Multiple equestrian centres?

sofia11

Perhaps this is more of a business question but recently in our immediate area there seems to be two equestrian centres starting out within a short distance of each other. There was a pony club on another farm nearby more hobby farm as owner has a profession.
My question is: Is there a big demand for more equestrian centres in cork all of a sudden or a special grant available?
Business wise are there enough horse owners who need these services given there will be competition between them all? Just wondered?

convert

Not sure about grant assistance for building equestrian centres... However, during the 'boom' a lot of new centres appear to have sprung up around the country and it seems that quite a few centres have sprung up in relative close proxminity.

When times were good I think there was quite a bit of demand for equestrian centres, both for lessons and liveries, so those centres close to each other didn't mean things were hugely difficult. Moreover, sometimes centres close to one another often specialised in different aspects - for example, maybe one would focus on trekking and the other on competitions....

I'm sure that quite a number of centres, whether or not in relative close proximity to another centre, will struggle to stay open in the future.

Theponylady

There seems to be a big demand for equestrian centres that have good indoor schools. The ones I know of locally have waiting lists to get into them, two are literally down the road from each other and both still have waiting lists.

Riding school wise, there is still business there, but it has slowed down. I know the school I teach at had a long waiting list for the beginner classes, and it's now become a very short list. Business is still okay, but it's back to what it was four years ago, not insanely busy like it was the previous 3 years.

I do know quite a few riding schools that have closed. Usually it's either because they lost their students to places with indoor arenas(particularly this year with the horrid weather year round), or it's because they got hit up for rates on the indoor arenas, which was wiping out their profit and making it no longer worth their while to stay in business.

Green Hornet

Funny that you should ask that. The centre that I use had a 6.30 and 7.30 slot on a Wednesday evening and they've merged the 2 slots into one. Mainly due to the fact that maybe 5 people would attend the first slot and maybe 3 attend the second.

I was asking one of the stable hands and he told me that all of the local equestrian centres are experiencing a drop off in custom.

They actually seem busy enough in any case with their other slots and it's got a fine indoor arena. I was wondering how smaller set ups are coping.

Quite an expensive hobby these days!