The Lovingood sisters created a club for people to lease horses.

A New Business Model

What Rich, Sanders and others have found is that demand for leasing is strong. It fills the void left since lia-bility issues have eliminated so many hack stables where people were once able to try riding as a sport and enjoy riding time even if they could not afford horse ownership.

Like Rich, Kathy Lovingood and her sister, Mary Lovingood Gallant, started out with a business plan for Lovingood Springs Farm in Louisville, Tennessee, that included zero income from leasing. They planned, says Lovingood, to make 100 percent of their income from boarding. Less than a year after they opened, a friend asked her to help him get ready for a two-week vacation ride. She realized they were not set up to respond to that kind of request but she saw opportunity in her friend’s need.

The result was creation of the Trail Riding Club, a variant on the typical leasing situation that now provides 50 percent of Lovingood Springs Farm’s income. The Club owns its 10 horses and for $100 per calendar year, a family of up to four individuals becomes a part owner of them. Club members then pay for ride time at the rate of $25 an hour, $35 for two hours, or $50 for the day. Members of the Rocky Top Club can pay $200 monthly for unlimited riding. Riders who own their horses can join the club for $100 annually and enjoy group activities and access to trails on the farm’s 1,000 acres. “I tell people it’s cheaper than golf,” Lovingood laughs.

The club now has 80 members but not all are riders. Some are family members who simply like the club’s reg-ular supper socials. Others like to hike on the trails that criss-cross the farm’s 1,000 acres. Riding members must pass a basic skills test or take lessons to reach the neces-sary skill level. Then they can choose a horse to call their “own” and are responsible for catching, grooming, and saddling it themselves.

Overuse of horses has never been a problem, Lovingood says. While they have one member who rides dif-ferent horses twice a week and seven or eight people who come once a week, many members come less frequently. The only time there are any conflicts, says Lovingood, is when then club holds its monthly group rides. Then the horses are available on a first-come, first-served basis. The farm has set up a reservations board on the internet for club members.

As The Riding Club concept grew, Lovingood searched the internet and could only find a handful of places offering similar programs. She feels, however, that The Riding Club is a program whose time has come as aging baby boomers look for places to indulge a desire to ride that was suppressed during child-rearing and career-building years. A former patent attorney, she is currently packaging The Riding Club concept as a business fran-chise in response to requests from other equine entrepre-neurs for help with their business plans.

“This program really helps people who can’t own horses because of time or money constraints,” she says. Lovingood notes that a club is ideal for entry level rid-ers and offers people more opportunity to ride than the lesson programs that are often their only other option. Lovingood says she has changed her outlook since first writing the farm’s business plan for boarders with their own horses. “Now I say horses are for everyone.”