Why are lessons so expensive?

The simple answer? Well, horses are expensive. But let's break it down so you can learn a little about the horse industry and why this skillset can be such an expensive one to acquire.

First, let's consider what it costs to provide a riding lesson. Realize, that every hour of instruction for those who need access to a lesson horse must cover the wages of two professionals - a highly skilled human with great horsemanship and teaching skills, and an experienced, well tempered, and physically capable horse. Both are working to cover the costs of their housing, food, health care, and education.

I don't think I need to outline what it may cost to support a human, but I will point out that riding instructors are highly skilled professionals and their education often costs them thousands of dollars and took much longer than 4 years of intensive study and practice.

For the horse on the other hand, you may know less in terms of what it costs to support their basic needs. And the costs can vary widely depending on the individual horse. At the low end, caring for a horse will cost about $7,000 a year in our area, or about $550 a month. And that is if you are doing all the daily care work yourself. At the higher end it can cost $20,000 or more annually - especially if you're not doing the daily care and are participating in a competitive discipline with added costs. For a detailed breakdown of that, check out our post about the costs of owning a horse here: https://www.riding4lifeequineenterprises.com/post/how-much-does-a-horse-cost-anyway

Annual horse care costs in the South Okanagan - compiled by Riding 4 Life

As for a horse's education, it's important to know that your lesson horse likely has a decade or more of experience with skilled humans before they were ever asked to work with a novice or beginner rider. Not just any horse can easily become a lesson horse. They need to have an appropriate temperament, be physically up to the task, and have hundreds of hours invested in their education about humans. By the time a horse enters our lesson program, they've had tens of thousands of dollars in care and training invested in them.

As for some of our horses at Riding 4 Life who may have had different journeys, they too spend a few years settling into our herd with great care and training before they're ready for work with beginners. It's not uncommon for a horse to have logged almost 1000 hours in training with us before they ever 'work' a single hour in our programs with beginner or therapeutic clients.

And once our two valued staffers are paid for their work, there are significant costs related to the business itself. Below is a breakdown of all the costs associated with running Riding 4 Life in the South Okanagan in 2024.

The first thing to notice is our facilities cost. Finding venues that will not just board our horses, but allow us to deliver our services on site is extremely rare. We have been very fortunate over the years to be welcomed by facility owners (usually professionals themselves) to set up shop and do our thing. Most professionals struggle to offer services unless they own the facility or are the sole occupants. Neither of these were an option for us until we were able to take on the ranch in Oliver and run it exclusively.

Annual R4L operating costs in 2024

The other detail here is lack of agricultural land near urban centers. We're often competing with other commercial or industrial operations for an affordable lease rate and often can't find appropriate agricultural land. This struggle is exacerbated by the purchasing power of more lucrative agricultural businesses like wineries who are keen to operate in this area. We need a minimum of 5 acres to house the number of horses needed for our programs according to RDOS bylaws. The cost of that amount of land is far out of reach if we're trying to pay a mortgage just one riding lesson at a time.

The next most significant cost is hay. Horses eat a lot of it. Ours average about 22lbs each daily. Fortunately, this cost has not increased as much as we feared in the past couple of years. With that said, we chose hay that is slightly more expensive than the average in our area and is of greater quality. By paying a bit more for hay, we spend considerably less for veterinary and other health care costs like supplements and added nutrition. Our cost per horse on those items is well below average - especially given that we have mostly mature horses with greater nutritional challenges like metabolic issues and older teeth. This is a good example of how our experience and skillset helps us control costs.

Aside from instructor's fees, the next largest expense is simply horse care. That's the paid hours required to muck paddocks, give meds, feed supplements, do minor wound care, haul and stack hay, maintain the ranch, and care for our equipment. Basically anything that needs to get done to maintain our horses and facility in the background before a single lesson is booked.

Speaking of booking lessons. In 2024, Riding 4 Life delivered about 2000 hours of instruction. With that data we can calculate our cost per lesson and show what portion of your lesson fee goes to what.

Cost per hour to deliver riding lessons in 2024

It's important to note that this calculation uses the following over-all costs:

Horse feed & care: $58,000

Instructor fees: $47,400

Facility, admin, etc.: $33,500.

You'll notice the facility, and hay costs used here are lower than above thanks to all the boarders we have at the ranch. Their board fees offset most of those costs allowing us to run programs at a great venue more affordably. And if you've got a knack for noticing numbers, you've likely already noticed that our cost per hour in 2024 was $69.59 which left us operating at a deficit with some services which led us to increase some of our fees.

In addition to increasing fees we have (by attrition) reduced the number of horses in our teaching crew and have no plans to add more horses to the herd at this time. We will also see a decrease in our facility costs in 2025 making our programs sustainable again.

So yes, horses are expensive, and they're worth it! Riding 4 Life knows how valuable this experience can be to the community and we are committed to providing it in the most ethical and economical way for many years to come.