Hi, first post here. My oldest daughter is about to turn 11 and equestrian is her life. She has been riding for around 5-years now and competed the past 2-3 years in various Hunter classes locally. She is a gifted rider who usually excels well beyond her age and has won many of the shows she has entered. She is passionate, driven, and dedicated. In addition to riding 2x per week (which is the max her barn will allow right now), she also excels at school and does crossfit workouts with us multiple times a week to make sure she is doing her part.
Over the summer, we asked her what her long-term plan was and she confidently and quickly said that she wants to ride at a NCAA level college and then see where her passion for the sport takes her (she even mentioned aiming for the Olympics when she is 18+). So, we naturally want to support her goal and passion (while also speaking with her about realistic expectations and possible burn out at some point). For reference, we are blessed to have multiple national level athletes in our family (tennis, gymnastics, cheerleading, etc) so we know the demands of national level competition. But she is our first in equestrian and we simply don’t know what we don’t know.
To date we have gotten by with her riding 2x per week using various “lesson” horses (and ponies before that). We are with a great barn and her coaches challenge her a lot and she responds accordingly. She seems to like a diversity of horses, figuring out their natural tendencies and has been known to have her coaches say things like “wow, we’ve never seen XYZ horse do that before”. We’re also fortunate that the barns she belongs to like to see her win, so they usually put her on a “show” caliber horse that simply isn’t leased at that time. But now, with her getting older, we can tell that this is beginning to change and are feeling the pressure to “go to the next level” this year or next year.
Specifically, her barn would like to see us do a full lease of a “show” caliber horse as a next step. Financially, this would take our annual expenses up by 5-6 times what we are currently paying annually, plus unforeseen expenses. In return, the horse will be dedicated to her, and she to the horse for a full year. But, from what we can tell, nothing else seems to change very much beyond the fact that we’ll be showing our financial commitment to the barn in the process and therefore she might get to go to more A-rated shows in the Spring or next Fall. But her weekly riding time doesn’t change.
Given that the equestrian world is just so new to us, we just want to make sure we are doing this the right way without getting into too many personal specifics. While we 100% want to support her goals and passions, we also want to make sure we aren’t simply paying our way through the sport as we definitely don’t have an unlimited budget. In reality, we could change our family spending habits and afford this full lease concept, but it will take sacrifices and we just aren’t certain how to value what we are getting in return vs what she is already doing now.
So, I guess my question is this. How have you seen gifted, passionate young riders be able to ride and compete without their families being able to spend upper 5-figures or even lower 6-figures each year to support their sport? Is this just the way it is now, only the ultra-wealthy can truly compete, and we either suck it up or have her move on to another sport? Or are there other ways to do it that maybe our lack of knowledge and/or connections in the equestrian space have simply not afforded us the ability to see? I.e. Tying this back to her long-term goal, does every NCAA level rider come from an ultra-wealthy family, or are there other ways for her to get there that we just don’t know about?
Thanks so much in advance for your guidance and I hope we are placing this topic in the right area.
