Finding a Care Lease?

I've actually got several questions. Before any of this however, I've got to give a bit of a premise. I live in Washington State, but my mom's side of the family lives in Alabama. I've spent quite a bit of time there, but I am seriously considering spending a little over three months there over the summer. The reasoning being that I want to have a farm someday, my grandparents have a farm, and I think it would be a good skills-learning experience for me to spend the summer there learning things like driving a tractor, growing cutting and baling hay... other things like that. There's only one slight hitch in the plan. I am pretty darn sure that I will not be able to survive such a lengthy time without the companionship of a horse, particularly considering that I will be in a location so very conducive to having a horse (huuuuge pastures, lots of trails and abandoned roads). Even so, I don't think it would be fair for me to have one of my horses trucked across the country and then back again. Not to mention that the other members of my family ride our horses and I would have trouble stealing one of them for just me for three months. So, I got to thinking. Maybe I could find somewhere in the Southeastern vicinity willing to allow me to care lease a horse for this time. Thus the questions...

1. How likely is it that someone will trust their horse in the care of a stranger from the other side of the country for three months? I've been riding about 11 or 12 years so I know my stuff pretty well and I could probably even improve this horse's training to some extent, but I can't claim to be a pro or anything.

2. What's the worst case scenario? Is there a way I could be scammed or taken advantage of? Would someone send me a crazy or unbroken horse? I would probably also need to get some sort of contract arranged that said that I wouldn't steal/intentionally hurt the horse and that they wouldn't sue me if the horse somehow got hurt or sick while in my care (God forbid).

I'm not the right person to answer, since I'm in sweden and we probably have diferent laws here :P

But it's not too uncommon to lease out a horse here. Some tourist companies or riding schools leases their horses away during summer when they don't use them, and many private persons too. But I think it's normally for more than 3 months when it's private..
But you'll have two horses there, right? One horse needs company to be able to rest properly etc etc..
Try to put an ad up or something, or call people there with horses and ask. Maybe you can go to some neighbour or something and ride? But try to find a horse before you're there :P

If you ride the horse before you get it, and try it out or what to say, you'll see if it's unbroken or crazy. And make a good contract covering everything; who'll buy the food, farrier, vets, insurance, how much per month etc etc.

I am aware of the need for companionship. There is one neighbor nearby with three horses. I think she might let me turn out a horse I care leased with them. I would even consider asking her about being able to ride one of those horses, but two of them are really old and are basically out to pasture for their last few years. The other one is basically her riding horse from what I understand, and I wouldn't want to steal her horse >.<. There's no doubting I could spend a few hours a day grooming and doting over the retirees and be pretty happy with that if nothing else. Aside from that neighbor, there aren't many people with horses in the immediate area. There's cows out the wazoo, but not many horses. I think it's because the community is made up of a majority of elderly people who aren't really up to riding any more.

I'm definitely going to try to find this horse and arrange most of the nitty gritty details before I go there. I can easily see it taking a month or more just to find a horse and so on. This thread is the beginning of the process, assuming that I don't decide that this would be an unwise thing for me to do after all. The problem is, I don't know that I would be able to go and meet the horse prior because I'm in WA and AL is about a five hour plane ride away.

Ask for vids? Anyway I think most people would want to see youwith the horse.. maybe have everything ready but not signed untill you'e there and can try? Try to find two or three to 'test ride'' once you get there and make sure both you and the owners kno thatnothing's 100% decided untill you do.

Good luck!

Good idea. I just hope there will be two or three people crazy enough to be open to this sort of wild plan. ^_^

And I would definitely encourage them to drop by and check on their lovely horse any time. I'd even send them pics to evidence the continued good health of their horse every week if they wanted. I'm definitely not looking to scam anyone or harm any horses. I'll probably end up spoiling any horse I get my hands on beyond belief.

The retirees I mentioned earlier for example. They don't get any fly spray or fly masks and are constantly harassed by the flies. They also don't get their hooves trimmed often enough and I don't think they've ever been groomed in the last year or two. I would change all of this in a heartbeat if I could... but they aren't my horses... and I'm rambling now so I'll zip it. ;)

I'd let you have my horse if I had any there xD but not if you spoiled it :P At least not if you spoiled it more than I do..

Lol, I'm kidding. By spoiling I mean that I'll spent insane amounts of money on anything that I think will benefit my dearest horse and spending hours grooming them to a shine just so they can go out in the pasture and roll... not giving them hundreds of treats and letting them stop and graze every few minutes when I'm trying to lead them somewhere.

Ah, fair enough then..x)

Leasing is VERY common, I doubt you'd have too much trouble. The only real problem I see is usually leases come up in the fall and end before summer, because a lot of college kids lease out their horse while they're away at school. They come home to ride in the summer.

But you still can find a lease. Also, many leases are month to month, not all sign a year contract.

I would go on either dreamhorse.com or horsetopia.com, or equine.com

I know dreamhorse has a wanted section, I think the others do too.

Post an ad that you're looking for a LEASE (give a breif description of the type of lease you want -- free lease, partial, full, etc) and the period of time in which you would want to lease.

Also, search those sites for horses that are for lease, you can specify for LEASE under the Advanced Search option.

Even if an ad isn't QUITE perfect but is close, talk to them anyway. As I have leased out horses before, I was always willing to bend a little on the terms.

Thanks for the advice. Do you think I should start posting ads/contacting people now, or am I getting ahead of myself? It won't be until summer...