Yes, very interesting figures indeed. For comparison I calculated a rough figure for the cost of my recreational activity (I fly GA aircraft for work, so need something else for my spare time to recover from flying :-) ). My horse costs me 4000-4500€ per year depending on how often I have to call the vet (unscheduled maintenance so to say). Not in a posh riding club (which would easily double that figure) but on a farm in the countryside. For that amount I get 200-300 hours in the saddle per year. So about the same expenditure than the average Flyer, but much less cost per hour.
A horse stable is definitely a better place than an airfield to get to know women. However, they tend to smell…
So about the same expenditure than the average Flyer, but much less cost per hour.
But a lot more per nautical mile. And with a horse, you essentially just do circuits.
It is certainly more costly and therefore more difficult to fly a lot of hours in the UK; for example, I was part of a PA28 Syndicate in Vancouver, Canada, and I would fly about 130hrs/year. It cost $80 CAD a month in fees for the fixed costs, and $70 an hour wet. This works out to about $77CAD/hr (or £41/hr!!!) all in. My annual budget was therefore ~$10k cad (£5.4k). Also, there were almost no ancillary fees for landing, etc. It must be even better in the States, as fuel is normally about 30% cheaper there.
Now that I have moved to the UK, the costs are at least double, perhaps a touch more. Oh well, nothing to do about that except fly more and consider that each additional hours costs less than the last!!
get to know women. However, they tend to smell…
Who, the stable or the women?
A horse stable is definitely a better place than an airfield to get to know women.
Having had a horse-mad ex wife, I would not even dream of repeating that 
Keeping a horse is a massive emotional-attachment thing, which comes before everything. Before kids, definitely before the husband. I see this everywhere I go today, where I live (Sussex, UK – horse mad country!). Most of the couples where the lady keeps horses don’t really like each other much. The husband usually works the whole time…
Also you are too late hoping to find a woman via horse riding. The farrier, the horse dentist, the fence installer/repairer, etc, are much better looking than “you” and they are already shagging most of them 
Before you go down that road, consider the entry level cost: a house in the countryside, a Range Rover (or a similar 4×4 but it needs to be modern i.e. OK for social stuff like the school run), a trailer, the fees to the above good looking guys…
My recollection from my divorce, when I was working out the “child maintenance” amount to keep my ex in horses (to stop her from stopping me seeing the kids), was that it was about 5k a year. But there were almost no 3rd party costs. The house which she got has 3.5 acres of land (enough for 2 horses to graze), a bridleway next to it (no 4×4 or horse trailer needed), fences all nearly new, 3 nearly new stables with new waterproof electrics, etc. And it was still about 5k a year, for 2 horses, in 1999. It’s not a cheap hobby. The house is worth about 1.3M so that’s not cheap to buy either.
Thanks for sharing such personnal things Peter.
Obviously, horses have not left a good impression in your mind :-)
To PETER : Nice description like a movie.I could allmost “see” the situations happening ! You should never leave Kalymnos LGKY .Women are very thankfull there !
To EVERYBODY: My C172 costs 12.000Euro for 50 hours a year,using mogas and no frills maintenance which translates to 240E/hour.
Let us not forget the great Wolfgang Langewiesche who, recalling the tradition that early army pilots were drawn from the cavalry ranks, drew a similarity with horses when describing the various ‘gaits’ of the airplane.
Bishop Swift’s highest moral actors in Gulliver were the Houyhnhnms, i.e. horses.
Student pilots with some riding experience do seem to be able to ‘listen’ better to what the airplane is trying to tell them, and less inclined to apply a white knuckle death grip to the controls.
Peter’s aim, no doubt is the Home Counties horsey sub culture, with all it’s trappings.
PS getting back on topic I try not to calculate the hourly cost, but keeping a vintage Super Cub fed and watered is around €7,000 before fuel (20 litres an hour of AvGas).
Is it just me or are we seeing sweeping generalisations based on unresolved personal relationship issues. Can we stick to flying please?
