Good training facilities?

[Natasha D]

100 by 80 arena, 10 acres grazing, access to over 50 miles of trails that include, bridges, lakes, streams, huge culverts to walk through, deer... within a 5 minutes ride. I only have 1 horse, who will be kept in a separate field. I only take on 1 horse to train at a time so that 1 horse gets the big majority of the attention and training. I have a part time job and train because I love to, I've had classes at OSU for it and hands on seminars. Horse would have 24/7 turnout time and be worked a minimum of 2 hours a day. This is just to train a beginning horse. I'd teach basic groundwork skills, trailer loading, walking manners, lower head to be worked with ... then go to saddle work. I'm proven in what i can do. I'm 17 and now deciding I want to charge to train horses, i have a part-time job but i will always have time for the horse. What would you be willing to pay me? How about $200 & I'd keep the horse a minimum of 2 weeks, longer if the horse needs it at no extra charge.

[*r s c*]

At 17, i have to question whether you really have the qualifications needed to call your self a professional trainer. You may be a good rider, and be almost ready to be professional but I am guessing at only 17 yrs old you havn't had a huge variety in the horses you have trained. Maybe you should look into apprenticing under an experianced trainer for awhile before taking on clients of your own. Apprenticing will give you not only the experiance with training different types of horses, but will also give you an insight of the buisness aspect of training, and how to deal with clients. Just taking a few classes, and attending seminars doesn't give you anywhere near enough experiance to handle the types of horses you will get in a training program. Do you have any show or competitive accomplishments to back up your skills? Remember that if you want to show, if you are training horses you will have to show with the professionals in the open classes which are far more competitive then the amature classes. It may be a good idea for you to show as an amature for awhile, get some points and accomplishments before you become a trainer. Also I agree that taking in horses for 30 days is a much better plan then just 2 weeks. You wont be able to accomplish much in just 2 weeks of work. Don't say you will keep a horse longer then 2 weeks for no extra charge, many horses will not be where their owner wants them to be in just 2 weeks. You could end up with a difficult owner that takes advantage of this, or a difficult horse that may need months of work.