Originally Posted by
queenarmadillo 
First off, yes it is possible to become a good rider if you start at 16, but, as at any age, only if you really work at it. Unless you get lucky at the stables you are learning at though, you are fairly likely to start your lessons in a group with loads of young children as more people take up the sport at that age than later in life.
IF you enjoy your lessons and still want a horse, I would ask why. As a beginner (and I doubt you would make it out of my "beginner" category until you have been riding regularly for AT LEAST 3 years) you are likely to lack the riding skills to deal with any problems which may occur with the horse's work. Even the nicest of horses will notice weaknesses in your riding and is fairly likely to take advantage of them, meaning that there is a fair chance you will end up getting someone else to "fix" it for you and defeating the point of owning the horse yourself. Whilst it may seem like it would be good for your riding to have the horse available every day to practice on, with a beginner this situation can often ruin the horse and put off the rider and you will realistically be better off getting experience through riding lessons of working with lots of different horses of different personality types until you have sufficient experience to improve the horse you take on as owner rather than just trying to "cope" with it.
The other reason people take on the responsibility of horse ownership is that they want to learn about horse care as well as riding, or would like to develop a strong bond with one horse. If you go ahead with your full livery arangement, you would not achieve either of these objectives either as you would only ever see your horse from its back, and so the situation would be no different for you than if you had regular lessons on the same riding school horse, except that if you own the horse you are likely to be paying a great deal more for the privilege.
This is not to say that absolutely you shouldnt have a horse, or shouldnt keep it on full livery, but it doesnt seem to me like your proposed situation would fulfill any of the obvious objectives of horse ownership so think carefully about whether there is a reason for you to buy a horse before you go ahead and do it because "all riders have horses".
Full livery on the terms you stated seems very comprehensive. You may be asked to make decisions about your horses feed / turnout time etc. (although full liveries frequently have those decisions taken out of their hands by the stables). Aside from that you would be responsible for buying the horse, paying the bills, and selling the horse if the time comes. Sounds to me like everything else would be done for you except exercising it. If you did decide to go ahead in this situation, the part lease sounds like a good option for your horse because it would ensure it got semi-regular exercise. Many experienced riders do not like to part lease their horses because you have little control who rides them and beginners can let them develop bad habits, but as you are a beginner yourself your horse would need to be of a sensible beginner carrying type, and a variety of riders using him under the supervision of an instructor might help to stop him developing faults specific to flaws in your riding.
