Almost sounds like we live in the same place. I was finally about to pull the trigger and buy a horse. But, I got very fed up and so I’m taking a break from riding entirely. We either have very low end, unsafe places or very high end places with the trainer babies. I was checking one of the high end places out for awhile and I was horrified by the lack of horse knowledge most of the owners seemed to have. I kept hearing the craziest things in passing. One person called the trainer on her day off in a panic because the horse had a little scrape (no heat, no swelling, and sound). That’s just not my crowd.
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It’s been very difficult for me to find a place with AA’s that aren’t so wealthy they don’t work (or their husband has the $$$), are clueless and dependent on trainers, or the type that aren’t interested in participating in a program. I’ve ridden for 20+ years, did Pony Club, and really enjoy a consistent lesson program. I’m a great student. And yet, even as a DINK who’s household income is ~$150k I still couldn’t afford board at a decent place and basic horse needs even I didn’t have student loans and a modest car payment. I’d have to… magically not have a mortgage/rent and not need food.
I said to my partner recently, “It’s not the riding I’m burnt out on, it’s the constant and ever increasing obstacles to get to ride”.
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I think the people here might be an exception rather than the rule. Because the low end place i boarded at is chock full of people who SHOULD be required to take lessons so they quit being such morons.
It’s a doubled edged sword.
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Sure, if you live in a high cost of living large urban area and want to show on the AA circuit with a full service barn. But there are many, many places in the US where it is very possible to compete in H/J as an amateur on a decent horse without having an upper class income.
Will you be able to show every weekend at A shows, go to WEF for a month in the winter, spend mid-upper five figures or more on a horse, and board, train, and show with a fancy full-service barn on that middle or upper middle income? Not likely, but none of those things are necessary to compete as an amateur on a decent horse.
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I said to my partner recently, “It’s not the riding I’m burnt out on, it’s the constant and ever increasing obstacles to get to ride”.
Are you me?
But really - I can’t tell you how many times I said “When I get [insert some benchmark], I’ll be able to afford to do X” only for X to cost 2-3x as much by the time I “get there” and it’s still out of reach. The first time it happened it was disappointing. The second time was frustrating… at this point, I’ve been telling myself “soon” for at least 10 years and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t leave me exhausted sometimes.
I do get to ride, and for that I’m very grateful, but if I told teenage me how much I spend to ride each month, they’d probably think I owned 3 horses and lessoned every day - not that I still don’t have my own horse and only ride 2 days/wk.
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What do you define as upper class income? When you envision someone competing in the HJ as an AA on a decent horse what are you seeing as their income and how much does a “decent” horse cost?
I think a big part of the frustrations that emerge when these topics come up is that there’s a lot of vague “upper” or “middle” class and not a lot of concrete numbers.
If we are going to say middle class is actually the median, then a household income at $80,000 is accurate. Without some real miracle working, it is really hard for most couple to cover all the bills and have enough leftover that purchasing a horse, board, farrier, vet, training, much less showing are still on the table.
From past threads it has become clear that a lot of COTH is DINK or empty nesters with a household income above $200k. Far from everyone but the career threads have shown a lot of members are pulling in solid six figures and may have a partner doing so as well. That puts them in the 88th+ percentile. Despite that, most of the people on here are still talking about being priced out of boarding, showing, purchasing, etc. If you can be richer than nearly 90% of Americans and still not feel like you can show your horse regularly on the local circuit, then “Money or Nothing” is a darn accurate title.
PREACH! A great example of a concrete number. By the average American standards, DINK $150k puts someone in the 80th percentile (https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/). Your household can be doing better than 4 out of 5 homes and still experience very real barriers to just being a horse owner.
As a household above 80th percentile but well below the 88th percentile we are pinching pennies into dust to make boarding one horse possible. There are no vacations, no big purchases, used cars, a stock trailer, and there’s no way in hell I could show a few times a year without a fairly lucrative side hustle.
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This. 
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A Google search for “What is middle class?” comes up with this CNBC quote of a Pew research document:
They then go on to show what constitutes “middle class” in various areas of the US (2021 data) and it shows exactly what I have been saying: there are areas in the country where horse ownership and showing are well within the reach of upper middle class or maybe even middle class adult amateurs.
You all keep arguing with me about this, but, as I keep saying, I know you can because I’m doing it. Right now. On a retiree’s budget of less than 6 figures.
Can everybody do it? Of course not. Like I keep saying, if you live in a high cost of living large urban area, you’re probably not going to be able to afford it. But stop saying that “nobody” can do it, because that’s simply not true.
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Please tell us where we need to move to then 
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So you probably have a house you bought before prices skyrocketed, that is likely paid off (or mostly paid off) and aren’t tied to living in a location where there are jobs that provide an upper middle class income… I’m going out on a limb to say that you are probably not the same as most middle class families.
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Totally! To some degree, you buy your ribbons in the hunter ring at that level of competition. One of the many reasons I don’t like showing hunters. Sadly my horse has zero interest in going fast or making inside turns. He has the mind of a hunter, but the movement of a sewing machine. Ah well, I’m still mighty privileged. Even to ride at C shows on an un-fancy horse is $$$$. I’m living proof.
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Makes me think of an acquaintance of mine but a little different as she only rides trails. Never once have I seen her talk to her horse, give him pats and treats for a good job, you know, all the things that horse lovers do. Nope, the horses were a means to an end, toting her up into the mountains with no emotional investment with any of them.
Every single person, except me, in my ponyclub is wealthy in that dropping mid fives on an eventer for their daughter that they say the got a good deal on. They all live in million dollar homes, take expensive vacations, have horses in training at the most expensive barns in the area. Am I jealous, yeah a bit. But when I told a friend that I couldn’t afford to go to an eventing camp for a weekend to the tune of over $500, she looked at me uncomprehendingly. Like she didn’t understand that not everyone has all this disposable income. Right now, I have to get busy selling all of my horses as I cannot afford them and remain in my house any longer on a single income. Yes, I live in one of the highest cost of living areas of the country but I can’t afford to move as this is a community property state and if I sell, all the medical bills that weren’t covered under my husband’s insurance will come wanting their piece of the estate which will basically leave me with nothing to start over with. Sorry about the pity party.
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Yup. This is me and I drive an old cheap car (that I bought new for under 20k over a decade ago), live in a reasonably priced home, don’t go on fancy vacations, etc. I “can” afford to board a horse and do lessons and some very local shows (I mean let’s be real…mostly just the ones held at the place I board if I want to show with any regularity)…but I can also say I’m not saving (outside of retirement savings, which I’ve always done correctly) much money and don’t have a ton of financial flexibility as a result. I was the horse crazy kid who had to wait until I was an adult with a career to actually own my own horse, and it was disappointing to see how long I had to actually wait to do so (into my 30s) and how much I’m still priced out of.
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I’ve been able to do it in both Florida and North Carolina, so it’s not like I’m living in BFE where no one else wants to live.
You all keep insisting that I’m some rare unicorn with special advantages. Nope. I bought my current home 4 years ago and, unlike my parents, I got started in the housing market too late in life to benefit from the “buy cheap and spend decades paying off the mortgage” phenomenon that used to be so common.
The only “advantages” I will claim is that I’m single, my kids are long grown and gone, I’m frugal by nature, and I did have a good, steady job, although my income was always, even at it’s peak, well within the middle class range.
Look, when I lived in a large urban area, I couldn’t afford a horse. When I had kids at home, I couldn’t afford to show. When I was newly divorced, I couldn’t afford a horse. Ditto when I was in grad school. But those were choices I made knowing the ramifications. I have, over the years, made other choices that have afforded me the ability to have horses. Those choices meant that I gave up other things. And that’s how life works.
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I don’t do HJ and I understand that those shows can be quite a bit spendier than my discipline of choice. With that disclaimer out of the way, I live up near Pensacola and thing horsing is pretty attainable (relatively speaking) here.
Mr LS and I are middle class DINKers. We have a nice but modest horse property we purchased in 2020 where I enjoy my two horses and he has his hot rods. We don’t do many big fancy vacations or drive brand new cars.
I’m not crazy about horse shows and would rather put that money away to buy a beach condo, but if I was hell bent on horse showing I could do that instead.
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Oh, duh. You are correct that motor sports are as or more expensive. I would say that is reflective in the relatively few drivers you have at the F1 or even F2 levels compared to GP riders, but honestly I’m not as familiar with motor sports so I’m not sure that is 100% true!
The problem is that even with many of choices we have made in an attempt to afford horses we cannot keep up with the rapid inflation of costs and decrease of programs in certain areas. The goal posts keep moving and horse world isn’t going to be able to sustain itself solely on “DINKS/childfree singles with an income of +/-$200k, residing in low COL areas who have their cars paid off and don’t want to take vacations”.
I am making $15k+ a year more than I was pre-COVID. I pivoted my entire career to get into a field that paid better. In 2019 I would’ve thought my current income would allow for horse ownership or a full lease. But in 2023 that is already untrue.
I think one of the most bubble bursting moments for me in my 20s was realizing exactly how many ammies are partially or fully supported my family members and/or are making some pretty questionable choices to “afford” it – taking out retirement money to buy horses, five figure credit card debt, using student loan money for horse expenses. Insanity.
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Just adding onto this rant.
Now the rated H/J shows in Ontario are almost all going to a set up where you have to buy passes for the season. So you buy your entire show season at once, and of course they go on sale right before Christmas.
As a dressage and event rider, who wants to dabble in jumpers that’s not possible. You can’t just do a day here or there. You need to get stabling no matter what and you have to have a pass. Well I don’t have thousands of dollars to drop in the middle of December to fund my shows. I pay as I go throughout the year like a normal not rich Amateur.
Then all the barns wonder why kids don’t want to work in the barns. Well the barns are full of Uber rich people so of course their kids don’t want to work! They don’t need to.
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Yes! And the number who are supported by parents whether it be the cost of the horse, feed bills, gas bills etc is a lot bigger than people realize.
I wish ammies and YRs who have this support would be more transparent about it so the equestrian community would realize what is actually happening for a lot of these people to be able to afford it like they do.
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Riiiiiight. Florida isn’t the same as it was 4 years ago. Let’s call a space, a spade. Wellington and Ocala are SUPER high right now. I could have bought my current house for 50% less 2-3 years ago. So it’s not a comparison. WEC and WEF have priced most out of the market here and half of the Northeast gave up after and during Covid and packed up to move south bc no one had to go to an office.
Tampa, Sarasota, and Orlando have always been historically high but now it’s even worse.
So unless you’re looking to go into the “Deliverance Counties” of Florida or live in a double wide, it’s still going to cost you an arm and a leg to live here. Plus, board rates are doubling what they were a few years ago and you can’t throw a rock without finding a trainer that wants to charge training board upwards of $2000/month.
So maybe it’s worked out for you, but our HHI is well above the 200k mark and it’s still a stretch when it comes to managing circuit showing and trying to add in a random few weeks at Tryon, Kentucky, Aiken, Brownland, etc.
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