried out before they are put back outside. It sounds like they will have a lot of loss of use during the cold weather.

I am not sure what a "track" is. Is it a fenced area?

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

If anyone knows of a facility, anywhere with a similar concept please inform me. Thanks

There is one about a mile from my house...I think Pirelli was mentioned - They have classes in 'soft' handling of horses, board horse and apparently riders...Have weekend expositions etc.

It is a fad for rich folks. It will go away. But PM me and I will try to remember and write their phone number down. I think the people running it are Banker/developers by the name of Mathias out of Springdale, AR.

 

[Scott Lanz]

My brother uses this type of training for his horse. He does mounted patrol.

A three sided shelter is fine for horses in the Wisconsin winter. They grow a winter coat. Maybe in a very extreme cold snap you could move them inside, but otherwise outside is fine.

It sounds like the earth berm home may suffer a bit in desirability being outside the norm. Stalls could be added anytime to "cure" this second deficiency

 

[Farm Gal]

Terril - the really good operators of this type of method are going to attract a following among the folks who have the kind of serious $$$ to pay the bills - and there will be those who can afford to and want to pay to play with a 'natural' horse... Frankly thats how horses OUGHT to be stabled anyway! It is far healthier for a horse to live on and in the natrual environment!

As to the going away/Fad issue? Not so much: Think on it - less shoveling of manure and stable chores, lower cost of operation in that sense... and the very wealthy can have a feel good and impeccably trained horse as a result...

There will be a short list of highly succesful operators of this nature. Kind of like the top racing stables - those who do what they do the best will thrive even in tough times. The rest will have overimproved properties which will go begging when they deep-six on feed costs.

Gatlin -

You probably want to Google for ALL the 'natural horsemanship' type gurus. This actually may be a REAL wide range for possible similar properties - even international!

You may want to ask who (if anyone) else has built something like this: Dennis Reis, Clinton Anderson (Aussie), Buck Brannaman, Mark Rashid, Monty Roberts, Ray Hunt, Steve Jefferys, Pat Parelli are good places to start... Some of those guys are mostly retired, but would know who's who and where they are! There are about 8 who are highly prominant - most have more traditional stabling arrangements. Most of them also operate in climates of less extreme nature than WI - and have stalls/runs and more traditional stabling facilities...

Not sure of the advisability of chasing the 'cost to cure' for installation of stalls etc... as there will be a LOT of those facilities available as existing stable operators go belly upm2:. There are always a LOT of those in tough times as horses are a pretty expensive hobby - similar to if not exceeding boats as holes you throw money into. Discretionary funds activities get cut deep when times get tough.

However you won't have as much physical depreciation (superadequacy) in what you describe and the facility may have alternate H&BU depending on location... like a really cheap place to park SUV's and Motor homes which only get used once every three years or so - can't be sold for near what the owners have in em and are too pricy to store someplace else!

Please keep me apprised of your progress, we are seeing more facilities edging that way down here...