There are some great riders who didn’t start riding until they were adults. If you aren’t a Maclay winner or a top name in the U25 that doesn’t mean you have no chance of riding at a top level.
The awesome thing about equestrian sports is the longevity of the time in the sport. If you are 45 and want to play football professionally, then that is a pipe dream. But if you are 45 and want to jump in a GP, why the he** not? If you have the time and money you can do it. You don’t have to be a naturally gifted rider, or been riding since you could walk, or have shown at WEF all through your junior years.
No need to crush dreams COTH. You never know when someone will prove you wrong. Instead, give an outline of what the person needs to do to get there. It is up to them if they want to achieve it.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head right there. Here on COTH, the GP question is often phrased such that it gives the impression that the person asking thinks there’s some way to get to the top that doesn’t involve years and years of hard work and if us folks who are in on the big secret would just share it, they could be in there at the top, too.
In an earlier post, you claimed to be a person of modest means. You and I must define “modest means” very differently. My income is considerably above the average income in the US, but there is no way I could come close to affording that kind of show schedule.
It’s hardly fair to hold yourself up as an example of how achieving the dream isn’t impossible for the average horse-crazy kid when the reality is that affording 10-15 AA shows/year is impossible for most of those kids - and most of the rest of us, too.
Heck, I can’t even afford the cost of all the lessons and training it would require to work my way up to that level. You certainly can’t do this on your own, gifted or not. We won’t even discuss board. I keep mine at home!
Ok so this is in part a bad example because clearly the money side of things is not an issue. But more realistically this is a great story to mention because the subject was never a GP wanna be rider. She was a hunter. Her daughter got her hooked on the fun parts of jumpers. And I commend her and am honestly thinking of her on a semi regular basis because of the things that she did (Complete her first GP at age 54) are doable through hard work and buying the right horse. While my finances aren’t in the same vicinity the range of age and desire is the same. I may or may not end up at GP but I wouldn’t mind trying to go beyond where I am now and seeing what happens.
https://nfstyle.com/teri-kessler-on-…rix-at-age-54/
Em
Oh no, it’s far far less than 1%. Even if there are as many as 1,000 riders right now who have jumped around a grand prix of any description, and there are around 50,000 active showing hunter/jumper members at the national level. Consider all the people who show locally or not at all and who still have dreams, it’s easily on order a cohort of 100,000 people, most of whom at some time have thought about the olympics, and more if you add in those who have ended up in other disciplines or who left horses altogether. And the number of GP riders is far fewer if you are talking about people who rode in the top GPs or who had a presence with an ongoing horse for any length of time.
Contemplating, I think the original post also might have gone over a bit better if the rider referenced was say Margie Goldstein instead of Jessica Springsteen. All props to Springsteen, who is a lovely rider who worked very very hard, and has succeeded where others haven’t, but I think it should be obvious to the casual observer that her path is not one easily emulated by your typical middle class teen. (Same for say McLain Ward.)
The world has changed, though, since Margie was able to catch ride by riding her bike to the barn, and much more, you have to make your own opportunities to get enough skill that your talent and hard work can pay off. Lately in show jumping it’s been a lot of family money or being the child of a professional horseman who already had a network, but it could also be someone who is very skilled at marketing and sponsorship agreements, and in eventing and dressage, there are examples of amateurs who have worked hard both at riding and career to self-fund enough to get noticed.
We all approach from different directions depending upon things like where we live and who we know and whether we’re tall or short and what our talents are beyond riding. But so many of us love horses and want to work hard to be with them all the time.
The other half is that fame in our sport looks good from the bottom, but it may not have all the rewards sought. I think many people with this dream think it would be nice to be famous, but that they think this is the way to spend all their time with great horses. If that is the goal, there are other ways that may be surer paths to success. It is sad but true that IME there are a lot of professionals who have lost their joy in horses.
In any case, for anyone seeking this dream, I hope you are reading everything you can get your hands on, from the Chronicle to various biographies etc about the people who do make it, so you can have a sense of all the paths that have worked. Here on the BB is mostly the other side of the story, all the paths that didn’t.
This makes me think about those actors/celebrities with beautiful wives who, in their People magazine interview, vehemently proclaim that it was the woman’s personality or sense of humor or ambition and energy that caused them to fall in love, not “just” her beauty. The unspoken fact is that it was the woman’s beauty that was the prerequisite for him to get to know her well enough to discover her sense of humor and personality.
Yes, there is no doubt that Teri Kessler worked hard and made sacrifices to reach GP level. No one gets there without doing that. But the money was the prerequisite that allowed her entry into that world. You can’t just say she accomplished what she did by hard work and buying the right horse without acknowledging the money.
I hope I don’t sound jealous and bitter because I’m not. I don’t begrudge anyone their resources and lifestyle. And I can’t imagine ever choosing to ride at that level. Those fences scare the begeebers out of me. Not my goal and never has been. I admire those who achieve that goal. I just think people need to be honest and realistic about their goals and what it takes to achieve them.
Thanks for sharing this article. Yes, the money and the access to great trainers and great horses is an incredibly important part to success in the grand prixs, but attitude and believing in ones self is also a major factor. I like how this article mainly focuses on her can-do attitude. You can have the nicest horses, social status, and the most padded bank account, but a shrinking violet with little to no bravery is not on the track to the prix; and you don’t have to be a teen or 20 something with a laundry list of equestrian accolades to eventually make it to the higher levels.
I also think it’s fair to say that at least some people who come on here and ask this type of question don’t really know HOW to ask it or what exactly they should ask. So to someone reading it, it does come across as “I have been riding 5 days and want to be on the Team by next year” when in reality, they are asking what they need to do to get there.
And yes, I do get as eye-rolly as the next person. And some - in my opinion, mainly the kids - ARE asking how to make the team in 1 year with no work put in, and then get upset when someone tries to be helpful and outline what would be realistic. But that’s not the case across the board (pun not originally intended, but I’m leaving it now that it’s out there).
I probably come at it from this angle because I work in a job where I have to figure out what grown, professional adults are actually asking for every day. Seems like nobody knows how to ask a clear question so they can get the answer they need, I swear, even when the topic is their own field of expertise.
Did I say I pay for these shows myself or that I owned the horses? No. I’ve gotten lucky. MY budget IS limited, but only limiting for the horse I own. I just do not see myself in some exclusive group that because I have jumped a prix I’m in the top 1%.
Your post did make it sound like you do not have a firm grasp on what “average means” is due to the fact that all you stated was your show experience that many can not afford. Maybe you can share with the OP, lurkers, and future readers how you accomplished goals?
COTH’s coverage of World Cup Final in Paris:
http://www.chronofhorse.com/article/…-jumping-final
Quote from US rider Devin Ryan in article linked above:
“It’s cool because it’s like who is Devin Ryan? Most of these guys had never heard of me. I never won an equitation final; I didn’t show in the junior jumper stuff; I didn’t have any name early on; I didn’t come from a horse family, so I just worked my way up.”
Off to Google to find out more about this Devin Ryan.
ETA: Aaannd my first hit is about a six month suspension and $6k fine from a horse welfare incident in 2015. Join the joy, folks, join the joy.
More on his background.
https://practicalhorsemanmag.com/training/devin-ryan-top-young-horses-21440
He may not have started with $, but he did start fairly early and seems to have accessed some knowledgeable help along the way.
Teri Kessler’s story is cool - and it’s a example of a path I suggested, of self-funding through your own solid career and personal resources. I love reading it and stories like that are a reason I still have ambition for myself, some days. 
I said at one point in these threads, “you are thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars from that goal” and I stand by that, but perhaps I should add a different context. I’m an upper middle class person today, daughter of a single mother teacher, been riding 40 years, and with my degree in engineering I have indeed self funded (gulp) hundreds of thousands of dollars of horse related expenses over those years, in dribs and drabs at a time, braiding to pay entry fees, eating my share of ramen, never getting expensive habits like alcohol or sushi, etc. Training with the best people I could train with, on nice but modestly priced horses… holy cow does it add up, and that’s not even paying today’s H/J entry fees (I started in H/J and now do dressage and eventing). I’m a little horrified to know that there have been years where the horses ate $30k and that doesn’t include the truck and trailer or the land we bought. But I could do that, because of the engineering degree.
Looking at your own personal strengths and weaknesses, what are your best ways to generate the cash and time needed to do the sport? It might be something like buying inexpensive horses and flipping them, or it might be a degree in nursing or it might be becoming a dynamo realtor or other salesperson. When that special horse comes around into your orbit, what’s going to be special about you that its connections will let you put your foot in the iron instead of last year’s Olympic champion or your trainer’s wealthiest client or their own daughter? That’s the question that you have to answer to get to the grands prix.
Note however also:
For many of his early years, he rode on his own at his grandfather’s nearby farm.
Even without lessons, it sounds like he had a lot of saddle time before he started. It’s certainly not necessary to have a big name junior career to get to the international levels. That saddle time is so hard for kids to come by today if they are restricted to a lesson program on a middle-class budget that requires being driven to the barn.
And yeah, it sucks to see that suspension. I don’t know him, but I’ve seen the pressure to pay the rent cause good people to make terrible choices with their horses. As an amateur, I’ve come to realize what a real luxury it is that my horse can have a bad day and we’ll all still eat at night (including the horse).
I do think show jumping is unique for this very reason - in most other sports, athletes pretty quickly get separated out into different levels based on ability. Golf has different tours, even at the professional level. So does tennis. I know someone who plays amateur tennis at a level that’s probably on par with showing in the Adult Amateurs at local A shows. There’s no chance he’ll ever be playing in a tournament and Roger Federer is playing on the next court over. The tennis circuit/ATP just doesn’t work that way, there isn’t that kind of cross-over. But I can show in the 3’ adults when McLain Ward is showing in the GP in another ring that same day. So GP show jumping seems like a much more accessible goal to riders because they are already there. It’s not a matter of working your way up in the rankings to get onto the right tour or into the right tournaments. It’s just a matter of entering a different class in the shows you are already attending.
I just read about a 32 year old who made his NBA debut with the Lakers after years of toiling away in the minor leagues. These stories happen occasionally in other sports, but with minor league pros who grind away until they finally get a lucky break. It’s less like going from the novice adults to GP in 5 years, more like being a talented yet under-funded local pro who spends a decade working in the industry until they finally get the ride on a horse that can take them there. I’d bet that there are a lot more people who were over 30 when they did their first GP, Rolex, etc. than were over 30 when the first played Wimbledon or in the NBA.
There are so many factors at play in getting to the top of any horse sport.
First you do need to become a very good rider, have enormous courage and be a bit of an adrenalin junkie if you are doing speed and/ or height competition. And you have to really have that horse obsession to stick with it. And you have to have some decent horsemanship skills.
And you have to love competing, and have the right mindset to be focussed on the moment without too many nerves or too much capacity for disappointment.
And then there’s the money. There is what it would cost to just get a foot in the door, and then there is what it would cost to get to the top.
Just to get a foot in the door, lets say the $50,000 horse and $1000 a month in board fees, looks prohibitive to me. Even if you knock that down to a $25,000 horse and $800 a month board, that still looks like a lot of money :). That doesn’t even include showing costs.
And I know what happens to the average young ammie that decides free OTTB! ! Dirt cheap recreational self board barn! ! ! (not fun to watch unravel). I’ve watched enough that I believe the average ammie needs a strong support system particularly at the start, but then also up the levels.
Then there is luck. Some luck you make yourself, by being the kind of emerging rider trainers like and want to sponsor. But in general you have to finance your own skills development up to a level where a trainer will see value in you. No trainer is going to take Suzie Crosspoles on as an apprentice after her first year of lessons.
Some luck is pure luck, especially the bad kind. Horse is injured, you are injured, parents divorce and pony gets sold.
But then there is the pure, but rare, good luck of finding out that Fluffy can jump the moon. Those of course are the inspiring stories.
I think though that a lot of those stories come out of the earlier part of the 20th century, while the whole idea of horse sports was just being developed.
I have an old anthology of British pony stories, with one by Joanna Cannan that is dead accurate to every detail of horsemanship.
The climax is the annual horse show at the fair. The plucky self taught kids who are the heroes go in a jump off and the fuzzy pony wins at 4 feet. Then they use the prize money to buy New Zealand blankets so they can clip the ponies and go fox hunting the next winter.
The only detail that jumped out at me in the whole story was tweens without formal coaching 
jumping 4 feet. Clearly it was a bit aspirational, but I have to believe given the wry realism of the rest of the story that it wasn’t crazy fantasy land either.
The thing to remember is that would have been a world where jump contests started at 3 feet, where the most fun thing was thought to be hunting across country, and where you could be left alone with your pony to ride for hours and develop your own skills (or not), like ranch kids today (do ranch kids still exist?).
You are much less likely to find a diamond in the rough or be able to polish that diamond if you are coming up through a lesson/lease/ buy trainer approved horse system. Where, as other threads have pointed out, you are going to be kept at two foot nine until you buy the $15,000 step up horse.
There can be more factors at play with an independent adult wanting to get serious about competing. You can make lifestyle changes that let you keep a horse less expensively, you can be more savvy about choices in trainers, you can haul in to trainers and clinics in your own rig. Particularly for adults who had a good foundation as juniors, maybe were working students themselves or in a show barn, they can pick and school horses as well as the average trainer.
My guess is that most of the COTH ers who are admirable examples of DIY competing went into that with existing strong skills. My guess is no adult beginner gets very far in competing unsupported.
Even so you still need to maintain the career that is finding this, and after a certain point come to terms with a slight but gradual decline in stamina.
Anyhow money can help in all of this. It can get you better horses, or replace injured horses. It can get you better coaching (if you are selective). It can make things that more convenient for a busy adult so that you are riding after work not bushwhacking the fence lines or scouring the water troughs or setting traps for possums, or changing tires on the tractor, or all the other tasks I read about in “On the Farm.”
I think the attitude “let’s see how far I can get in this field” is a healthy one. But the attitude “I need to get to the very top or it is all pointless” is not healthy because at some point, more likely than not, you will hit your limit if whatever set of factors of ability, attitude, money, and health apply to you and your horse.
There’s an old documentary that pops up on public TV every once in a while called “The Royals and Their Horses.”
In it, Princess Zara says that she had to drop her Olympic eventing team bid for that particular cycle because her qualifying horse was injured. Even the grand daughter of the Queen of England is held hostage to the health of her horses.
Anyhow, the point many newbies may miss is that getting to the top by definition is reserved for the very few. It’s not the final stage everyone arrives at.
It’s not a right of passage like graduating high school which almost everyone with no major problems can do if they stick to it. It’s like graduating highschool as class valedictorian then getting a full merit scholarship to Yale then having your graduate degree a full ride and becoming a top research scientist that wins a Nobel prize.
You don’t get there by sitting home nights drafting your acceptance speech in your head.
I dunno, I must be a bah-humbug because I read the responses on the thread that generated this one and thought they were kinder than I would be if I responded, which is why I didn’t.
I don’t mind those kind of “Can I” questions from kids. A 12 year old asking would get a much different response from me than someone past their college years. I would assume, by that time in your life, you would have a little bit of an idea of how the world works, and what it takes to make it to the very top in any super competitive endeavor. That level of naiveté is kind of baffling to me. 
I was lucky enough to get started at a very young age, with a good trainer situation. I’ve ridden every kind of horse I could get my hands on, learned to pick which shows had the highest amount of prize money but hopefully lower entries, only had young inexperienced horses of my own, and hit the ground a lot and learned a lot of what not to do. I never said I was winning a ton, because I haven’t, but consistent top 10 placings in classes have helped me reach certain goals. Some shows I qualified for I still could not show at due to budget restraints, but others worked out. I watch every video, read every article/book I can get a hold of, and spend every free second in the barn/hanging out at shows. I love horses and am to the nth degree horse obsessed. And to me, despite being able to go to shows, show in certain classes others may never, I still do not think I am special, extraordinarily talented, nor have I gotten anywhere close to where I want to be in this industry. I go to shows like Tryon and if I’m showing my own horse, I do not fit in with the masses, but am able to hold my own. I’ve gotten to where am I now by what everyone else says: hard work, focus, more hard work. There is nothing special about that, and what I have done is nothing that can’t be repeated. You just have to want it bad enough. And maybe wanting it bad enough is the only thing that separates those from who succeed and who don’t, but I don’t think I have succeeded by my own standards yet.
All of these replies remain as the bulk of the reasons that I really think it’d be more fun to have a smaller version of the Olympics as an American contest for folks who do the ~ 1.10-1.20 jumpers, 3’6-4’ hunters and the 2nd-3rd level dressage riders and Prelim level eventers. Absolutely no pros and back to the spirit of what the Olympics used to be intended to be.
Would it ever happen, 100% no, but it would likely be fun.
Em
Also that special horse won’t come into your orbit unless you are already in his orbit. He’s not likely to turn up at your beginners lesson barn.
In my area we have a small group of people training and competing at the 5 foot Spruce Meadows level. I got an invitation once from a mutual friend to watch them do an impromptu schooling clinic. Otherwise I wouldn’t even know they exist. They obviously aren’t turning up at our regular rated Junior Ammie Open shows that tend to top out at a metre. They are off elsewhere jumping for money.
And even so, I tracked the horse that most impressed me from that training day, and he wasn’t in the ribbons at Spruce Meadows that year. Jumping is tough in that if the horses are well matched, it comes down to a matter of seconds or a fault. Nothing is guaranteed.
Anyhow my point is that you have to ratchet yourself up a few notches to even be in the vicinity of these horses let alone get the ride.
That day was the only time so far I’ve been on ground level with a horse of that calibre (not in the bleachers or the sofa watching TV).
I got to pat his nose.
Anyhow it’s a bit of a mystery to me how folks end up on that track. The rider with the great horse was indeed the adult daughter of a coach and competitor at that level.
I am not sure there is much way to ladder in from a program that tops out at one metre. Same as how so many dressage riders stall out at first level, even their coaches never make it to Grand Prix.
