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[quote=Anonymous]How long is a piece of string?

At a bare minimum, you’re looking at $1,500 per horse per month for board/vet/farrier at a barn within an hour of the Beltway. Add in training, special care (clipping, blankets, grooming, tacking and untacking, special snowflake feed or turnout, chiropractic, massage…), complex shoeing needs, or regular supplements/meds and you could easily double that figure without even trying.

Budget saving an additional $10k a year for A Very Special Vet Visit because horses. The year you don’t spend it on a nasty cut, dramatic lameness, Lyme treatment, or chasing down some vague sense of unease, you can transfer it to Dover to spend on lost, broken or new tack. Blanket repair or replacement. A new bit or three to try. Saddle fitting to address the lameness and/or vague sense of unease. Buying a new set of fly boots every week between April and October because the barn staff puts them on in a hurry and they disappear in the back 40.

The “doing stuff” line item can be as little as a tank of gas to go ride the trails at area local/state/national parks (once you’ve bought a truck and trailer, of course), or as much as $5-7k per weekend to do a high-level show. In between, you’ve got clinics ($150-$500), local shows ($200-$1,000, depending on discipline), foxhunting (~$2,500 for a family subscription, plus additional for donations and other activities), and a host of other things.

Bear in mind that this doesn’t include the actual acquisition cost of the horse(s). That price can range from free to Bill Gates, depending on connections, talent, riding discipline, etc.

If you like this woman and like the world she moves in (Olympian equestrians are cool until you ask them about their coke habits, infidelity episodes, challenges with human relationships, and/or eating disorders), ask her what her goals are for her and her horse(s). Add a zero to any budget figure she casually tosses out.[/quote]

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