I was at a barn inspecting a metal roof for wind damage and was talking to the owner. He charges $1800 a MONTH to board horses in the heated barn which has enough room to ride horses around. $1800 a MONTH! And he was barely making ends meet.
This is very steep for Tennessee. I live near Washington DC and the cost for board alone would be in the range of $575-750 a month, depending on how glam the facility is. This would be for a stable that has a large indoor arena as well as outdoor arenas, pastures, access to trails, horse shows and clinics on site, and parking for boarders’ trailers and tow vehicles, provides very good quality feed and hay, stall fans and automatic waterers, and offers daily stall cleaning, group or individual turnout, medications, blanketing, and holding for vet and farrier. At this price point grooming and tacking up would not be provided and bandaging or exercising would be charged separately. Eighteen hundred a month would definitely include training fees. Even an Olympic-champion coach does not charge that much in the expensive northern Virginia/Maryland area.
On the other hand we do not have a heated indoor arena or barn. They are virtually unknown here, even though MD is colder than Tennessee. Most vets will tell you that heating a facility at the latitude of Tennessee is not healthy for horses; they do best when it’s cool. I imagine that if the owner of the barn you visited is not making a profit though he’s charging $1800, he either has an enormous mortgage eating his profits or he is spending all his income on his heating bill.