DESIGNING your dream barn from a welfare-first perspective often requires a small shift in ego. Pretty should never outperform horse welfare and comfort. It’s not about symmetry or spotless timber, as much as the aesthete in you may want it to be. It’s about building a system that makes the right choice for your horses, and also for you. Maybe you have less time than you had before, or you’re older, or you have health restrictions which means a bit of a rethink.

My central principle is simple. If I need stables or loose pens, they have to have direct access to turnout of some description.

Ideally, the door from each box or pen opens safely onto a paddock or an all-weather or shared track system, so horses can move, graze, and interact daily without elaborate choreography. If a horse can step out to grass on their own four feet, even better. Not always an option, I know, and it certainly hasn’t been for me until more recent years, but it’s still a goal that I have for my horses.

Stable or pen size is generous because confinement should never be tight. The 12 x 12 isn’t for my horses and me any more, but I know it’s still the norm for many yards. Partitions or loose boxes allow for physical contact in my ideal world, that’s a non-negotiable. Solid walls create isolation and isolation creates tension. Horses are herd animals and, for me, the barn should acknowledge that.

Ventilation is non-negotiable, also. High ceilings, ridge vents and open upper sections on stable fronts keep air moving. Ideally, natural light pours in through windows and translucent roof panels. Horses track daylight cycles, and their bodies benefit from it.

Flooring is forgiving. Rubber over correctly laid concrete could be the way, or the dirt floors I saw in a Normandy stud were interesting, and surprisingly fresh-smelling and easy to keep.

Meticulous drainage in every turnout prevents the all-too-common winter quagmire that turns good intentions into a mud fever clinic; drainage is not a thing to scrimp on.

I’ve fully signed up to the thinking that real luxury for horses is choice. A horse that can wander out to roll, graze and watch the world from their own doorway is a horse whose mental health has been considered. That’s the barn worth building for me. What would your dream barn consist of?