NEWSFLASH: Horse showing is expensive

[kimball1]

[QUOTE
2) Can we promote local circuits so they offer a good alternative, one that is affordable, safe, competitive, and conducive to good horsemanship? [/QUOTE]

Of course we can, and the amateurs can drive that. Trainers will go where their customers want to go. Sure, there are some juniors chasing points and qualifying, but there are a lot of other weeks where I am sure if 5-6 clients said “can you take us to xyz show” the trainer would be happy to. Trainers are in it to make a living. On the flipside, if customers don’t want to show at a particular venue, the trainer doesn’t want to go there with one horse. There is a venue in the Northeast that has crazy fees, nice place, but a fee for everything; grounds fee, affiliation fee (whatever that is!!) office fee, EMT fee etc and expensive classes. I don’t remember going there at all last year, because all of us complained about how crazy it was the year before and no one wanted to go back.

[Darkwave]

[QUOTE=To the MAX;7431273]
This is a very interesting thread for me to read, and also slightly depressing.

I’m 2.5 years out of college…my and DH’s combined (gross) income is well above the national average already, yet it’s hard for me to even justify boarding costs, let alone going to shows. Now we’re in the process of saving up for a house, then of course will come children. Reading all of your posts doesn’t give me much hope either. I know that “where there’s a will, there’s a way,” but I wish it was possible without having to make those crazy sacrifices that other posters mentioned.[/QUOTE]

Yup. I graduated from a top law school, and then went to biglaw, where I paid off my student debt promptly. Lived way below my income, with no fancy trips, etc, and indulged myself by keeping a horse with a good local A show barn.

And what always amazed me was that, even with my biglaw salary (well into 6 figures - making me one of the one percenters) I felt like the poor kid. One horse, braided myself, etc…

It was so strange. In every other facet of my life, I was the token rich person. Go to the barn, and I was the token poor person.

I’m not complaining for myself - where there’s a will, there’s a way, and the fact that I’m not showing and riding right now is because I don’t have enough will. But I do think it highlights the reason this sport will eventually fade away - the bottom is falling out of it. When people who are at the top income earning levels feel like THEY’RE priced out, you’re in a bad spot.

[findeight]

ROI on a truck and trailer is a moot point for an Ammie with weekends off showing Fri Sat or even Sat Sun 400+ miles away, each way. Not enough hours in each day, on Earth time anyway.

Closely followed by lack of existing venues that hampers any local shows getting started in most areas. Venues that do exist tend to lease at a price point making breaking even a pipe dream.

The challenges are many and no simple fix or return to the days of yore is going to offer much of a solution. Maybe 6 years ago, my last AA as an exhibitor, it was nearly 600 in the office just to take the horse out of the trailer into a stall for a single unrated 2’6" 3 O/F and hack division 140 miles each way from home.

Its gone up since then…as has everything else in my life from gas to insurance to groceries.

[osgoka01]

[QUOTE=Darkwave;7432636]
When people who are at the top income earning levels feel like THEY’RE priced out, you’re in a bad spot.[/QUOTE]

Darkwave- Are we the same person? I’ve talked about this phenomenon with several other of my high earning horsey friends. We are very, very comfortable in our salaries yet still feel priced out from consistently showing at the A levels. We dabble, but you won’t find us out for anything longer than 2 weeks of a circuit because frankly, it just costs too damn much.

[osgoka01]

Nail on the head…

[QUOTE=osgoka01;7432661]
Darkwave- Are we the same person? I’ve talked about this phenomenon with several other of my high earning horsey friends. We are very, very comfortable in our salaries yet still feel priced out from consistently showing at the A levels. We dabble, but you won’t find us out for anything longer than 2 weeks of a circuit because frankly, it just costs too darn
much.[/QUOTE]

[teal_tea]

[QUOTE=Darkwave;7432636]
Yup. I graduated from a top law school, and then went to biglaw, where I paid off my student debt promptly. Lived way below my income, with no fancy trips, etc, and indulged myself by keeping a horse with a good local A show barn.

And what always amazed me was that, even with my biglaw salary (well into 6 figures - making me one of the one percenters) I felt like the poor kid. One horse, braided myself, etc…

It was so strange. In every other facet of my life, I was the token rich person. Go to the barn, and I was the token poor person.

I’m not complaining for myself - where there’s a will, there’s a way, and the fact that I’m not showing and riding right now is because I don’t have enough will. But I do think it highlights the reason this sport will eventually fade away - the bottom is falling out of it. When people who are at the top income earning levels feel like THEY’RE priced out, you’re in a bad spot.[/QUOTE]

This is sad. I’m a teacher at a nice barn and I always assumed it was easier to show for people who were better paid. What are my chances? Maybe I should take my beautiful super talented horse and try western riding. I know the western people have some crazy costs but I believe it’s limited to certain areas. I think my wily pony could be a successful at reining.

[Trixie]

I’ve been looking at what it will cost to bring him along in the jumpers and I’m coming to the conclusion that, for him to get to the level he has the talent to be at, I need to sell him because we can’t afford to get him there.

Send him on up here. I’ve been keeping an eye open for my next jumper prospect because one day my wonderful horse is going to need to step down a level.

Oops. I probably can’t afford to show him at his talent level either :lol:

I did MD Horse and Pony some years ago. I recall that I won, at least the hack, in the ponies (I had a fancy large that could out-hack 90% of anything but had a really dirty stop and a “sometimes” lead change). I recall being permitted to go gallop around the grounds at PG eq unsupervised. Unsurprisingly, my mother was nowhere to be seen, IIRC, not that she would have cared. She did attend many of the horse shows - but all she actually got was that my boots needed to be cleaned and the pony shouldn’t have a dirty nose. So she’d get a kleenex out of her purse and wipe the pony’s nose, then my boots.

Many years later I was riding at some jumper show and she and my mare at the time were spotted in the shade under a tent in the August heat, mother wearing white, both quite content with the tailgate while the rest of us sweltered. Both mother and mare emerged spotless while I looked kind of like a melted candle.

[BeeHoney]

[QUOTE=Darkwave;7432636]
Yup. I graduated from a top law school, and then went to biglaw, where I paid off my student debt promptly. Lived way below my income, with no fancy trips, etc, and indulged myself by keeping a horse with a good local A show barn.

And what always amazed me was that, even with my biglaw salary (well into 6 figures - making me one of the one percenters) I felt like the poor kid. One horse, braided myself, etc…

It was so strange. In every other facet of my life, I was the token rich person. Go to the barn, and I was the token poor person.

I’m not complaining for myself - where there’s a will, there’s a way, and the fact that I’m not showing and riding right now is because I don’t have enough will. But I do think it highlights the reason this sport will eventually fade away - the bottom is falling out of it. When people who are at the top income earning levels feel like THEY’RE priced out, you’re in a bad spot.[/QUOTE]

I am SO glad you posted this because it is completely true and I think there are many others like you. I think this is a problem for the h/j world, to have such a narrow base of support from which to draw competitors and fans. Like others, I feel the exact same way. I grew up very modestly, riding and showing on a shoestring and was always the poor kid. Now I’m an adult with a very different financial picture but I still go to shows and feel like the poor kid! It’s crazy.

[Justice]

Mr. Justice often quips that it’s not enough to have millions to show horses at the top level, you need hundreds of millions.

[relocatedTXjumpr]

I really get tired of hearing “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”, or “If you REALLY want to do it, you’ll find a way to make it work”.

Uhm, no. If that were true, Id be qualified for indoors every year.

We all know horses are expensive and we all make sacrifices in order to afford them. Horse people are Froogle (for the most part). We will eat cereal every night for a month if that means we get to horse show.

I know, in my own life, I can not cut back anymore. My small home is paid for, we have no vehicle payments or debt. I guess I could sell the kids on the black market, but they wouldn’t bring much.

I was priced out a long time ago, and it sucks. Before kids, I was happy to do 1 clinic and 2 or 3 local shows a year. I haven’t done an “A” since I was a pony kid. I boarded at a self care facility and did all the work myself, hauled myself, and took occasional lessons to keep brushed up, but wasn’t in a program.

Now, with kids, you can forget it.

[Nickelodian]

[QUOTE=BeeHoney;7433500]
I think this is a problem for the h/j world, to have such a narrow base of support from which to draw competitors and fans. [/QUOTE]

It’s only a problem for the h/j world when the h/j world starts to not have the numbers they currently do. Going back to my post 1, as long as there are billionaires supporting the industry to the level that they currently are, nothing will change, oligopoly, monopoly, or other. Now, is it a problem for the FUTURE of the H/J world? I don’t know.

I started posting on these forums 14 years ago (!!!), with threads lamenting about how it’s too expensive and the industry will fall apart. Thus far that has not been a self fulfilling prophecy, as it’s just gotten bigger and bigger (save after the crash, and big recession).

I’m definitely the poor kid in town, even as DINKS, a modest way of life, doing this takes a lot. Thankfully my Black horse has paid for himself for the last two years, and I’ve taken away a lease fee that has paid for a majority of the gray horse’s showing.

If we ever have kids, things will change, but alas such is life.

[Jo]

[QUOTE=Nickelodian;7433916]

I’m definitely the poor kid in town, even as DINKS, a modest way of life, doing this takes a lot.[/QUOTE]

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

I’ll take a poor day in your town any day.

[chunky_munky]

Fact is I don’t think that the shows are getting bigger. I can think of a large number of shows some AA’s, some A’s, some lower recognized and a large number of unrecognized shows that have gone out of business. That is usually due to the fact that they don’t get enough entries to make a profit for all the time and effort involved. There will always be a group of people at the top level that will stay in it, but if you really look at the palm beach hunter entries you will see the actual numbers are down since the 90’s in many divisions. The other interesting thing is even when you see a decent number of horses, not as many people because many of them own multiple horses in the division.
Much of the growth at the upper level jumpers are riders from other countries participating in this country, not from within our own ranks.
The only place I see healthy growth at this time is the IEA and IHSA programs. This is an affordable and fun way for young people to ride. With fewer and fewer barns having school horses these days it seems that this is becoming the entrée for many kids to ride.

[Darkwave]

Building on Chunky munky’s point: In the 80s and 90s, I trained with someone who had been showing since the 1950s. Her father drove a taxi, and yet she had multiple ponies to show, and won ribbons at Madison Square Garden. Many of her friends from that time came from similar backgrounds. It was not unusual for families of working class backgrounds to have a horse or pony in the backyard.

When I was growing up in the DC area in the mid 80s to early 90s, the income point had shifted some. You would not see kids whose parents drove taxis at the horse shows. But local riding schools were still fairly common, and I knew kids whose parents were school teachers and such who showed locally. At the A shows, most of us were pretty well off - our parents were doctors, lawyers, restauranteurs, etc. But we weren’t trust fund kids.

Looking at it today, the income point has shifted more - my perception (please feel free to correct) is that the kids showing at the A’s are now the kids of successful hedge fund managers, CEOs, and trust fund families, or doctors and lawyers who have knocked it out of the park (founders of treatment centers, partners at major law firms). And you don’t see that many local riding schools for kids to start at. And you see very few kids with a pony in the back yard.

That’s why I say that I’m concerned the bottom will fall out. Where do the new kids come from? There’s not the same ground level of riding schools and ponies in back yards. And there’s only so many hedge fund managers and trust funds.

On a related note, I think the EAP program and stuff like it is fantastic. But I’m worried that as the sport gets more and more concentrated in the ranks of the financial super-elite, there will be less opportunities for kids from other backgrounds to even give the sport a try. What if there were no local riding schools, and Jacob Pope had never had a chance to get on a horse, and decided he liked swimming instead?

[Hunter_JumperMom]

[QUOTE=MuddyHalter;7428445]
Well said.

One thing I appreciated about WEF was that at least in the jumpers, even the lower level classes like low adults, I could win back a good chunk of money. But doing the highs at a HITS show? Nope. Just a ribbon. And the HITS shows really weren’t any cheaper to attend. Like I said, I don’t really miss it. Foxhunting for a whole season costs less than a week at a rated show. And a paperchase? Maybe $20 for several hours of fun (vs. $45 for 80 seconds in the ring). The math made for a pretty easy choice.[/QUOTE]

This is so true. I just looked at my daughters show bill at WEF, 328 was office fees and nomination fee. Another 390 for classic and one jumper round. This was a good weekend, she placed 2 in her first round and 6th in the classic. End of the day she covered her horse show fees with $2.00 left!! HITS pricing isn’t that much different but the money won is. Outside the show world we do pretty darn well, but at this level of showing, we are the “poor folk”.

[Soaponarope]

Hunter prize money is pretty important to my wallet. With entry fees as expensive as they are, especially derbies, it’s very helpful when it comes through. I didn’t know that about HITS so thanks for that info H/J mom.

[Nickelodian]

[QUOTE=Jo;7434523]
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

I’ll take a poor day in your town any day.[/QUOTE]

Indeed. I am always the poor kid on the block at any show I attend. Which I believe is the point of some previous posters. Should we be concerned that someone with a generous paying job feels priced out? Maybe, but the numbers aren’t supporting that yet.

[Nickelodian]

[QUOTE=carroal;7435240]
Hunter prize money is pretty important to my wallet. With entry fees as expensive as they are, especially derbies, it’s very helpful when it comes through. I didn’t know that about HITS so thanks for that info H/J mom.[/QUOTE]

As it is to mine. A hundred dollars here or there makes a big difference to me.

[HunterJumper_3]

If I ever start showing on the a circuit, I’ll have to do almost everything myself. Keep the expenses to a minimum! :lol:

[Trixie]

HJ, I do, with the exception of braiding. I buy very few pieces of riding apparel that aren’t either on sale or used. We bring our own food. We haul our own horse. Our trailer happens to have living quarters so we can actually even do our own cooking. The last multi-day show we stayed with a friend with a barn nearby to avoid paying an exorbitant stall fee. I don’t have a groom nor do I use my trainer’s groom.

And it STILL cost roughly as much as my last vacation.