This, I think, is lacking nowadays. I’ve definitely heard people decry the little pond barns for not enough progression or talent but I think they are thinking about it all wrong. Though I have my own barn and my own horses, I happily ride any horses (when I’m not broken) when I can because a. every horse has something to teach me, and b. you can NEVER work on the basics enough.
I think it’s one of the reasons I’m so keen on trying other disciplines. I’m a very experienced Hunter rider, but I won’t hesitate to take a western, dressage, saddle seat or other discipline lesson because it’s more tools in my toolbox. No matter how “qualified” the instructor (so long as they aren’t a complete bozo…and I’ve met some of those as well).
I don’t think nepo babies are going to be the death of the industry. We’ve always had them, and some of them turn out to be really good trainers. They don’t start out that way, of course, they start out with some luck, but two that I can think of who stuck with it turned out really well.
I could have misunderstood the “little pond” comment, but I thought it was more referring to the fact that the best instructors have a wide base of knowledge of many different types of horses and riders. Someone can have showed only on made horses their entire life at rated shows, and only with people who are like themselves and not be able to cope with horses who are young, difficult, or students who are less fit, older, more timid, or students who simply have ridden lots of green horses all their lives and ride more defensively than they had to. But similarly, it can be difficult to take lessons from people who never took lessons themselves and learned to ride intuitively and don’t really know how to translate their riding into actual teaching. (The latter I have experienced.)
Ultimately, to be a good riding teacher with a lesson program you need to:
Understand horses
Understand the mechanics of riding
Understand how to teach people
Have some horses that are sound and sane enough to do what your students are asking them, if they perform what you teach them reasonably correctly
These are very difficult balls to juggle (and stay in business while you are doing it).
Let me see if I can articulate my understanding of things (my brain is completely shot today so while this is a welcome diversion, I may be the one twisting htings a bit!)
Nepo-babies (in the horse world) were brought up, as examples of why the sport is dying because they don’t know as much as advanced riders.
Then another poster said that when you start out, you don’t start out with someone like Dutton or Maclay finalists.
Then yet another poster brought up that many adults don’t want to learn at those barns, which are “little ponders” - meaning, not the trainers who have the equine equivalent of Tiger Woods’ qualifications.
So to bring it all back full circle -
Many people look at “perceived qualifications” first, and opportunities to show. That matters to a huge population of riders. Those qualifications may not include being well-rounded because the metric we’ve got is a show record. I’ve met many VERY business-successful hunter/dressage trainers with large and growing programs who never went foxhunting, backed their own baby or attempted roping a cow. They were solid in their disciplines, but I personally felt they were lacking. Plus, if you aren’t getting lawn darted are you even a trainer? (KIDDING!)
The big ponders (to keep the same terminology) aren’t necessarily better than the little ponders. What they’ve done is specialized in a way that people want.
Your 1-4 are great, but I find that pool to be an even smaller pond. I haven’t found the 1-4 in the large programs except for 1 place. I’ve found it in the smaller barns that everyone has been p*ssing on and says that they aren’t good businesspeople. And they aren’t, generally, because they are very very good teachers. Good teachers aren’t necessarily good businesspeople. They do run it as a business but because they are not profit-first motivated, with tiny margins they get eliminated.
VERY few riders want to really get deep into horsemanship. I would say that most of COTH does want to be good horsepeople, but outside of here, there’s a larger group that doesn’t frequent forums and try to learn.
The vast majority want to have some fun and show, not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that. The big business-oriented barns are where you’re going to find that, but you aren’t going to be wrapping legs nor even tacking up your own horse in many of them.
And again - not that any of these ways of enjoying lessons or being involved with horses are wrong - it’s just that the quality of horsemanship varies at all of these types of barns, so it’s not that you can paint any one of them with a brush and say “all of these types are good” or “all of these types are bad”.
A poster a bit higher up was talking about people whose wealthy parents bought them a farm after funding their successful showing career. I half-jokingly called them nepo-babies. It’s a common term for celebrities who become famous because their parents are famous (which, if you look at hollywood, is most of them).
If you want to succeed, you need to be professional about your career.
That means learning and always refreshing your skills.
Can any of us who’ve had a few years of lessons teach up/down lessons? Probably.
That doesn’t mean that an up/down instructor shouldn’t have a much deeper base of knowledge that goes beyond what an up/down rider needs to know and an interest and desire to keep learning more.
You’re teaching today’s skill, but with an eye on what’s next and how to progress from today’s skill to tomorrow’s.
Eh, I’d agree that is what makes a good instructor, but it sure isn’t the approach I’ve seen of the successful trainers in my area.
One, with a huge program, doesn’t take additional lessons nor let her students nor associates clinic nor take lessons with anyone else.
Big growing program because they show a ton and sell horses at a profit.
I have a dear friend who is a fabulous instructor, does a ton of additional learning, aaaaaand is struggling. Because her focus is on quality not quantity. She doesn’t show. Her horses do a max of 1 lesson per day.
Being knowledgeable does not equal profitable in horses.
You blamed a lack of success on people not being knowledgeable.
I’m finding the opposite to be true.
The money here is in the big hunter barns that are not particularly knowledgeable about horses, training and horsemanship, but are business oriented, diversified, and great at parting clients from their money. The lessons aren’t great, but the horses purchased are fabulous and their clients enjoy great success at the shows.
Doesn’t help horsemanship to have those be the programs that succeed.
Your area might be different, I’m not sure geographically where you are, but in the major areas of the US that I have been in, it’s a pattern.
I think a small lesson program can be viable under the right conditions. If you have a handful of sound, sane, and low maintenance honies that can consistently give you ten hours per week and a core group of students who reliably show up and pay on time, it can be a decent income. No horse showing or Olympic aspirations, just horse enjoyment and low level safe riding. If you’re in the right location with a steady influx of kids into the pipeline, it can definitely work.
I have noticed inexperienced and uncommitted people buying horses too! So have my friends in other parts of the country. They buy then neglect their horses. It’s just a symptom of the massive wealth gap now. Me and my friends are mostly married 2 high level professional incomes and that used to mean you weed good to go for modest horse ownership and showing. Not anymore! Many of my friends have been priced out. We’re talking well paid professionals here. And we watch idiots with inheritance buy farms and horses and and absolutely butcher it. Yes barns closed here, there’s nothing left that provides correct care. My horse became abused and I let him go bc move after move there just wasn’t any normal or high quality boarding left. Now I have a massive income going to nothing. I just save everything hoping I can buy my own farm down the road. It’s stupid. But yes I must buy an entire farm just for me. I’ll be mowing lots of acres and dragging and feeding, watering the arena, repairing, cleaning stalls, managing manure removal, paying massive property tax, buying extra horses I don’t need as they can’t live alone, all so I can continue my hobby.
I’m 47 and retirement is coming up in a short 10 years. Unfortunately I’ve been watching those sorts of situations crash and burn my whole life (farm owner and barn manager). They never work out well, just drama and turnover and constant ads for farm help (hence the poor care of horses). I’m not interested in owning a horse biz (a farm big enough for boarding and a barn manager quarters is out of my price range anyway) that depends on a barn manager on my personal property or other barn drama with boarders. Also you’d be surprised the cost of insurance for that, plus almost a total lack of companies that will provide home owners insurance with an equine biz on the property. Already looked into that. My hubby is a non horse person. An absolute NO to having all that drama at his own home. He hears enough about it from my boarding experiences.
We have great jobs with 401k matching, pensions and over 300k. If that’s not enough to have a 5 acre hobby farm by the time I’m 50, the whole thing is a hard pass for me.
There’s a place a mile away looking for pt help that would really suit me.
But they constantly have ads for help, which tells me the problem is not the help.
Last big place I worked kept asking me for more help with more responsibility, but only modestly increased my total pay
It worked out to about $10 an hour and I got stiffed on my last three hour+ days pay too.
I figure it was worth $30-40 to learn they would do that to me. Note taken.
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I’ve been a paying boarder all my adult life, and a worker since I was 14. I’ve worked in backyard barns and top barns in the breeding industry. I’ve also worked for large corporations in sales and marketing.
I have yet to work for someone who runs their barn like a true, above board, non-barn business except the one large breeding farm.
that is beyond interesting and really aligns with what I’ve seen my whole life as well. Sorry you’ve been through the ringer as well. The horse industry is really different from the norms of any other business. It’s the wild west basically.
New story for me since I gave my horse away due to shit boarding - I showed up to ride my lease horse today (lease agreement specifically states no one else is using the horse and I can show up any day or time up to 4 days per week). Well the owners were there getting ready to use the horse! I drove 40 min for no reason. I’ll spare you the details but it was such a rude condescending feeling after I’ve spent a couple months training this horse from barely broke to the point he’s fairly useable and quiet. I paid to train him and I’m a person with a long USEF record and many years experience with young green horses. The first 2 weeks was all ground work, he was not even capable of standing at a mounting block (totally scared of it and everything in the arena). I paid to do that. But now that he’s nice to ride after all my hard work, they do this. No notice or hey let’s modify the lease agreement… Just don’t tell me and show up to ride. My time is valuable not to mention my V8 hemi gas for 80 minute round trip.
Wouldn’t it be a dream is there were accreditations required to run a boarding barn? Inspections to keep a license to run a barn? Things like that? Just like The FDA and USDA oversight for pharma or agriculture etc? I’d pay the premium in a heartbeat to support some sort of actual accountability and baseline functionality of boarding barns.
This is one of the reasons I got fed up with leasing. I too was putting training into horses while paying for it but that’s a different topic. One horse had multiple people leasing (long story), one woman showed up whenever she felt like it and would lie through her teeth about whether she rode or not (putting away the horse soaked in sweat too). Continued to lie one day while she showed up to ride during my time WITH an instructor for a lesson. I eventually gave up on all these people but was asked to fill in for a bit because of an injury…and the other person rides the horse with out telling me. As a working parent, it’s hard enough juggling schedules so it really, really sucks to go out and find someone else riding. And this was not a horse that tolerated 2 rides in a day. The grumpy attitude wasn’t worth it for something that’s supposed to be fun.
I feel like it is unique where I live (North Dakota) because it is still relatively cheap to keep horses out here, but boarding barns are scarce (I manage one of the two good ones) and lessons are tough to find if you don’t own a horse. I am a very average rider, I’ve been at it for 24 years but haven’t really competed and am still an absolute weenie about getting on anything that isn’t dead quiet. I have been getting so much interest lately in beginner lessons I could easily match my current income if I advertised. I have one perfect angel 16yo gelding and a few spare hours most days. I’m up to 5 students now without even trying. I can imagine running a lesson program full time would be stressful to manage financially, but I’m surprised more people don’t do it as a side hustle. I find it very fun to teach and my old gelding is no longer able to handle heavy work so doing some walk-trot lessons for little kids (and one adult in her 50’s) is perfect for him. I make an extra ~$500 a month and that covers all my horse expenses.
In most areas with drive time to and from the barn, it is a very time consuming side hustle. I tried it once way back when. Even back then between gas, splitting with BO for use of the facilities and the chunk of time it took even when clients showed up on time, it was not worth it.
In my state you need to have an instructor’s license to teach (pass a Safety and Basic Knowledge exam, plus apprentice 6 months plus 60 hours of supervised instruction). It’s just another way up and coming young people are exploited, because you can only get a license if you apprentice with someone licensed, and those licensed expect essentially indentured servant level free labor for their time to teach you. There is no guarantee that the instructor is of quality or knowledgeable. Anyone with time and money to burn can get the license.
Then, it also impacts your amateur status/eligibility for just about any/all discipline specific show organizations. I cannot share my expertise with retraining OTTBs for money without it affecting my Amateur status.
You also need liability insurance, most barns won’t touch you without your own. I briefly considered hanging my shingle out to help people restart OTTBs, but like others have said, the drawbacks make it not worth it.
Honestly, the side hustle where the money is at (relatively speaking) is braiding or clipping. These are time intensive, skilled jobs, but they are always in demand.
It’s a common term for celebrities who become famous because their parents are famous (which, if you look at hollywood, is most of them).
