Image: Chris Willis
Make no mistake horse ownership is very time consuming, horses require care 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, come rain or shine and as a horse owner you'll have to look after your horse yourself or pay someone else to do it for you.
Daily care could take up to 3 hours a day, everyday including Christmas Day, and that's not including riding. Take a look at these typical days for the following methods of keeping a horse or pony:
Combined system of stabling and going out to grass
A day in the life of a stabled horse
Daily routine of a competion yard
Those are just the daily routines, every 6 weeks or so you'll need to be available to hold your horse for the farrier. Once or twice a year you'll need to be available when the equine dentist visits, and the vet, and maybe an equine physio, then there's the saddle fitter's annual check.
Don't forget you also need to think about travelling times, how long will it take you to travel to and from the yard where your horse is kept? Ideally you should do this twice a day but there will be occasional unforeseen circumstances when you'll need to be there more frequently.
And there's the time it will take you to go to the feed merchant to purchase the horse's food, how frequently will you need to do this?
Now ask yourself honestly do you really have the time for this?
What about your family commitments, how are the rest of the family going to cope, and feel, about you spending so much time looking after a horse?
Are you sure you can fit in enough time to care for your horse and get to work / school / college on time?
What about homework / house keeping / other hobbies / your social life, can you fit it all in?
Are you really prepared to go without holidays / days out / shopping etc and for how long? Horse ownership is a full time, long term commitment, can you really do it, do you really want to do this 365 days a year, year in year out?
If you're not sure there are alternatives to horse ownership that will give you a taste of what it's really like to own a horse or pony and help you to make up your mind if horse ownership is really for you.
And if you haven't got the time, but you have got the money, you can pay someone else to take care of your horse by keeping it in full livery which brings us to the next question,
Can you really afford a horse?
