Once a rider can catch, groom, saddle and ride on their own, the next question is usually about leasing. The two words everyone has heard are half lease and full lease, and the difference is simpler than the forum threads make it sound: how many days a week the horse is yours, and who pays for what. Here is how the terms are used in the horse world, and how they map onto the plans at our barn near San Francisco.
What a Half Lease Means
A half lease is a shared arrangement. You ride on set days each week, usually two or three, and the horse is ridden by its owner or another leaser on the others. Feed, board and routine care are typically folded into a flat monthly price, and the leaser does not own anything. It is the most common first lease because it costs less than a full lease and still gives you one horse to learn with instead of a different one each week.
What a Full Lease Means
A full lease gives you the horse every day. Nobody else rides it, you set the schedule, and in most barns you take on the bills that come with that: vet, farrier, sometimes insurance. It is the closest thing to ownership without the purchase price or the resale, and it suits a rider who is at the barn most days and wants the bond that only daily work builds.
How Our Plans Map Onto Those Terms
We price leases by days per week rather than halves, so a rider can start small and add days as the bond grows. Each added day costs less than the one before, and feed and board are included on every plan.
- Bronze, 1 weekday a week: $491.25 a month. Feed, board and routine care covered.
- Silver, 2 weekdays: $766.25 a month. The closest to a traditional half lease.
- Gold, 3 weekdays: $1,041.25 a month. A half lease with a third day.
- Platinum, 4 weekdays: $1,291.25 a month.
- Diamond, 5 weekdays: $1,516.25 a month. Farrier and vet split 50/50.
- Full Lease, 7 days: $1,887.50 a month. You cover vet and farrier bills.
So if you came in asking for a half lease, you are looking at Silver or Gold. If you came in asking for a full lease, it is the 7-day plan. Prices are per month and show live on the leasing page.
Who Can Lease
Leasing opens after you pass Level One in the Leyden Horsemanship Academy. Level One makes sure you can catch, groom, saddle, lead and ride safely on your own before a horse is in your care, and it is taught across several instructors and many different horses on purpose, so by the time you pass you know which personality suits you. Complete beginners start with lessons; most riders reach Level One within a season of weekly riding.
Lessons Do Not Stop
Leasers stay enrolled in lessons. After Level One you can be assigned a specific instructor and build your next level together, which is the point of leasing in the first place: one horse, one teacher, a plan that is yours. A lease is a reward for horsemanship, not a purchase.
Lease or Buy?
Leasing gives you a horse to bond with and the schedule to do it, without buying, boarding and insuring an animal you are still learning to read. Riders who later buy usually buy better for having leased first. And if you already own a horse, we are accepting boarders; every boarder joins the academy and takes at least one lesson a month.
Next Step
Passed Level One, or close? Send the lease application and book a 30-minute lease interview at the barn. Not started yet? Book your first lesson; Level One is where every lease begins.
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