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Dave Ramsey and Financial Peace for Horse Owners

May 29, 2018
Posted by Stephanie L. Church, Editorial Director

Owning horses is expensive. Here are some horse-person-specific tips and tricks Stephanie learned through coordinating a financial planning class.

Topics: Blogs, Business Management, Farm and Barn, Farm and Barn, Horse Sense (and Sensibility), Welfare and Industry

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Budget for all of it: board, bedding, hay, feed and supplements, routine vet bills, tack. | Photo: The Horse/Anne M. Eberhardt

Back in my early days at The Horse, I traveled to Colorado Springs for a meeting. On a free afternoon, I went over to tour the U.S. Olympic Training Center. An exhibit showed side-by-side comparisons of the costs for each Olympic sport. Surprising to me was that shooting was up there on the scale, more expensive than most sports. But you can guess the most expensive one: Equestrian.

The other people on the tour marveled at the price tag. I nodded—this was nothing new to me.

Indeed, owning horses is expensive and a lifestyle choice. But if you’re reading this right now, you’ve made that choice (or are about to), and you cannot fathom it any other way. The day’s complications fade as soon as you get to the barn and spend a few minutes with your horse. When coordinating your social calendar, you’ve been known to consult the horse show/trail ride/rodeo/hunter pace calendar first. Before opening your wallet to purchase a flight, you stop to think whether it’s time to reorder joint supplements, and then you prioritize the purchases.

Or, maybe you don’t stop and think. Maybe you just pull out your credit card and hope it’ll work out later

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Written by:

Stephanie L. Church, Editorial Director

Stephanie L. Church, Editorial Director, grew up riding and caring for her family’s horses in Central Virginia and received a B.A. in journalism and equestrian studies from Averett University. She joined The Horse in 1999 and has led the editorial team since 2010. A 4-H and Pony Club graduate, she enjoys dressage, eventing, and trail riding with her former graded-stakes-winning Thoroughbred gelding, It Happened Again (“Happy”). Stephanie and Happy are based in Lexington, Kentucky.