A confidential capital summary for the rebuild of southern Wisconsin's oldest saddle-seat riding academy — a proven business returning to a proven standard.
This is not a startup. It is a restoration of a business that at its peak ran seven hundred lessons a month — and has the brand, the facility, and the owner-operator to get back to a disciplined fraction of it.
Lessons per month — the quarter-century arc of Meadow Road on one axis.
At peak, LaFleur ran boarding, show clients, and a full Academy off the same Meadow Road facility — seven hundred lessons a month across thirty-five school horses. Boarding paid the fixed costs. Show clients paid the high margins. The Academy fed both.
Over two decades the boarding market softened, show clients aged out or moved to hunter barns, and the pipeline that once turned Academy students into long-term show customers stopped flowing. The bottom came this spring — forty-five lessons in March, two school horses, four empty stalls.
The plan rebuilds the lesson business first, at correct prices and Neva's own three-a-day standard. The Academy group program returns, summer camp launches, and three Kentucky school-master horses arrive on a zero-acquisition-cost free-lease to triple the capacity.
Boarding and show clients are not the path back — too slow, too saturated regionally. Instead: Academy → Camp → Show Team, supported by a saddle-seat niche no competitor can copy within two hundred miles.
Each horse needs three lessons a day to earn its keep. I used to run seven hundred lessons a month off of this building.
Neva LaFleur, Owner-Operator since the early 1970sToday the two remaining school horses average about one lesson per weekday. The plan fills to her own three-a-day benchmark — 132 lessons per month on two horses before any Kentucky horse ever arrives — then layers in the three incoming horses, the Academy, summer camp, and five horse sponsors to reach the Year-3 target.
Repricing live (market $65–110 vs current $50). Academy group program relaunched. Summer camp registration opens. First Kentucky horse arrives and enters retraining. Target by end of quarter: 80+ lessons/month at $70 blended.
KY horses 2 & 3 arrive. Two Academy cohorts running concurrently. Summer camp live and sold out. First half-leases on new horses to advancing students. Sponsor-a-Horse program launched. Target: 130+ lesson-equivalents/month.
First Academy Show Team outings — rebuilds the high-LTV show segment that was lost. Signature saddle-seat clinic weekends. Venue rentals. Exercise buyout options on best KY horses. Target run-rate: 200+ lessons/month trending toward Year-3 restoration.
Funds Kentucky horse transport, 90–120 days of professional saddle-seat retraining, used saddle-seat tack for three horses, agritourism liability insurance, a website refresh with digital ads, a ninety-day working-capital reserve, and a 10 percent contingency. No boarding speculation, no facility expansion, no new staff hires — every dollar goes to reopening the lesson engine.
Eight percent of gross lesson & camp revenue until 1.5× capital returned. No monthly debt-service burden in year one. Expected payback 30–42 months at base case.
Six percent interest, interest-only year one, amortizing years two through five. Personal guarantee. Collateralized on tack, equipment, and KY buyout options.