Leasing a horse is pretty common. If they run a boarding or lesson barn they may have done this a number of times before and may already have a contract for you to sign, including the insurance type angle... although you need to look and think it over CAREFULLY to decide whether it's an ok arrangement for you.
If it's an in-house lesson-type lease, insurance is not such of an issue tho you still want things clearly in black and white -- particularly what happens if one party or the other wants out or the horse becomes less than fully useable. (A disadvantage of owning, and under some contracts also leasing, a horse is that whenever it is unrideable or less than fully useable, you can't ride much or at all -- sometimes done within a lesson barn setting there is a clause for substituting use of another of their horses if available, but you may not like whatcha get that way).
If it is anything else, you NEED insurance for both parties' protection (that is, you need to pay for mortality and probably also loss-of-use insurance for the horse's appraised value [or just plausible value, if inexpensive] -- this will add to the cost of the project, obviously); and you need a clearly worded contract regarding the abovementioned issue about what if someone wants 'out' of the contract for any reason... but there is also the thorny issue of responsibility for problems. If you will be riding the horse alone (i.e. not in a lesson) then you want to avoid a scenario where the horse comes back lame, or missing a shoe and half its foot such that it requires fancy shoeing and is only lightly rideable for some months, or develops a bad habit, and the horse's owner decides to do something dire because it's "your fault". Dire can range from unilaterally cancelling contract with no refund (no matter what the contract says -- you would have to take them to court, $, to do anything about it), to wanting you to pay vet/shoeing/etc bills because you "did it intentionally or thru massive negligance", to just blackening your name all around town as "the kid who ruined <horse's name> forever".
Don't think it can't happen, because i've seen all of these scenarios and more, more than once.
So, you need to be thoughtful and careful about what you sign to in a contract. Which is to say, make sure your PARENTS are thoughtful and careful about it. There are alllllllllll sorts of things that can go wrong with a horse, and it is reaaaaallllllly easy for two parties to disagree vividly over whether it was avoidable or intentional or negligence or what.
Generally a lease is less "fraught" than taking a sale horse on trial, though... now THERE'S something with a fairly high backfire rate
Leases don't seem to go wrong too often IME (well, not *badly* wrong), it's jsut that when they do, you really wouldn't like it.
Good luck,
Pat
If it's an in-house lesson-type lease, insurance is not such of an issue tho you still want things clearly in black and white -- particularly what happens if one party or the other wants out or the horse becomes less than fully useable. (A disadvantage of owning, and under some contracts also leasing, a horse is that whenever it is unrideable or less than fully useable, you can't ride much or at all -- sometimes done within a lesson barn setting there is a clause for substituting use of another of their horses if available, but you may not like whatcha get that way).
If it is anything else, you NEED insurance for both parties' protection (that is, you need to pay for mortality and probably also loss-of-use insurance for the horse's appraised value [or just plausible value, if inexpensive] -- this will add to the cost of the project, obviously); and you need a clearly worded contract regarding the abovementioned issue about what if someone wants 'out' of the contract for any reason... but there is also the thorny issue of responsibility for problems. If you will be riding the horse alone (i.e. not in a lesson) then you want to avoid a scenario where the horse comes back lame, or missing a shoe and half its foot such that it requires fancy shoeing and is only lightly rideable for some months, or develops a bad habit, and the horse's owner decides to do something dire because it's "your fault". Dire can range from unilaterally cancelling contract with no refund (no matter what the contract says -- you would have to take them to court, $, to do anything about it), to wanting you to pay vet/shoeing/etc bills because you "did it intentionally or thru massive negligance", to just blackening your name all around town as "the kid who ruined <horse's name> forever".
Don't think it can't happen, because i've seen all of these scenarios and more, more than once.
So, you need to be thoughtful and careful about what you sign to in a contract. Which is to say, make sure your PARENTS are thoughtful and careful about it. There are alllllllllll sorts of things that can go wrong with a horse, and it is reaaaaallllllly easy for two parties to disagree vividly over whether it was avoidable or intentional or negligence or what.
Generally a lease is less "fraught" than taking a sale horse on trial, though... now THERE'S something with a fairly high backfire rate
Good luck,
Pat
