I agree with this post. I’ve watched the “big time” show jumpers for many years, too many to count, and been around lots of show barns with “assistant” trainers or, years ago “working students”. Yes, there are the Beezie Maddens, McLain Wards, Laura Krauts etc. but there’s also a lot of others who came and went. It’s a tough life and it may look good when you are young, have no real worries and no real responsibilities, but juggling a life, a horse show life, a family life, and a work life is a lot of work. The rewards are few and far between and you will hear over and over again from the big names that it is hard. Amy Millar did a piece recently about there being very few moms at the top. She’s right. But, as I told my sons, “if you have big dreams, you can’t add a bunch of other things, so think carefully about the cost of that big dream and other things”. Lastly, I don’t think if you don’t have deep pockets or friends or family with deep pockets, you can “work your way up”. The days of going to a barn and going from stall cleaner to rider are probably gone, if they ever existed. I also don’t think if you are “average” in income and opportunities you are going to get the kind of high paying job that can let you do that. Not to say that it can’t happen, but even the folks who get those jobs had advantages and a whole lot of luck. The American Myth of the poor boy making good is a myth, always has been; and even those who made good almost always had some advantage (right school, right contacts, Luck) that helped them. If you’re interested, the NPR podcast on wealth inequality and how it impacts life choices is worth a listen. I can’t recall the name but they looked at entrepreneurs who had large (parental) financing and those who didn’t, and discovered that if you had a whole lot to lose, your gambles in your business were not as risky and thus, not a rewarding. If you had a soft landing, your risks paid off better. Just saying. . . .
It’s true. When you are a teen, and you have a big hobby or sport, it can be the one area of your life you experience freedom, self determination, accomplishments. That’s why it’s so important to have a passion as a teen. But at the same time, it can make that passion seem all there is to life, and also it’s usually funded by adults and often controlled by adults acting in what they think are your best interests.
Once you grow up and are launched into college, career, relationships, maybe marriage, family, home ownership etc, your whole life can be the panorama upon which you experience freedom, self determination, fulfilment and accomplishments, meaning also that you need to bring realism, responsibility and the ability to compromise to your life. You might find that other aspects like study, career, travel, love etc are more compelling than horses, at least for a while, and that you need to make choices. You may find that when you return to horses that you value other aspects of horses more than specifically competing at A level hunter shows.
I agree with being smart about career choices to maximize your adult earning and satisfaction levels, but this is to provide the flexibility to let you do whatever you decide to do with your life.
Another aspect is that if your career locks you into working in a huge metro area like New York City, it will be very hard to find time to ride.
At least WEF and Ocala are kinda nice. Thermal is like spending 8 weeks in a truckstop parking lot in the middle of nowhere. But yes, the US show circuit is a serious grind and not for everyone. These days with the long circuits I think people have a bit more stability in housing and a chance to bring their families along for a while and not live in a hotel room 9 months a year and it is better. But being on the road all the time is really tough unless you are the kind of person that is not affected by a complete lack of routine.
LaurieB your whole post is spot on, but I want to echo this part in particular. The sooner we accept we can’t always get what we want, and we are not entitled to it either, the sooner we become truly content with what we actually can do. It doesn’t mean to give up hope, it just means recognizing that it may or may not be feasible, and some people’s situations make it easier to manage than others.
This past year was the first time in my now-middle-aged adult life that I was able to do a winter circuit. I really enjoyed being in Florida and out of the rainy dreary weather at home, but a lot of the reasons I really enjoyed it were completely unrelated to showing, like being close enough to the farm to take a lesson at 8:30am and be on a work call by 9:30, which would take an extra hour at home. Competing at WEC was a treat, and I felt lucky that the stars aligned and I was able to manage my work seamlessly, which would not always be the case depending on what I’m working on. But if I can’t work it out to go back, I’ll still have a great time time enjoying the shows I can get to, and be grateful for what I get to do, because the universe doesn’t owe me a winter circuit lol.
the reason we got horses for our kids we knew showing horses is often unfair, we used the aspect of showing these horses to teach our kids how to deal with failure (perceived or real).
The kids learned how to not just deal with it but how to accomplish their goals.
At least truck stop parking lots are paved, fairly well lit, access to flushing toilets and 24hr hot food.
ETA truck stops usually are not in known flood zones. So no 2am phone call that your 17.2h 1.4m horse is at the county fairgrounds in a 10x10 pipe pen surrounded by auction steers because the A circuit show barns flooded taking everything loose into the creek…tack trucks do float for awhile but leak.
Going to a show as a teen supported by an entire team of adults paid by your parents to keep you safe and on track is a far more comfortable experience than doing the same thing as an adult, even in a full service training barn. As an adult you are absolutely aware of so many factors, including budget but also managing your own meals and schedule and work/life balance.
When you are a teen all the older kids and adults involved in anything can seem glamorous and fascinating and unattainable, but when you are a 40 year old established professional in a good career who has been in and out of horses your whole life, even if you are still really invested in competing as an ammie, you will find the world much more familiar but also much less mysterious and fascinating.
Once you accept the role money plays in buying adult ammie success, once you are experienced enough to spot bad training and bad attitudes, once you are out of the constant interpersonal competition of junior world, you will likely survive by sticking to your own track and making the best of what you can afford to do. And finding a great deal of satisfaction in that.
For instance, the DIY ammies who can buy a fresh OTTB, keep it on their own acreage, turn it in to a jumper or eventer with weekly lessons from their coach, and show locally out of their own truck and trailer.
We have a number of people like that on this board. They are very rightly quietly proud of their skills and accomplishments, and very satisfied with what they can do. Probably at this stage they would not change places with a high dollar ammie in a wrap around training program on a made horse, because they’d have no scope to use their hard win training and horsemanship skills.
One of the wonderful gifts available to adults is autonomy. Teens get very little autonomy unless they carve out a private niche in their lives
I can remember being a child and horses and my “horse goals” were my top and only priority. As an adult, I still prioritize my horse to a degree. I bought a farm for him after all, but there is so much more to life than a horse show.
Even if I had unlimited funds and heaps of talent, I wouldn’t be happier showing every weekend. Sounds like having a job with rigid and long hours imo. But also, I’d miss my family. Not just my spouse, but my parents and siblings and niblings. I’d miss my garden. My house. My own bed. My routine. I might not miss work if I had unlimited funds 
I totally agree there’s plenty of achievements and satisfaction to be found without spending a fortune horse showing each year. I bred, raised and trained up my horse. It’s something I’m very proud of. I’m very proud of the pension I provided for dearly departed TB Norman. I’m very proud of my stray pony.
But I’m also proud of my hydrangeas and the sweaters I’ve knit.
Now, if I wanted to do more horse showing and I went back in time, I’d probably become a dentist and move to Wellington.
I wouldn’t know. I got my first paid riding job at age 10 and was paid every ride that wasn’t my own horses till I quit at 24. My parents never came to horse shows. Now I’m an older ammie, I buy and sell. I have another full time job I like and my true “horse” love is making up nice horses into good homes.
A friend just had me out today to look at a poor skinny gelding with horrendous feet. He belonged to someone who imported him, had kids and didn’t have time to ride. My friend bought him for nothing and has him out on 20 acres of grass and is going to rehab and trail ride him till next summer then I’ll train and show him and we’ll get him to a good home with a teen or adult. He’s a doll and he’s going to be a 3’6" horse, easy. In return she’s letting my put a 2yo out in the same field for the next year and she’ll do some ground work and pony him on trail rides to give him a good start. The 2yo comes from a breeder I know who gave me a deal because she knows I’ll get him out there. That’s what I love to do. I like competing. I love that.
I was on a long drive yesterday and thought more about how much doing the circuit with multiple horses actually costs, as a way to come up with the expense and then reverse engineer how much you need to make. These numbers are loose and I believe potentially low.
Assumptions: Horses are in a high-end full training program and the monthly bill includes their services at home & shows. Two horses; client is doing 26 weeks of shows; they average 1.5 horses per show so we’ll round up to 40 weeks of one horse at a show for billing purposes. 12 weeks of WEF, Devon, Upperville, 3 weeks of indoors is already 17 weeks; easy to throw in some HITS up north, Tryon, Lake Placid, Traverse City, Vermont, Kentucky, WEF warm-up weeks, etc.
2 horses in show training program - $15k/month - $180,000 per year
40 weeks of $1k horse show bills - $40,000 per year
Shipping to shows (low bc presumably some are a circuit) - $500 per show - $20,000 per year
40 weeks of braiding 4 days a week (2 hunter divisions) - $150 per day - $24,000 per year
Flights/rental cars/housing for rider - feels low - $1500 per week - 26 weeks - $39,000
This puts us at $303,000. If you buy a single new horse this year, you are over $500,000 of post-tax income needed. We haven’t paid vet bills, insurance bills, shoeing, tack, paying for a horse that is laid up or retired… and we certainly haven’t paid our mortgage or bought a car or even gotten ourselves a haircut. Keep in mind horses are the ultimate depreciating asset. A car could be totaled and worth $0 - but it will never have a career ending energy that still has you paying board/vet/feet for potentially 20 years.
I had done these general calculations before and actually found it really grounding - of course I can’t keep up in this sandbox and I don’t want to live the kind of life where I need to earn this income (because I promise you, it is earned - no one is paying someone $2m a year to work 9-5). Once I took a step back I realized as much as I don’t love the full time show circuit lifestyle for myself, I really don’t like it for the horses. Beezie Madden got a dog for the first time when she stepped back from showing at the top levels because it was the first time she had any time for one. If you look at her current, still-packed show schedule, it gives you a glimmer of how much of the rest of life she had to set aside to compete.
Heck, when my 2005 Honda was totaled by the insurance company (I fixed it rather than scrapped it, but that’s another story) I got money for it. Not the same with a horse.
Everyone’s posted some great responses, but another thing to think of is that in at least some careers, like Big Law or Big Banking, you’re also expected to maintain a certain lifestyle to seem “part of the club.” The “horse poor” frugal lifestyle that some people maintain to keep one or two horses (like the software engineer who works remotely but wears yoga pants for Zoom calls that are easy to throw on after mucking stalls in the morning for the horses they have at home) isn’t feasible if you’re working in some careers where you’re expected to dress the part, go out after work, or even live within a certain zip code and send your kids to certain schools.
I’ve even heard anecdotally that some of these industries like employees who live lavishly, since they know if someone is at uncomfortably at the margins of their income they are more motivated to produce.
Thank you for laying that all out! What a reality check about the hard number we are talking just for the showing part…
This is where moving to lower cost area’s makes a huge difference. Midwest based programs probably range from $2k-3k.
Yes - but my $15k for two horses was inclusive of show fees/grooming since the bigger programs are all inclusive with the expectation you’ll be showing a lot (disclaimer: I have been out of showing for a few years and this may have changed). If you are paying $2500 a month per horse in a less expensive training program, you’re paying probably $1500 per showing week for trainer fees/day care. With 40 show weeks per year, that’s 3.33 shows per month or another $5000 to the trainer. This would bring the monthly board/training money down to $10k, or $120k per year. It is certainly a savings over my quoted $180k per year, but it is still a hefty number.
Yes! This is the kind of opportunity possible when you are a really high skilled ammie that doesn’t need a trainer or training program, when you are effectively your own trainer. And it sounds like you have been ahead of the curve as a working junior from the start. Huge admiration on my part.
The OP is not as far as I can see on that trajectory as a junior. I’m sure they ride well enough but they are still at the stage of having to pay their way, either for lesson, lease or purchase. And they are wondering how you sustain that into adulthood and perhaps get to the big venues as an adult that they can’t afford as a junior.
I think for a junior just getting into showing like OP the aspirational high dollar h/j world can appear like the only horse world that exists, and the skills they are learning are quite narrow in scope. Stories like yours show how many other interesting and rewarding avenues you can go down as a competent and independent adult that doesn’t need to be in a training program for ever
The catch is that lower cost of living areas often have lower salaries. Often the highest paid jobs are in specific cities, like finance in NYC or tech in SF Bay Area or Seattle. And the high salaries drive up costs for everything.
So we can look at lower costs for land (which drives horse care costs both hay and actual boarding space) in a lower cost of living area, but those costs are usually still high for the average income there.
I could buy an actual 20 acre ranch up in cattle country for the cost of a mediocre 2 bedroom condo in the city but my job category doesn’t exist there.
Now my friends who are fully remote IT (game developer and an IT HR person) were able to leverage this to buy property in a LCL rural area, but most of us can’t
Some programs do get nickel and dimey but on the upper end of the range I quoted I’ve seen show fees included.
For the most part I’m seeing jobs move to more remote based. For example, I’m a director for a large name Management Consulting Firm, and as long as I’m near a decent airport I can more or less live wherever.
I’ve been following this thread and immediately thought of it when this article popped up:
80 hours per week is a lot!!
