First published in the July 2025 issue of The Equiery.
Are you a barn manager fed up with barn drama? Are you looking for boarders who pay on time, follow the rules, and are pleasant to be around?
Managing a boarding barn is a professional services industry like any other. In any professional services industry, good providers attract good clients while lousy providers attract lousy clients. We spoke to boarders and barn managers across the state and learned that the best barn managers in Maryland follow these five rules.
1. They don’t negotiate against themselves.
It is a market reality that boarding is a breakeven business, not a profit-making business. The profit-making services are lessons, training, show teams, etc. This means barn managers should set board at a rate that covers their actual costs – not just labor, feed, and shavings, but also rent, electricity, barn and equipment maintenance, mowing, repairs, insurance, mortgage and other debt service, taxes, etc.
Good barn managers explain all these costs to their boarders in writing. A boarder in Damascus told us she wants any barn manager to be “up front about expenses and why a price may change.” Jodi Becker, who boards a horse in Washington County, complimented her barn manager for being “very transparent about her costs and charges owners appropriately.” This is especially important when your client is a new horse owner, because new horse owners may not be aware of all the costs beyond feed, shavings, and labor. They may not know that many of the fixed costs are out of your control due to national and global supply chain issues for grains and fertilizer, extreme weather, or state and federal wage and hour laws.
Barn managers who resist the urge to negotiate against themselves are able to care for horses properly even when that might involve a surcharge. If the horses need more hay in the winter, then buy more hay in the winter and charge the clients accordingly. If one horse needs a special diet, then feed that horse the special diet and charge the client for any extra expense that involves.
If a client pushes back on costs, remember that it is not the barn manager’s job to make horses more affordable for an individual client. If a client is unwilling to pay what it actually costs to take care of her horse, then that person is not a “good client” and may, in fact, be ill-suited to horse ownership altogether. There are many ways to enjoy horses without owning one.
2. They are educated.
The very best barn managers are credentialed. Acquiring a professional credential will improve the service you provide and will put you at a competitive advantage in the market. All other things being equal, good clients will choose a credentialed barn manager over a non-credentialed one. There are at least 4 credentialing programs for barn managers in the US, and the costs for each may be deductible as a business expense:
b. Equine Studies Institute Professional
c. American Riding Instructor Stable Management Certification
d. Certified Horsemanship Association’s Equine Facilities Manager Certification
Even credentialed barn managers keep up with the evolving science on animal welfare. Best practices change as we learn more. Veterinary standards of care also evolve, as do accepted biosecurity protocols, the lists of infectious diseases that must be reported to the state, and the lists of prohibited substances for competition. Ask your veterinarian to let you know when standards and regulations change.
3. They communicate.
The best barn managers communicate clearly about (i) feeding schedules and any changes thereto; (ii) lost shoes, field injuries, signs of illness, etc.; and (iii) supplies of supplements or medications. Good barn managers also let boarders know when the barn is closed, when a ring is unavailable, when fields are getting limed, and when horses are staying in for bad weather.
Boarders need to be able to plan, and a boarder with a narrow window of time to ride will not be happy to find the rings or trails unavailable when she arrives. Similarly, a boarder will not be happy to learn that her horse is out of a medication or supplement after the product has already run out, especially if the product is not available locally and has to be shipped.
4. They are professional.
Everyone wants a drama-free barn. The best managers safeguard against drama by following these simple rules of professional conduct.
Don’t complain. Don’t complain about one client to another. Don’t complain about the barn help to a boarder. Don’t complain about how tired you are. Everyone who works is tired. Boarders in our area can have particularly demanding jobs, and regardless of occupation, boarders work long hours in order to afford board.
Dress appropriately. Remember the adage – don’t dress for the job you have, dress for the job you want.
Don’t bring personal problems to work. This includes family issues, relationship issues, and medical issues. Instead, keep calm and carry on. One boarder from Frederick County told us that, “A good barn manager maintains a calm attitude with the horses at all times, even if it’s been a long day (isn’t every day??), and is very calm and kind with the horses.” A Prince George’s County boarder praised her barn manager for “keeping a low key atmosphere.”
Don’t treat boarders with disdain. A good barn manager, according to one Frederick County boarder, “understands the people whose horses she is boarding, especially when everyone works full time.”
Many boarders who are new to horses need guidance and education. While “new owners or people who have never cared for their horses . . . can be a bit challenging,” says a Montgomery County barn manager, the manager should “listen and try to educate and do the best by that client.”
Many other boarders, however, may have spent more years around horses than the barn manager has, and many also have professional expertise in an equine-adjacent field such as animal science, sports medicine, law, physiology, and the like. Good barn managers see such boarders as valuable assets with a lot to contribute. Indeed, a boarder in Montgomery County praised her “flexible” barn manager who “says yes to ideas.”
5. They hold up their side of the bargain.
Board agreements do more than just require the boarder to pay you. They are legal contracts that require you to do things too – feed, medicate, turn-in, turn-out, blanket, whatever it may be. Barn managers who comply with their own board agreements can avoid misunderstandings and hard feelings, as well as situations where a boarder withholds board or sues for breach of contract. An Anne Arundel County boarder said she expects a barn manager to “do what they say they are going to do and honestly put things in writing.” A boarder in Damascus told us that her best barn managers set “clear expectations for both parties” and have “a solid contract that everyone abides by.”
There are three areas that account for most of the conflicts between boarders and barn managers:
Medications. If your contract requires you to administer medications, make sure they are given regularly and properly, especially if you are not administering them yourself.
Training. Boarders expect a horse in training to be ridden by a trainer, not by a student or other boarder. Make sure your training board contracts are as specific as possible and then make sure you abide by them.
Feeding. Good barn managers make sure the horses are fed (self-care barns excepted.) This seems so obvious as to be hardly worth mentioning, but almost every boarder we talked to, and every boarder who responded to our survey, felt the need to comment that a barn manager must feed the horses properly. A boarder should never have to check to make sure her horse has been fed. A properly fed horse is a horse well-cared for, and a horse well-cared for is the minimum standard to which any good barn manager should strive.
BOARDERS – stay tuned! Soon we will share the top five things that barn managers are looking for in a good boarder.
