Hunter jumper world! I am a younger college student (about to graduate however) with many years of experience in the A circuit, however I am not in the tax bracket to show many weeks at places such as WEC, WEF, etc with many horses. I’ve been riding for 17 years and I’ve paid my dues of assisting in jump crew, self grooming/assisting others, daily chores, etc. I do have another year of schoolwork, however, I’m having trouble figuring out if I have the talent and skills to make things work. I have competed at medal/maclay finals on a catch ride, will flat/jump whatever I’m given, and am working on getting myself a better record (1.20m+)and more show experience. I’m no magical rider, but I do recognize that I need to continuously keep learning and I’ve been financially working my way into getting myself those lessons/opportunities. I currently work for board off, and get to flat some okay horses and then I get moments where I get huge opportunities. I love the community I’m in but how do I bridge the gap between a working student amateur (still in college but need to pay for things) and wanting to learn/experience more before going pro. I want to wait and learn more but how do I do that without the barn paying me? How can individuals fresh out of college afford to show and learn without sacrificing time away from the barn and going in thousands of dollars of debt before going pro? Would a paid position be more ideal? Europe have more to offer? No lottery winning or sugar daddy’s involved here unfortunately…
I am definitely not the expert in equestrian career fields.
But, based on your first post, I can say without even seeing you ride, you have the work ethic to be successful at something in the horse world.
My only real career-track advice is to keep your horizons open beyond showing. If you really want a showing life & career, that’s great and then you do need to emphasize that track. But there are far, far more opportunities open in a broader range of equestrian activities. Basically, a much larger pie to go around all of the equestrian hopefuls. And many tracks can lead to showing at some point.
Basic self-presentation and talking skills … Get the 30-second self-summary of what is in your first post down pat to deliver at a frequent sudden moments of opportunity. Equestrians seem to have the attention span of only half of an elevator ride. You might be lucky to get that much. But they don’t really want to know more to make a decision, anyway.
Talk to every horse world professional you can and ask their advice (as you are asking here on COTH). Focus on the career track you most want to follow, but listen to others as well. Keep some kind of record of all the advice you receive, no human can remember all of it. Look for commonalities.
Go to where you can encounter and sneak in a 1 or 2 minute conversation with such folk. Make some weekend career trips to horse shows where you aren’t otherwise attending, with the sole goal to weasel in a conversation with higher level people, even if they aren’t pros. That way you aren’t trying to work those encounters in around other horse show responsibilities. Know your audience and know who you are approaching.
The way you present yourself can matter even more than the substance. Have absolute confidence the who you are and your background are something that can add value to someone’s program.
Include your volunteer work (briefly!), such as jump crew, even side jobs like braiding, because that is someone who will cheerfully do some scut work, and professionals need that on their crew.
Being cheerfully willing to put training and tune-up rides on ‘ok’ horses (as you describe them) is also something that many pros need on their crew.
Find some inspirational stories to keep you going. People who made it from even less than where you are starting (you actually have some great background). Any field, not just horses. Which of their qualities resonate with you? What did they do to make it happen?
If you carry on as you are now, something good will happen for you. I know it is hard when you don’t know what it is or, worse, when it is! But just know that you are going to press on relentlessly until it does. Good luck !!! 
Oh and … some years from now when you have the career that you worked for so hard, remember to drop by COTH, find this thread, and let us all know. 
I’d suggest getting a grooming/riding job with someone whose program you think would be a good fit for you.
I don’t follow a ton of top riders on social media, but I know that Lauren Spreiser (dressage) and Cian O’Connor (in Ireland) are both looking for working students/grooms/riders. Boyd Martin (eventing) was looking a few weeks back as well. Even starting as a groom at a program that invests in its employees will likely allow you the opportunities to ride and even show eventually. You may not get to jump 1.20m right off the bat, but at a large, successful barn, learning the program from the ground up is probably more beneficial than just time in the saddle.
AND, more importantly, learn whether the pro life is what you really want.
When I was one year out from finishing my degree, I was offered a full time position at a dressage facility and I was so flattered.
What stopped me was seeing the owner of the facility still teaching in the freezing cold in winter because she couldn’t afford to retire. These days as I sit in my home office thinking about actually retiring at 60, I am grateful that my past self realized that.
It was definitely not the life for me. But your opportunities and experience may well be different. But spend some time and figure out if it is something you really want to do!
You are young, the world is your oyster. Grooms in Europe have recognition, decent pay and benefits. Maybe look to travel abroad and learn both equestrian and life skills.
When I was your age and in a similar position… I went to work at the racetrack. With lead ponies and galloping, and later got my trainer’s license. It’s a situation in which you actually get paid with money and less bull poop. Which is a bonus. Dunno if that would suit you. The show horse world… trust no one. Good luck!!!
Just a word to avoid tunnel vision on one life path. Stay open to a range of possibilities. Seek what you want, but also allow great opportunities to find you as well.
Also think about your education. I know that getting a college degree in your early 20’s can interfere with being a working horse professional, and vice versa.
But even if you get it later, you need the degree to open doors to a broader range of employment. Something people are likely to need during an equestrian career.
A degree in finance or business or a STEM field will open many doors, in as well as out of equestrian. Some ag schools could give some career advice as well. Salary jobs, commission jobs, etc. It may not necessarily lead to riding as you as describe it here, but there is room for both in one life.
A broad background prepares one for more security in life. Nothing is a permanent career track. People change careers throughout their lives.
This may have come up in your career exploration so far – but consider if you wouldn’t be on a better life path to use your equestrian skills as an accomplished amateur, rather than a horse professional. With a secure salary income to pay for your horse endeavors.
Plus there are people who are doing both – a well-paid traditional career job, and an active riding career where they buy young horses and bring them along for eventual sale. Teaching lessons. Even running a part-time horse business. Their horses are paying for their riding, as it were.
I went to racing. I needed health insurance - horses are big animals that can really hurt you, and racing is one of the few places where you can actually find benefits. I landed with a really great farm that was happy to mentor me, and educated me to the realities of a first office job in the afternoons - in the mornings I mucked stalls, walked rehabs, medicated mares & foals, etc. I eventually ran their consignment for a few years before I went to a completely non-horse job for the $$.
I now can show my horses at WEC a couple times a year, breed a couple mares, and enjoy the horses at my own farm. Can I go show at WEF? Not regularly, but I got to go for a week once. You can make it work without an unlimited bankroll.
The answer is generally they don’t. “Working student amateur” is kind of an oxymoron. You’re at the point where you kind of have to decide if going pro is something you want to take a shot at. If you do, finding a good working student position is the logical next step.
If you’re leaning towards the ammy life, you should be focused on getting a solid non-horse job with the earning potential to support horses, and investing in your career. That may mean riding takes a back seat for the next few years while you pay your dues. You may still be able to find some catch riding opportunities if you have a good network, but probably not at the level you’re used to.
I’d definitely spend some time thinking about your long term plans, what type of life you envision for yourself in horses and in general, and what makes sense for you after graduation. Nothing is set in stone, you can always make a change later if something doesn’t work out, but trying to do everything at the same time is probably just going to cause problems.
What do you understand as being pro, and what will you get from being pro that you can’t get as an amateur?
Once you age out of being a junior, any working student or exercise ride or teaching beginners part time job you take makes you a pro. Technically.
Being pro does not automatically equate to being a high level rider. The world is full of pros, some doing perfectly fine financially, running beginner programs and kidlet lesson barns.
What you are actually asking is: how can I find a way to train and compete at the top levels when I can’t afford to self fund this? It’s a very good question. There’s a reason that the actual amateurs that ride A level seriously are all wealthy, which is why being a coach and trainer for those ammies can be lucrative. But your operating expenses are also high.
What you need is an apprenticeship in the best competitive barn in your discipline that you can talk your way into. You want a position that includes riding, which depending on the barn could be called a working student, an assistant trainer, an exercise rider, a junior coach or a groom with expanded duties. You might need to start out as a groom and prove yourself.
IME in any field, your “dues paying” as a teen or junior or minor doesn’t all transfer over to adult credits. You often have to pay dues all over again at the much more serious level of adulthood. Also people are way more generous and forgiving to juniors and kids in every endeavour. As an adult you need to pay or earn your way.
During your apprenticeship you will find out if you have the talent and skill to get to the top, and you will also have opportunities to improve that skill. It’s not like you need to be the entire package to go be a groom for a BNT.
Young people often think skills and talent are innate. They aren’t. They are the result of early exposure, good education and useful practice
If you are over 18 and working off your board bill then riding barn owned or client horses managed by the barn in return for that work? You may have already bridged the gap between “working student amateur” and Pro. There is no such thing as a “working student amateur” under USEF/USHJA rules.
May or may not be fair and there are many threads over the years about that topic as well as why that rule was enacted. Suggest you take a look at the actual Amateur definitions about receiving remuneration ( anything of value) in return for labor. Believe you can now teach a limited number of beginner lessons so maybe look into doing that.
Other organizations have different definitions and rules defining “Amateur” so you might want to research their definitions regarding exchanging labor for rides on horses the barn you are working for is being paid to manage/train.
IMO, the above suggestions to seek a paid job in the industry as a groom or in the racing industry if you really want to learn are your best option.
The sad fact is you cannot work enough hours doing barn work to pay for enough 1m+ jump lessons on somebody else’s horse to move you up to being proficient at those levels. Not trying to be a downer here but that is today’s reality.
Actually you can be optimistic because you are still young and healthy, no kids and stand a very good chance of getting a paid job in a good quality barn be it H/J, Eventing, race oriented, either you really love horses and want to work with them and learn everything you can or you just want to jump bigger. Your choice right now.
Might also suggest barns on the Western side, different, sure, but it is a huge learning opportunity including learning to work with much younger stock, installing ground manners and you will sure as heck learn to turn out a real sparkler for the show or auction ring,
There are many doors into the industry, one will unlock itself for you. But you have to try more of them. Especially if you do not have the budget to fund intermediate levels on up.
What are you wanting to learn? Riding skills? Horse care? Managing and attracting clients? Plenty of places would be more than happy for free labor (said with slight jest).
How do young adults afford to show? IME they can’t/ don’t. I went to school for horses and know my fair share of riders who went through the after college thing and most (all but 1-2) did not show until later in the their 20s almost 30s once they had an established career. At least 1 person who did show (and did very well with her horse at said shows) went into debt for it. She told me she spent her entire savings and more on one show season.
Getting paid to work is always better than working for free, IMO. Ammy status be damned (I don’t show in the hunters so ammy status has never really been an issue).
Europe has a ton to offer, more than many American programs (thinking specifically of PS’s program). I looked into it but did not go as it was intimidating to move to another country, live with a bunch of people I’ve never met, and hope to make enough money to someday get back to the US.
Those are my takes on your questions. Now I have questions for you (you don’t have to answer here, they are just meant to get you thinking).
Will you finish your college degree? If not, what is the back up plan of horses don’t pan out?
Are you willing to relocate for work? If so, do you have any pets that you would have to take with you? Having pets can limit the opportunities you can take advantage of, such as going to Europe.
What do you mean when you say go pro? I’m a “pro” because I get paid to groom (which sometimes includes riding). Why do you want to go pro? Life long dream? Only way you see yourself being able to afford to stay in the game?
What is your plan for health insurance? Most (all?) people age out of their parents insurance at 26 and you NEED insurance working with horses. Many employers in the horse world do not offer insurance and if you get hurt on the job you will be out a job and having to foot the medical bills. Or something totally not horse related can happen like having appendicitis (which was a $20K bill before insurance).
Do you want to buy a house? Buy a car? Do you have student loans (or other loans) that need to be repaid? Retire at some point? Many horse jobs do not pay enough to make these things a possibility without outside assistance. I think I’ve seen 1 horse job with any sort of retirement plan and I’m pretty sure it was posted by the Maddens.
Not to scare anyone but I’m in my early 30s, haven’t been able to afford to be involved in horses (aside from stints volunteering at a therapeutic riding facility) since my early 20s and last did a show in 2012 when I was 19. And even that was a schooling show. Now - that said, I didn’t grow up immersed in horses/with $$$ for fancy showing etc. the way some do. Backyard barn rat here. And my skills weren’t anything to write home about - had to unlearn/relearn a LOT when I was in my early 20s riding still so I wasn’t in a situation where even if I’d had money, I’d have been ready to show. And I chose a career I was passionate about knowing full well it might not lead to $$$ for horses anytime soon. Figure if I change directions/want horses in my life badly enough again, I’ll find a way and the option will still be there.
My riding instructor in my early 20s ran a small boarding/lesson barn (well. I say small but compared to what I came from it was still a decent size. Think the barn had 15-ish stalls, maybe 20-ish, I can’t remember now. Not sure how many horses she had boarded there at a given time, plus at least two of her own. She taught lower level lessons but would also bring in clinicians.) and worked as an engineer. So, seconding this as I’ve absolutely encountered folks who have a non-horsey job but also have horses
Think the majority of people with horses fund them from non horsey careers with very, very few living solely off income created by horses.
There are careers in various fields that are feast-or-famine in income. It’s not the most consistent lifestyle. It can mean periodic hiatuses to get a ‘real job’ and shore up one’s personal finances.
Think about your long-term life plans. Marriage? Kids? Vacations, travel? If kids, how will you want them educated, what activities should they be able to do, in what kind of environment do you want them to grow up?
What kind of life will you want?
What is the best way to incorporate horses, while having the income (and savings!) to keep you going and enjoying life at least part of the time?
You can take a few years to explore your options and make plans. But be thinking in terms of goal points, of years and your age, to make sure that you stay on track to something real.
I mean you buried the lede a bit here, but it’s a good point for OP to consider. If affording horses and showing is a priority then choosing a career that supports that has to be a priority as well. Earning potential, flexibility, and geographic opportunity are all things that really need to be considered. That might mean pursuing something practical instead of a passion career, or it might mean going pro and accepting the other downsides people have laid out. Every path will have its pros and cons.
I chose my major/career path knowing I wanted to support a horse down the line. My first few years out of college I couldn’t really afford to ride so I just focused on getting my career off the ground. After a 4 year break and a few promotions I started leasing again, and I bought a horse 2 years after that. I don’t travel as much as my friends or eat at fancy restaurants every weekend, but I can afford to ride and compete and still have fun outside of horses. My barn has a solid group of adult ammies in their late 20’s/early 30’s so it’s definitely doable, just takes some compromises.
Thinking back to my teens and very early 20s, in combination with the various career choice queries that come through COTH from young people:
It can be hard to visualize or desire a concrete career path when you are young for several reasons.
First, you don’t know much about what any career involves. Young children get exposed to a fairly narrow range of jobs including teacher, librarian, nurse, vet, doctor, fireman and policeman without knowing the full scope of the jobs. Teens get exposed to exploitative service industry jobs, mostly in food these days. College kids are urged to get “marketable” degrees but may not know which slice of science or business degrees pay off.
Second our early experience in school and in any crap entry level job we find can make us assume that working is just more boring subservience to authority. But the truth is, if you find a job track that matches your skill set, you will quickly progress to a point where you have responsibility and autonomy and a salary. I did not know this about service industry jobs as a young adult, that reliable employees get bounced up to Starbucks Manger or GAP VP (bad examples of now troubled companies of course).
So it’s possible to imagine that “horses” will be the only area of autonomy and satisfaction open to you.
Third, you don’t know what jobs are going to open up in future. I absolutely did not see the computer revolution coming in 1980. It wouldn’t have been a good match for my skill set so no lost opportunity.
In my late teens I thought I was going to be a crusading journalist because I watched the Watergate movie. By the time I was finishing college in the mid 1980s, the mainstream media were already retrenching in the global recession of that decade. I ended up qualifying to teach adult English as a Second Language which was just emerging as a career, wasn’t on the radar 5 years earlier, and paid well in the right institutions. I taught for about 5 years in Canada and overseas
Then I went back to grad school in my 30s and emerged as a professor after a fully funded PhD. I don’t think I would have been as successful if I hadn’t had such varies experience and a chance to mature in my 20s doing other jobs and traveling.
I didn’t get back into horses until my 40s but I honestly didn’t really miss them because I had so many exciting paths to run down
Anyhow, except for my college professor colleagues 
all my other friends with good jobs do something fairly niche that we didn’t know about in 1980 and that are probably still invisible to most teens and college students
Interestingly this exact topic came up when chatting ring side at a show today. Our BO/ trainer, a boarder/ client who worked in horses 10-15 years ago, a boarder/ client who owns her own farm, a boarder/ client that is retired and the envy of the barn and myself were talking. Trainer was the first to say she wouldn’t recommend it as a career. The rest of us agreed. The consensus was that unless you had a trust fund, family money, or some other significant funding it is nearly impossible and if you can manage to buy a facility, it certainly isnt the best use of money. Trainer said mentioned she has to keep on keeping on as she has no other work experience and dropped out of college. Client with her own farm has 2 at home and works full time in a non horse job and acknowledges it’s a lot. The farm care, the horse care, finding people to cover so her and her family can travel. The client who used to work in horses talked about how she was grateful she gave up on that idea soon enough to get a degree and a resume of experience in corporate jobs to get her to where she is now, with a green bean of her own and leasing a pony to show in the meantime. The retiree (who has the nicest horse, a foal on the way, and is vetting another horse on Tuesday) said that she didn’t do horses at all while putting her kids through college. Now she spends her money on her horse(s) and dogs (she also does agility with a few dogs). We talked about how horsing is a life choice - she said she could travel to exotic places or do the horse and dog things and she loves doing stuff with her animals so it’s an easy choice.
The other talking point was that if a rider doesn’t have a the A show resume by the time they age out of juniors, they are very unlikely to get it after the fact (as they are typically on their own dime at that point). Without that resume, you (g) are unlikely to attract clients that are showing at that level. You (g) will most likely have a barn full of beginners with beginner friendly horses. It’s not the glitz and glamor of showing on the circuit (maybe not showing at all), having expensive horses in the barn, riding fancy horses for clients (those horses will be at the fancy show barn, and if you get a 3’ packer type in the barn you won’t be doing many training rides on it as it just doesn’t need them), etc. Most (generally young) people who want to go pro seem to think it’s something it’s not unfortunately.
FWIW there are plenty of not full time paid opportunities to work around horses. This week I got paid to body clip, pull manes, and be a groom at a show. Plenty of horsing time (almost 12 hours at the show today!). I’ve been offered to hop on horses as well which I believe is in part to my willingness and ability to help out (as well as being able to ride semi decently).
