Annual cost estimate
Defaults are conservative US planning figures for one pleasure horse. Change anything — regional prices vary enormously.
Where the money goes
Board is the line that decides everything else. Full board at a boarding stable (commonly $300 to $700 or more per month depending on region and amenities) bundles stall, turnout, feeding, and basic care into one check — and typically costs more per year than every other line combined. Keeping a horse at home zeroes the board line but replaces it with hay runs, manure management, fencing repairs, and your own hours; the calculator's defaults assume board, so at-home keepers should set board to 0 and push the savings into feed and bedding instead.
Feed scales with the horse, not the barn. A 1,000 lb horse eats roughly 1.5 to 2% of its body weight in forage a day, and the feed calculator turns that into a monthly hay and grain figure at your local prices. Farrier work runs on a 6-to-8-week cycle — about 8 visits a year in the defaults — and shoeing costs meaningfully more than barefoot trims. Routine vet care covers vaccines, a Coggins test, and dental floating; it is not the emergency fund. Colic surgery, a serious laceration, or a laminitis workup can each exceed $5,000, which is why a separate emergency reserve (or insurance, with eyes open about exclusions) belongs in any honest budget even though it is not a line above.
Two example budgets
Boarded pleasure horse, moderate-cost region: board $450/mo, feed included in board beyond a $200/mo supplement-and-grain top-up, farrier $150 × 8, routine vet $600, bedding $100/mo, supplements $50/mo, tack $300/yr — about $12,300 a year. Same horse kept at home: board $0, feed $350/mo buying hay by the ton, bedding $120/mo, farrier and vet unchanged, plus fencing and equipment wear — roughly $7,700 a year, with the difference paid partly in your own labor. Both are normal numbers; the gap between them is the real decision most buyers are making.