Loaning - A Practical Solution or a Recipe for Disaster?
A personal experience of a Stabletalk reader

Having decided that I could not sell my beloved horse when I went to university I decided the best solution would be to loan her out. After many months of careful consideration and reading anything and everything on loaning I decided to go ahead and advertise her. My horse had been mistreated in the past so needed a sympathetic,experience rider and I reflected this in my advert. First lesson of loaning - nobody ever reads your adverts properly!

After advertising for a 16+ rider with at least 3 years experience and clearly stating that my horse had to stay on her present yard, I had hundreds of calls from 7-14 yr olds who had "ridden in a riding schoool" and wanted to move my horse. Eventually I thought I had found a few suitable candidates, so to make sure they were really interested I let them come and meet my horse, but asked them to return a second time if they wished to ride her.Second rule of loaning - this roots out all those people who like to spend there weekends riding other people's horses for free with no intention of loaning/buying them.

Finally after 3 months a suitable loanee!! Experienced, used to dealing with mistreated horses and a horse owner in the past. So I set about having a contract written up. Rule 3 of loaning - never ever loan your horse without one! As I wanted to ride my horse when I returned home from university I thought it was only fair that I offered to pay half her shoeing fees etc,etc. The deal was done, I would pay for half her shoeing, alternate bags of feed, livery (not including hay and straw) all worming and vaccinations. In return my horse would be kept on her present yard, schooled, and in terms of injuries, any injuries caused by the loanee would be paid for by the loanee.

Ahh the perfect solution, I could go off to university safe in the knowledge that my horse was still under the watchful eye of my friends. I rang the loanee every week to check on my horses progress and she reassured me she was fine. It was only several weeks later that one of my friends rang to let me know that she was in fact completely unable to catch my horse, and relied on my friends to get her. Very strange I thought., but nothing else was said so I assumed every thing was fine.

Rule 4 of loaning - assuming is always a big mistake. I returned home 3 months later highly excited at the prospect of seeing my horse and was completely horrified at the sight that met me. My horse was seriously under weight, miserable, totally uncatchable, petrified of being handled and standing on a concrete bed. As it turned out the loanee would get some one to catch my horse, ride her, bring her back dripping with sweat, leave her in her box on her own (which I aked her not to do as she box walks and gets very stressed) then return several hours later to turn her out.

My friends didn't want to tell me what was really going on in case I didn't believe them, and I think they partly couldn't believe it was really happening. So a word of warning... in my case the loanee had livery, half shoes, and alternate bags of feed paid for, no worming or vaccination costs, and as it turned out she only had to pay for hay, as the farm had excess straw which the yard was allowed to take for free, yet she still could not be bothered to look after my horse properly.

The feed was there to keep her weight on, the straw was there to bed her down on; and in my eyes the loanee was getting a very good deal, yet it still wasn't enough. I spent the next 6 months trying to retrieve the horse I left behind, and it was exceptionally hard work. To all those potential loaners and loanees - if you have to loan out your horse look very careful and don't take anything for granted, make spot checks on your horse and don't be fooled into thinking that a good loan deal will ensure that your horse is properly looked after.

To all loanees please respect the fact that the horse belongs to some one else that loves them very much and if you can't cope or lose interest, please give them back, isn't this part of the reason for loaning rather than buying?! Loaners would prefer there horse back than to have it left unloved and uncared for. I hope this is of some use to any potential loaners!!