- Breeding
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- The History of Horse Breeding
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- Horse Feeding
- You’ve Got the Right Feed, Now What?: Proper Feeding Practices
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- Horse Health Issues
- Common Horse Illnesses: Choke
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- Horse Training
- Let's Talk About Equine Probiotics - Equitivia
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- Horses & History
- Battle-Ready: A History of the War Horse
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- Nearly $7 Million Generated Annually for the District of Columbia
The Benefits and Drawbacks of an Indoor Arena
03/27/2009
When your horse farm has grown to a sufficient size, you may start thinking about the benefits of an indoor arena.
Lucky for us, every horse farm is not located in Southern California, where the weather is temperate (and dare we say perfect) year-round. But easy access to horses does have its drawbacks. If you have a horse farm in New England, Montana, or Colorado, you have probably experienced the bitter cold of winter. So while your horse farm is open for business April-November, come winter everything shuts down. While you could travel to a southern horse farm to coach or train, relocating can really hurt your horse farm’s income stream.
When your horse farm has grown to a sufficient size, you may start thinking about the benefits of an indoor arena. On the surface, an indoor arena seems like a no-brainer for any horse farm. You can train and conduct lessons throughout the winter, you can use it in the hot summer months, and you can use it whenever the weather gets nasty and rainy. If you needed to, an indoor arena could shelter hay storage from a sudden downpour, or shelter pastured horses during a cold snap. You could even use an indoor arena for promotional events like regional horse shows, attracting more attention for your horse farm.
But of course, for all the ways an indoor arena can be a boon to your horse farm, there are drawbacks. One of the first that comes to mind is cost, both obvious and hidden. Building an indoor arena is almost as challenging as building a house—it’s a massive undertaking which requires at least $50,000, and to finance that, most people will need a capital improvement loan. Once that loan is taken out, it has to be repaid, which means your horse farm will need to generate more income. This isn’t as impossible as it sounds. You can board more horses, or increase the number of horses you train on your horse farm. You can give more lessons, and rent out the indoor space. Whatever you do, make sure you have a 5-year plan to help offset the cost of building an indoor arena on your horse farm.
The hidden costs are more subtle. During the winter, your horses will remain on the horse farm, which means you will have to pay for winter tack, increased food rations, water heaters, and snow removal. You will also need an extra hand around the horse farm to maintain the arena and keep it in top shape. Then come advertising fees. In order to make the most of the horse farm addition and generate revenue, you’re going to have to market and advertise your indoor arena to those looking for riding clinics, horse shows, and indoor lessons. This also doesn’t have to be difficult: print out fliers, send out emails, host a free clinic, make a website. But what it does take is time—specifically time you would spend maintaining your horse farm. It also takes money to advertise.
However, once you have advertised to the right groups, an indoor addition to your horse farm could be a great passive cash flow. Let’s say you let the local pet store know you had an indoor arena that could be rented for activities. If a dog trainer wants to conduct a seminar, or some pig farmers wanted to have a small show, your name could be passed on. Then the business comes to your horse farm, and you don’t have to do anything other than open the door for an easy $200-$1,000 fee.
