Eliza Sydnor Article on future of horse industry

[pluvinel]

Interesting info on a survey she took on the future of the horse world
https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/survey-says-the-future-of-the-horse-world-is/?fbclid=IwY2xjawG2-d5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVdF-DfgDhHIJlFuZJrVWoejtE97w3o1aWGbSeosP508IuFV7Y-8A_WnGg_aem_D8hT6XOx326-FXVke6rKZw

Here’s the bad news:

• Over 50% of respondents are not reliably making any profit in their businesses.
• About 70% do not pay themselves on any regular basis.
• Well over 50% do not have one reliable day off each week, and just under 50% have not had any vacation in the past six months.
• Almost 60% of respondents do not contribute to any retirement fund or put money into savings.
• About 70% of respondents describe themselves as somewhat to extremely burnt out.

She continues

So what can we learn from all this data to help these professionals continue with this sport that we love? Four main areas stand out to me as the largest problems most trainers face:

• Business management practices
• Long-term financial planning
• Managing employees
• Running boarding operations in a profitable way

The rest of the article discusses her findings

[atlatl]

I’ll go read the article but I’m surprised that she doesn’t cite the lack of a reliable market as one of the largest problems. It’s tough when you rely on people’s disposable income.

ETA: I liked the article, especially the bit about the need to proactively manage the business. This is where I see the biggest gap at barns around me. The ones that are proactively managed are doing well; the others, not so much.

[gradytb]

You can’t rely on ANY market to sustain you. There is no such thing as a “reliable market”. Consumer industries rely on people’s disposable income. I’ve been in tech (self-employed) for 40+ years and good business practices will help you survive off markets. The difference with a horse business is that you have equine lives and futures on the hook, and sometimes, their owners don’t care about them but you’re the one feeding and caring for them. The horse industry as it is today can only survive off of people’s disposable income. Unless you are willing and able to buy land, invest capital for infrastructure, manage efficiently and accept the risk, you will be a consumer of the options available. That’s just reality. A good business owner needs customers—boarders, students, etc. And even when you run a horse business “in a profitable way”—you’re not talking huge margins. You’ll never get rich doing this. And if that’s OK. If you’re doing it for the joy, relationships, and love of horses AND you can make money at it—then you have succeeded.

[Libby2563]

I found this part about boarding businesses interesting. I can’t remember the thread title, but there was a thread on here recently in which OP proposed more transparency about expenses.

Kate Poulin knew things would have to change when she was moving her business into a beautiful new farm in Hiram, Ohio. For a whole year, Kate kept a spreadsheet, which was available for all her clients to view at any time, that tracked every single expense. Included were the usuals, like hay, grain, shavings and employee payroll. But clients were surprised to see all the expenses they hadn’t thought of, such as taxes, insurance, manure removal, maintenance, repairs, equipment, fuel, and on and on, including the small things like laundry pods and trash bags for the tack room. After tracking each and every expense for a year, they moved into the new barn, and Kate charged exactly what was needed to cover all expenses. The owner of the farm doesn’t make a profit from boarding, but she truly has all her expenses covered, and that’s what Kate wanted.

“The owner of the farm cannot be subsidizing other people’s horses,” Kate said. “We made it so transparent. Anyone could look up the spreadsheet and see that this is really what it costs to run a barn of this quality.”

Kate found that none of the clients complained about the higher cost of board, because they knew it was being well-managed and they were aware of all that went into it.

@pluvinel, I think this thread might get more reads if you add something to the title like “on the future of the horse industry.” It’s a really interesting topic that the current thread title doesn’t really do justice. Thanks for posting!

[pluvinel]

@Libby2563

@pluvinel, I think this thread might get more reads if you add something to the title like “on the future of the horse industry.”

Done!

[Amberley]

She is missing a few key things:

Healthcare, healthcare, healthcare. Allowing young people to stay on their parent’s insurance till age 26 has been an enormous help in getting people into apprentice and assistant type positions and in allowing them to go out on their own. It also allows people to work as barn managers and grooms. The industry cannot and will not survive if the ACA is repealed.

Cost of land because of private equity, not just development. Most horse people don’t pay into retirement because they own a farm, the land is their retirement. That has worked well for generations. But with the recent run-up in costs of land as private equity buys it up more horse people become leasers and not owners. This is not going to improve. They are siphoning all the profit out of ag work. This is about to happen to large animal vet costs too btw, which will make horse ownership completely unaffordable for most as it has with small animal vet costs in the past decade.

Cost of building anything these days. The old “buy a farm and add amenities as you go” model is also no longer viable when a barn costs $200k and an indoor well north of $1M. Wait till the new tariffs hit, we are expecting between 40 and 60% increase in costs for things like metal buildings by 2027 in my industry.

[poltroon]

We used to think of both the horses and the people as relatively disposable, and now we don’t as much. This is creating a lot of changes in cost structure, where people are not willing to settle for questionable care and facilities for their animals nor are they so interested in giving up all their personal dreams for someone else’s. The people we want to care for and train our horses also want their own horses and opportunities to succeed with them and enjoy them.

The health insurance issue is very real. Health insurance for my family costs more than the mortgage on our 20 acres in California. ACA made insurance somewhat more accessible to people with lower incomes, which helps businesses with lower paid labor. Someone has to pay the workman’s comp bill for the people handling horses.

Immigrant labor has often traded low wages for the promise of a foothold in American society, and/or because their wages are worth more to families at home. We’ve decided we don’t want to grant that benefit any more but we haven’t made the connection that it means higher wages for people who genuinely need more money to cover their expenses.

The cost of labor reverberates through everything, the people to care for our horses and the people to build nice things for them.

Land that was allowed to sit and appreciate with equestrian use is having that bill come due and is being redeveloped for more lucrative uses.

The examples of really understanding the expenses of the business and ensuring that that the customers pay for them is the only way to proceed. The highest income people can afford it, but the middle income people are priced out. I think in the coming decades we will need some new models for people to enjoy horses, more partial lease and sharing models, and somehow figure out how we can make entry level experiences for people to try horses and learn they like them.

The horse books and horse movies we grew up on are mostly gone, or reflavored. The neighborhood pony rides are gone, and the lesson stables are disappearing. Kids have other things that people want them to do with their time.

Maybe one of the few bright spots is entities like Breyer and Breyerfest. But little plastic horses will only go so far.

[Dressurfrau]

I thought the idea of sharing costs was an especially good one. Most folks don’t know how expensive it is to run a barn.