The Barrington Hills Park District is reminding horse trainers they need to register this month in order to use the facilities at the district Riding Center. Trainers may register online via the district website or use a mail-in form which can be viewed and downloaded here.
From June 1st – 30th, trainers of horses or riders must pay an annual fee of $75 to use the Barrington Hills Riding Center to conduct lessons. This fee applies whether the applicant lives in the district or not. After June 30th the fee increases to $100.
In addition to completing the registration form, applicants must sign the following forms:
- Trainer Rules and Regulations
- Helmet Policy
- Riding Center Facility Rules and Regulations, and
- Park District Waiver, Release, Defend, Indemnification and Hold Harmless Agreement
Trainers are also required to use the district online calendar (seen here) to reserve lesson times at the Riding Center, and they must display a district issued trainer tag when conducting lessons.
One new requirement this year for trainers is proof of liability insurance, which we applaud, since it’s been a long time coming. Trainers must now provide a certificate of insurance for horse trainer liability with coverage of at least $1,000,000, and the district must be listed as an additional insured.
This minimal coverage amount seems somewhat low to us, but then again, we don’t know what trainers require their students to sign in terms of limiting their own liability during lessons.
An example of the type of insurance certificate the district is requiring of trainers can be viewed here.
Barrington Hills Taxpayers subsidizing commercial enterprise by non-residents! Nice!
I DID NOT HEAR THIS FROM THE HORSE’ S MOUTH BUT CAN IT BE SO!
WARNING TO VBH TAXPAYERS what I am about to say may be harmful to your wallets and in time endanger your abiility to keep your homestead. Please read carefully as the information I am about to tell you while very disturbing may not be true nonetheless please do not read with children present or before any indiviidual who might be offended by involuntary reactionary first response foul language emitting from your lips. Those who choose to proceed do with caution. as what I am abou to tell you is our enterprising equestrian contingency may have found a new vehicle, VBH Park District, to financially exploit the village taxpayer in order to make VBH under Anderson II a commercial destination for horse boarding.
RUMOUR HAS IT . . .
I hear through the grapevine BH Park District is in the process of doing drawings for two more proposed indoor equestrian riding arenas to be constructed at the VBH riding center on Bateman Road. I wonder if like Valley Hi in McHenry County BH Park District has been overtaxing VBH residents and hoarding cash to pay for all or part of these capital projects. (Valley Hi has a slush fund of 43 Million Dollars).
Is there a real need for 2 more indoor arenas given VBH population has not grown in more than a decade, including those residents who own horses? Where is this demand for more equestrian facilities coming from and why isn’t there communicaiton by BH Park District with VBH residents and VBH government about this huge capital project, assuming I am correct.
Again, I heard it through the grapevine this is what is going at Park District so I do not want to comment as if this is fact. Perhaps someone on the Park Disrict Board can chime in and inform VBH residents if what I am saying is true.
It’s time for the park district board to schedule a town hall type meeting for all residents to attend (not just riding and pony club fanatics) to lay out whatever vision they have for the riding center and take questions and suggestions from the taxpayers who will have to support those plans.
As for the measly registration fees for trainers, $75 per year is $6.25 per month. I doubt you can feed a chicken for that amount, but let’s call it “chicken feed” anyway. I noticed on the scheduling calendar that ONE trainer alone has blocked out 21.5 hours in June for lessons meaning her “cost” per hour for using taxpayer funded facilities is about thirty cents!
How is this fair to BH residents who wish to use the facility and pay taxes supporting it when they can be blocked from enjoying it for cents on the dollar? No wonder residents who aren’t part of the “inner circle” the district seems to favor are angry!
The trainer I mentioned should be charged hourly usage fees every time they reserve time. It doesn’t matter if it’s ten, twenty, thirty or more dollars per hour, just SOMETHING more than the CHICKEN FEED they’re charged now!!!
Wow, a measly $75? Should be more like $1,000 for using our facilities and making money off of taxpayers. Even so, these “trainers” take over our riding center with up to 10 students at a time, so residents are not even able to use the space.
Also, I heard about a second indoor arena being used. Not many people have the luxury of having one indoor arena, and now, we need to have two? Something about this does not add up. Shouldn’t we use our 15 acres for beautiful, open land? Not boxes taking up that space? Not to mention the maintenance costs with upkeep of an indoor arena.
Nobody takes care of our facilities as they are now. Almost every time I go there, there is horse manure left everywhere, and our maintenance guy works like a dog to pick all of it up. Our spigots break regularly at the wash stalls – hard to do. And they want to add more facilities?
Agreed that there should be a town hall meeting, since this is taxpayers’ issue.
Frustrated Equestrian Resident, you make an interesting observation which prompts a question from me as I do not know the answer. Is there anyone on the Park District Board who is benefitting from such an arrangement either directly or has a spouse, child or relative giving lessons? And if so, isn’t this a conflict of interest if not disclosed and recusal by Board member when vote for fees is taken?
it is just an observation but why else would Park District Board be succombing to profiteers at the expense of the taxpayer? I will leave this to others, but just a thought.
Lets see if I have this right.
First we build a Disneyland for horse types at taxpayers expense.
Then we attract non taxpayer, nonresidence to our hamlet.
Then we under charge them for the use of “our” facility.
We then become the “horse” magnet for the five state area.
And now we rent out barn space in our newly commercialized village. A lot of commercial barns get rich and our quaint lifestyle changes radically!
GREAT PLAN for “some of the residence.”