Crunching the budget numbers

The Covid-19 pandemic is affecting everyone’s lives, and those in the equestrian world are no exception. While the full economic impact is unknown, H&H speaks to four people from different corners of the horse community to find out how they have been hit and where they are able to manage their costs

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“Competition has stopped, but the equestrian world hasn’t”

SARAH SKILLIN, SELF-EMPLOYED MY costs have gone down because all of my horses – two of my own and four liveries – are now out all the time. That would happen normally anyway, but we have turned them out three and a half weeks earlier than usual. However, that’s not down to the pandemic, that’s down to the weather. My winter fields went from being sodden to concrete in 24 hours. It got cheaper because I’m not feeding multiple bales of hay a day and the hard feed is reduced.

Pandemic-related cost reductions include things such as my chiropractor and the physio, who does the horses and I, plus the horses haven’t had their six-monthly vaccinations. I have not renewed my British Dressage membership and I’m not paying to compete. I’m not putting the fuel in the quad bike to level the arena as often.

I’ve also taken the business use insurance off my horsebox temporarily, which has saved me the best part of £300. Its MOT was also due, but there’s an extension on that, so at the moment there’s somewhere between £250 to £1,000 I would have needed to pay that I haven’t spent.

I’m self-employed and also run a business, so I fall in between a lot of support cracks. I did have a 24-hour minor panic when I looked at all of my costs wondering what I was going to do if all my work dried up, because all my work is connected to the equestrian world. On the whole I’ve been really busy – nobody knows what is going to happen, so I haven’t spent money unnecessarily. For example, I had my fields harrowed and rolled, but didn’t spend the extra £200 on spraying as they don’t need it.