Johnny Walker Stables

SCORE Helps Entrepreneur Find Green Pastures of Success

Remember that childhood story about the country mouse and the city mouse? This story might be a modern small business version.

Susan Ingram, owner of Johnny Walker Stables in Burlington, KY, knows horses. She has lived on a farm all of her life. Her horse-boarding stable sets on land owned by her family since the early 1800s. Overall, she wants her stable to provide a family friendly environment for all boarders, users and visitors.

Susan‘s financial goals for the horse stable business are relatively modest – generate sufficient cash flow to pay for operating expenses, the farm land and boarding facility mortgage, and to provide for any future capital investment. As a single mother of two teenage daughters, she holds two additional jobs to cover other living expenses.

Eventually, Susan wants to pass the farm and the boarding stable business on to her daughters. They would represent the 7th generation on this Kentucky land. “I would like to keep the family farm running as a family business,” she says. “I’ve been a horse person all of my life, so this was a natural choice.”

Compared to horse stable management, Susan found managing receivables and collections to be a much tougher job. In contrast, Cincinnati SCORE Counselor Jack Espelage understood cash flow management. But, being city bred, managing horses was unfamiliar to him.


“I have a much higher level of comfort knowing that Jack is in my corner. He’s just a phone call away, and that’s been great.”

—Susan Ingram, owner, Johnny Walker Stables, LLC

So when Susan contacted SCORE for help, she started training Jack about horses and he started training her about cash flow. “I was feeling a lot of financial pressure when I called SCORE,” she says. “I knew I had to do something.” Subsequently, past due amounts from customers were collected, new receivables are now kept current, and the result is a consistent, positive cash flow.

“Jack helped me look at what I could do to maximize my revenue with the 24 stalls and the existing business that I had,” she says. “He also helped me find a way to deal with tenants who owed rent.”

After that initial, essential success, Susan and Jack started analyzing sales and service segments. Just like in other businesses, the horse-boarding business has several service levels available; in this case - full, partial, and pasture boarding care. Both indoor and outdoor practice arenas, riding lessons, and other services also are provided.

In addition, operating expenses were analyzed and segmented. One unique expense to this business, manure disposal, was given its own expense category. All of these analyses were combined into an interactive “what if” cash flow spreadsheet. This led to better understanding of the effect of boarding stable operating decisions on cash flow and better future decision-making.

“I have a much higher level of comfort knowing that Jack is in my corner,” she says. “He’s just a phone call away, and that’s been great.”