Over the summer when I turn 16 I plan on attending a good farrier college and becoming a farrier for a while. But I’m looking at other careers in college and I feel as if I’m not seeing the full range of opportunities. I preferably want something that pays good (doesn’t have to be $100k job straight out of college). My initial plan was an equine vet, but I’ve been seriously considering a trainer because I love working with the horses and teaching them things. I’ve heard of equine Physical Therapists and thought that was pretty interesting. Jockey also sounded cool but I’m about 20lbs too big for that (though I could lose at least 10-15) and generally don’t like the racing industry. So can ya’ll help me out and suggest some good horse-related jobs? Thanks!
Good paying and equine jobs typically don’t go together in the same sentence. Vets work hard, although typically come out of school with loads of debt. Go to college and get a degree!
Exactly what LovesHorses said, those two words are almost like an oxymoron. Id say you should consider a business management degree or something similar that is useful in many industries including the horse world to make it worth your time and money and have something to fall back on in case the horse industry doesn’t work for you.
Absolutely nothing wrong with going to school to be a farrier. Mine does fairly well for himself and is comfortable. There isn’t a real tried and true way to make tons of money in the horse business. It takes a ton of hard work and a little luck. Some friends of mine that do it full time and are very successful; make over 100K run a boarding barn that does training/lessons/adult camps/kid camps/ and after-school care. They positioned their farms near family communities with schools and run a tight ship. They teach well over 300 lessons a week, not including camps and employee between 10-20 people. They also have a string of 20-30 well-trained lesson horses.
Best thing you could do is take some courses in business and accounting and work under someone that is successful and learn from them while you are in school.
You have to know how to run a business to work as a farrier or work for somebody else…not thinking many would use you with just a summer course and you’d need tools and transportation. Top paid farriers got there by working for years establishing their reputation and by managing their finances and client list professionally.
If you want to take a summer course, pick one more general that might help you in several equine related fields , not just farrier basics. Not that there’s anything wrong with farrier basics but it won’t turn you into a working Pro farrier. It’s great you are ambitious as such a young person, try to direct that to more practical goals right now.
Yeah haha I figured that out when searching, but I think that as long as I’m with horses money won’t matter to an extent. It was just a preference.
The course is supposed to be a lengthy sort’ve “in depth” course so it won’t just be basics. it just so happens to have one of the starting dates over the summer. I understand the business concerns and I will work on that with the extra courses at the high school as well as the college courses I’ll be taking next year.
Yes definitely LOTS of hard work! Which I am willing to put forth if I can :winkgrin: Wow that barn sounds like every equestrians dream! I would love to have a barn business like that but especially around where I live there’s just not enough profit (if any) that comes from boarding barns. Not sure how they even make money even with all the extras they provide at extra costs (training, lessons, etc).
How many weeks is the farrier course ?
Money will matter to a great extent if you get injured on the job and your job doesn’t have health insurance. It will matter if you work as a farrier and the times comes to buy, equip, and insure your truck.
It will matter as long as you have to drive from barn to barn over 2-3 counties and have to keep filling the fuel tank on your truck.
If you live in Canada you won’t have to worry about carrying health coverage, but you will still have to keep your truck going.
If I were young and wanted to make good money in the horse business, I would become a CPA or a lawyer or an insurance agent and go to work as a junior partner to whoever works for the owners of trainers like Asmussen, Baffert, Motion, or Pletcher.
Have you or can you take some shop classes in high school?
Metal fabrication skills would be important as a farrier.
We spent as much time making shoes as we did under a horse.
A good friend of mine is a trained massage therapist who does equine myofascial work a few mornings and one weekend day. She works hard but has a busy (human) practice and makes (frankly) bank doing so. Of course you need to be good with people for this path but she gets to do some equine work and the human practice more than supports her.
Can you apprentice with a local farrier to see what it is really like?
Being a farrier is very demanding physically and mentally.
Not dissing farriers here but this is a career that requires a lot of discipline.
You will be self employed so you will have to budget, buy your own medical coverage and some kind of short and long term disability. Ive known farriers who were injured to the point they couldnt work any more. Unless youve got another source of income you will be in deep doo doo,
You will be completely responsible for kind of retirement plan which you should invest in, the onus is on you for that.
You will also be responsible for doing your taxes and bookkeeping ordering supplies keeping track of your expenses, etc.
You will have to do lots of driving and it can also be an isolating job because you may not see anybody for hours. Some people like this but for others it can get lonely. Sometimes people will talk your ears off because they are lonely too. Sometimes they will hit on you. You are going to have to learn the fine art of diplomacy.
You will have some crazy clients because some horse people are certifiable. You will have to learn how to make people pay up because there are people who call you and have no intention of ever paying you. You will have people who turn on you suddenly for no reason and you never know why.
You will have clients who want to argue with you and resist you every step of the way.
You will end up with back and knee pain and you will be kicked and bitten and stepped on.
Not saying that you won’t like being a farrier but I strongly suggest that you work for a farrier for a few months so that you can see for yourself.
As for other jobs in the horse industry I think you would be better off getting into a job that has some security and keep horses as a hobby.
Why?
Because it is so difficult these days to support yourself and a horse at an entry level position.
Not saying that it isn’t possible.
If you have any kind of influence or connections then it can be easier.
Can you arrange to become a working student with a successful trainer in the discipline you are interested in ?
I say successful because in this country there are no Cinderella stories.
Horses are a luxury and there is only a relatively small pool to draw from. The competition for clients is quite fierce.
Do some research on working students. There are some good places out there but most of them exploit young naive eager people who will be too intimated to report abuses.
It also depends on what type of work you want to do.
Breeding, Training, Showing, Veterninary, Saddlery, Equine Massage Chiropractor,
Equine Insurance, Equine Sales Agent. Tack Shops, Groom, Equine Nutrition.
Whatever you do get your high school diploma. And take some courses at your local community college . Make sure you take computer courses like Word Processing, using Spreadsheets, Databases,. See if you can find a course on how to maintain a checking account and being responsible about credit cards and debt.
Arrange to talk to a guidance or career counselor at your school. They might not know anything about horses but they may be able to connect you to professionals in your area such as vets who can explain the process of how to become a veterinarian if that is what you are interested in.
Can you find a local stable who will let you intern for a few months?
The reason I say intern is because most places that I know of don’t want people to work off chores in exchange for lessons/training. They can get people to work. What they want and need are paying students.
If you can find someone who is willing to let you do that all well and good but it’s been my experience that such places are few and far between. These days there are child labor laws and insurance premiums to consider.
The last thing I want to do is rain on your parade but I’m just telling you that as a person who wanted to make a career out of horses I am glad that I did not.
Unless you’ve got wealthy supportive parents it is very difficult break in…
You’ve really got to stand out these days to get people to want to take a chance on you especially if you are young and unknown.
Any area of the country you are considering? There is an app that you can use to tell you how much it costs to live in a certain city. Figure that in too.
Again not trying to destroy your dreams or aspirations and I hope you do become successful at whatever choice you make and feel free to post on COTH someday and tell me I was wrong.
Almost everything in horses counts as “small business” and in those cases, the things that matter are your skill, obviously, but also your contacts, your innate talent, your ability with people, your hard work and focus, but also the amount of investment you can put up initially.
If you want to be a pro trainer or high-level competitive rider, you should at this moment be showing spectacular promise as a junior rider and be under the wing of a very good BNT who will bring you along as a working student and protege. If you are just a so-so rider as a teen, you are already behind the many many young people who are winning big and already working students or assistant trainers and catch riders, and know their way around the show scene in their discipline.
Once you go to set up as a trainer you will need the cash in hand to set up a farm either lease or buy and keep the thing running for the first year while you build clientele. Land near clients, ie in the suburbs and exurbs, is crushingly expensive. cheap land is usually too far away for much of a client base.
In every market, there are some people who make a very good thing out of a niche like summer camps or horse massage or saddle fitting, but there isn’t room for unlimited competitors and the folks who do very well at this are outliers. Their success does not predict anyone else’s success.
The jobs with actual training and an actual repeat clientele are vet and farrier. Vet is very hard work to qualify, and busy hard work as a profession. It does not involve riding. Farrier is less time to qualify but very hard work physically. It does not involve riding.
At the age of 17, when one of my friends went to groom at the local race track, I decided for myself that I would never try to earn money off horses. I would get a good paying job indoors/office and ride my own horse. My groom friend came home so tired in the afternoon from looking after other people’s horses, that she never got to ride her own.
If you do go into horses for pay as a young person, leave yourself an escape route because you do not want to be locked into a marginal income with no other job skills at the point your body starts to give out (depending on the number of bad falls you take, that could be as early as 35) and old age really poor is a big drag.
Farrier is a good way to go - don’t be afraid to work for free. After you get a certification, spend a LOT of time working under someone who is successful
Working with equines is like being an actor. Yes, there are actors who make a good living at it, but the vast majority of young people who aspire to fame and fortune as an actor never find success. If you look around the equine world, you will find people who make a good living and are successful, but they are a tiny minority of all those who tried to make a living working with horses.
There is no tried-and-true formula to making a good living working with horses because there are so many factors that affect the final outcome. Do you have top notch skills? Do you have financial support to get you through the early years? What’s the market like where you’re located? Do you have the personality to attract and keep clients? Do you have a head for business? How’s your health? All of these things, and more, matter.
My first suggestion is to educate yourself. Get experience with as many horse-related activities as you can. The summer farrier course is a great place to start, but it’s only a start. Be a working student. Do some ride-alongs with an equine vet. Volunteer in an equine therapy program. Take every opportunity you can to learn more and get new experiences. The experience is good for you and will help you decide exactly what kind of work you want to focus on. Also, while you’re educating yourself about the horse world, go to school. When you get to college, take classes in business and marketing. Take some basic educational psychology and learning theory courses. All of these things will increase the probability of being successful.
My brother is a farrier. He went through Kentucky School of Horseshoeing which incorporates business classes in with their program. I don’t remember exactly how long it was, but he moved to Kentucky for the program, so not short term. When he got done, he spent 2-3 years apprenticing for a journeyman farrier and now has been out on his own for several years. He definitely does well for himself but he works very, very hard at it and runs his business very professionally- shows up on time, keeps a schedule, carries appropriate insurances, etc. One thing I don’t think anyone comprehends fully until they do it themselves is how demanding it is on your body. He is quite good with the horses, works out, does yoga, etc but still ends up hurt often enough.
In my opinion, good farriers are probably the most financially stable in general. Less overhead and good money if you’re good and work hard.
That being said, there isn’t enough money in the world to put my body through that. It’s not an easy career.
If you’re considering veterinary school, do note it’s very competitive. It’s a massive commitment, and from what I can gather, will very much limit the amount of time you have outside of school. That may mean forgoing riding and social activities for a good part of your post-secondary life. Younger vets that I know are still in the midst of paying off their student loans. Many don’t have their own horses because of the additional financial cost and how little time they have to spend with their own horse. That’s not to say that having a spouse, friends, or animals isn’t a possibility, but it can be challenging.
You brought up farriery. As another user asked, how long is the course? A lot of the farriers I know went through a two year program to start. I would avoid the fly by night programs that sometimes pop up on FB. The best farriers I know, too, didn’t just take the singular program. Some of them are also blacksmiths, many took follow up certifications for lameness related and specialty shoeing. If you’re interested, see if there’s an experienced farrier in the area you could job shadow and consult. Be prepared for the occasional male farrier who thinks women have no business shoeing. Keep up with your riding, or even horse handling and horsemanship skills. I’ve witnessed some farriers engage in pissing matches with horses and have a very difficult time shoeing because of it.
Horse training, IMO, is the trickiest business there is. There’s no certification for that. Well, I suppose there are some, but they’re secondary to experience and character. Experience, meaning all riding and work related experience. Character, meaning who you are, your interpersonal skills, and business savvy or lack thereof. I’ve seen good horse trainers fail at turning a profit because they were bad at business, and I’ve seen some sorry excuses for trainers earn a decent living because they were great at business. The car salesmen of the horse world, so to speak. Working as a rider under an established trainer, which is where most folks start, is a tough job. Long hours for little to no pay, tough horses, and a social life that’s often limited to the barn. It’s not months, either, it’s years.
You mentioned being alright living pay check to pay check, in essence. Depending on the cost of living in your area, though, even that may be a stretch. I’m not saying success is unachievable, but it’s certainly not immediate. Unless you have financial backing from family, it may mean sacrificing a lot. Living in an accommodation with people you don’t know or don’t get along with, giving up your vehicle, your horse, and most things that don’t fall within the “necessities” category. It may mean moving across the country from your family and friends. I think it can be a stark reality for some.
I think you need to decide, if you do decide at all to take a crack at a profession with horses, how long you can afford to sink into it. Then you need to be all in. I think, too, you need to determine what the threshold is and have a plan B. What will you do if you can’t make it happen for you? What happens if you are seriously injured? I’ve seen trainers have to throw in the towel because they’ve suffered too many injuries. This isn’t intended to scare you. It’s something we all accept when we deal with horses, professional or not.
Once a counsellor said to me there are two extremes. One, where you do what you love but may make no money at it. The other, where you do something you may even hate but you do make money at it. Most people exist somewhere in between. Now, this isn’t the only way to look at something or indicative of everyone… there are plenty of folks who do something they hate and make zippo doing it. Only you can decide where you want to hang in that balance, and when to change it. Only you can determine if you want to try and make a business in horses happen, possibly forgoing seeing any significant sums of cash for an undetermined amount of time. Or, alternatively, if you want a non-horse related gig that can afford you more, sooner, including a horse.
Even though I’ve written you a novel, for which I apologize, I’ll add my own story to close. I’ll be as brief as possible. I was very much like you, as I think a lot of horse-girls are. I had big dreams when I was a teen of being a trainer. I rode every horse I could, spent a lot of time at the barn, and showed my cheap horse with some success in a sea of $50,000+ horses. I was so convinced I was going to be a trainer that I ignored a lot of my schoolwork thinking to myself I didn’t need it. I didn’t want a job at a desk or in a uniform. Shortly after I graduated, my trainer at the time, who may or may not have been the best person to listen to, but who I looked up to said to me “you don’t have what it takes”. Just like that. Maybe she was trying to look out for me, who knows. Self-doubt is something I deal with as a constant, it may be a byproduct of the mood disorders I have. Regardless, it’s tricky. It’s discouraged me from a lot, but it’s my own problem. Only I can change it.
With such poor grades in high school, it meant I wasn’t eligible for much at post-secondary. I’ve done a lot of entry level jobs since then. I’ve acquired a lot of skills, but nothing spectacular. I’ve also suffered some riding related injuries that may very well have been the end of my riding career had I had one. A few years ago, I was crushed by a horse I was riding. No warning, just rolled over on me. I broke multiple bones and suffered some significant nerve damage. Those seconds in my life changed a lot for me. I’m blessed to have a well off family, not a lot of people do. Life is full of unexpected twists, the best you can do is try to have a plan a, b, c, d, and even then it’s not foolproof.
If you like doing things outside of an office building, you could also consider trades. Or if you want to go the horse route, by all means do. I’m not saying any of this to discourage you. But please have at least one plan, and reevaluate as you go. I do wish I had. Best of luck!
My uncle was a farrier for over 30 years, but had gotten a teaching degree before deciding to go to farrier school (in New Mexico I think and then apprenticed in Virginia). When he was younger, he was able to bang out enough shoeing work in show and trail barns in the spring/summer/fall to live on during the winter, since riding was pretty seasonal in our part of the country.
When he got older and had to slow down a bit and couldn’t shoe as much (back and knees for a farrier, ouch!), he was able to get whatever re-certifications he needed for teaching and got on the sub list for the county public schools. This allowed him to keep doing what he loved (shoeing), while also making a steady income during the off-months, or the few times he was injured while shoeing (you can teach with a broken leg, but shoeing is impossible). If he didn’t have that fall-back career, I think his financial situation would not have been as stable.
He also called himself a blacksmith more than a farrier, and took on side projects with his forge and welder that supplemented his farrier income. He did love every minute of it, even if he was on his 10th horse of the day and it was 95 degrees outside. Good luck OP, with whatever you choose to do!
