Okay. Probably not. Maybe we boil it down to human decency. I’m all for any criminal. Born here or an immigrant being removed from society. But throwing out the baby with the bath water is harsh. But I understand what you’re saying about arguing about the trees when what matters is the forest.
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For this post I’m staying on the stable tangent. I haven’t seen a teenager barn cleaner that had any horse skills in awhile, and that is sad. I know they’re out there, but I haven’t run across any in years. And thinking of turn out and stall cleaning. One of the lovely posters on coth was killed in a freak turn out accident. I remember asking about her and someone linked the old thread. I don’t think you could get more experienced than her.
And someone else recently posted that stalls aren’t cleaned with horses in them. Where do they live? That happens all the time around here (here being the west coast states with a couple mtn states included).
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are you certain your BO is of a like mind with you regarding this?
Nope.
I don’t know the citizenship or immigration status of any of the barn workers at my boarding facility, but regardless I will be asking my barn owner to think about prominently posting private property signs
I guess this is why they are asking!!
If the BO is not of like mind, asking might create tension…
This is disgusting to me. The welfare of the horse is greater than that of the groom? Talk about putting a price on a human being.
My luxury pet is worth you breaking your hand, or arm, or getting drug. Wtf??
And about the poop pickers - AGAIN we are not talking about a one stop shop here. There are many laborers on a farm. If your horses require genuinely skilled labor to lead to a pasture, then your board should be higher to pay that skilled person. But poop picking is not skilled labor no matter how many times you say it is.
You can value the person doing it to the moon and back. I know I do. But is it not.skilled.labor. to pick stalls.
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My bottom line here is that whether you label the barn worker as skilled or unskilled, there are not enough USA citizens who are willing to work these horse farm jobs.
A rebuttal of “we just don’t offer enough money” doesn’t hold water for me either. The work hours typically suck, barns are hot or cold, you get rained on, you get dirty, you lift heavy weight repetitively. The potential applicant pool is young Americans, of whom it is estimated that only 23 percent percent can meet minimal physical condition standards (or who have significant criminal records) to even be considered to enlist in our military. I just do not see how increasing barn worker pay can attract enough young Americans with the physical stamina needed to fill all the vacant horse farm jobs created by removing immigrants from them.
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I had the same thought. It’s easier to clean the stall when it’s empty. But that’s not always what happens in many places.
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This is a little bit of a tangent from the topic at hand, but I’m going to toss it into the mix anyway.
This is a super interesting podcast with an American rider who is now extremely successful at the top levels of showjumping. I just listened to it yesterday, and it was really, really good.
And one of the things she mentioned was that getting anywhere with horses involves a huge amount of incredibly hard work, and if you’re serious about getting anywhere with it, you have to be willing to put in the hours and the effort. And she did it, and started out her career as a groom, and it worked out extremely well for her.
Obviously that does not mean there are tons of other people who would do it, or that they would necessarily have the same results. But it does show that such people do still exist in this country, and it can work out for them, even if the odds are pretty darn long at this point.
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There are always going to be stories like this. The American Way does work for some.
“The American way of life or the American way is the U.S. nationalist ethos that adheres to the principle of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. At the center of the American way is the belief in an American Dream that is claimed to be achievable by any American through hard work.”
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Where I used to keep my horse was at a layup/retraining/retirement facility for race horses. The workers also worked at the track a few miles away. There was one guy specifically that did NOT like cleaning stalls with horses in them. If a horse couldn’t get turned out, it was moved to a dirty stall, it’s stall cleaned, then moved back. In inclement weather, there were some round pens set up in the indoor so the stalled horses could bounce around a bit. Generally two or three were set up and three horses would go out, stalls cleaned, then they would come back in so they were in the round pens for about an hour. In good weather, they would go into round pens or small fields for the day.
But yea, professional facility, professional barn workers - stalls cleaned without horses in them. I don’t know how common it is, but I wager the stalls are the training facilty are probable cleaned either when the horse (there are some fields and round pens to turn horses out for a bit at most of the barns) is out or the horse is training.
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Further impacting all employment is that our unemployment rate is at low point. We killed off a large amount of people with covid. We have another big cohort who are now disabled with long covid. And now we-g are focusing on removing hundreds of people who wznt to work. How smart is that?
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I think the number will be much higher than hundreds.
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Yes, it is possible to work hard and get ahead in this industry. I think many of us are this person or know these people.
BUT
You have to really want it. You have to be borderline insane (🙋) to work this hard for this industry. There aren’t that many crazy horse girls/boys out there to fill these roles. Even the ones that get paid well could still do other things for more money, so why would they do this?
I want to pay my employees very well and treat them excellently because I want them to be happy, care for my horses, and stick around, but I have no illusions that anyone is going to stay with me forever, because there are so many easier/better paying careers to have.
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Amen!
I’ve seen minor dysfunction in a (20-something white female) stallcleaner waste bedding by not sifting the forkful of what she’d just picked.
While being overseen by the equally inept BM.
Another - of the same ilk - ignore a horse who didn’t get up when she dumped the grain ration from the cart she was wheeling down the aisle into the stall.
Horse was colicing, she was oblivious.
Both idjits were US citizens.
I’ll take a knowledgeable illegal worker with literal horsesense over either.
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Ya know, there’s a 30 something in my area with a nice facility. Hunter jumper barn. She works hard, long days, loads of sacrifices and effort…at the end of the day…her father bought that farm for her, set her up for success, funded her foundational needs (health insurance and other insurance, trucks, improvements).
I would never, ever discount how hard she works.
She’s a talented rider and skilled poker player in business. She’s sharp and simultaneously no… she did not fund her successful farm and facilities. Ha! Nope. Thanks poppy. He bought that barn, that footing, those fences. Just stop it. Investment banker and real estate prospector. Good for him! Fairly earned capital.
Someone else set up her bootstraps, y’all. She was teed up to polish patent leather. Let’s not pretend otherwise in Disney princess-land. This isn’t jealousy, i am just making it plain that bootstraps are hella shorter when someone else pays the cobbler. Me, I don’t want to ride horses for money and chase clients. I’m presently chilling at the beach getting a boat serviced, tyvm.
There’s just a little too much oh look at me and what I’ve done here and how hard I’ve worked. Just…come on y’all. Not a single person here has started an an unskilled, legal or illegal immigrant and made a name as a horseman with a show barn property and clients to show for it.
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Yes and they are currently celebrating because scholarships have been stopped in Burma. Burma is not stable and getting young people out and experiencing the world is one way to help a country.
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I don’t know people here IRL but I can guarantee you that I do know people (ok, two people off the top of my head) IRL that have done this. Admittedly this is probably because I know way more American born citizens than I know immigrants.
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Careful this doesn’t stray into politics, y’all. It’s a relevant discussion but let’s keep it horse industry related. I’m sure the mods are watching closely.
I know someone like this. In their 30s and their program is not super fancy, but they own a property with a nice ring, all the farm vehicles, two rigs, a packed full boarding/training program, etc.
Their mother has supported them (paying the rent/owning the vehicles/getting the loans) since childhood, and continues to do so even now. And that’s all fine! That’s usually what it takes. Hard work and luck only go so far - you can’t brute force connections and funding.
Anyway. If people(g) want to “pay Americans more” to do these horse farm jobs, it’ll have to go the way of more traditional jobs. Better wages, health insurance, PTO, shifts (staffing to levels that allow people to work 40 hours AND have a weekend day off, or a ton of PT workers), overtime, etc. And let’s hope there’s people able and ready to do that work. To be clear, these are things that I think EVERY worker deserves… so a bit of a conflict there in my head. Either way, this radical of a change is going to hit hard and fast… and we aren’t ready. Horse industry and otherwise.
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