Speak to me of Assistant Trainer/Barn Manager things

[GaMare]

A couple of thoughts for you:

• When trainer is travelling, your day(s) off are unlikely to happen as horses will still require supervision. Make sure you agree up front what will be done about that missed time off. Will you get to make it up?
• Take a look at what housing as compensation would do to your taxes. If you have to recognize the value of the 3 br house as income, it might cost more than it saves you.
• If there are benefits you want that they don’t offer, ask if they would be willing to pay $X toward them if you did the legwork to set them up.
• Look at what they’re charging customers for additional services & think about what margins there are. i.e. For body clipping- ask for a percentage of the fee minus the cost of blades (if you’re using barn clippers & blades)
• Rides- I might not push too hard on $ for rides. After all if you’re a cheaper option for exercising horses, you may end up with more hours in the saddle.

[ModelBehavior]

I’m like a lot of the responders to this thread. I make 32k a year flat salary, no housing, no commission, nothing extra. There is talk of joining business health plan when I leave my parents but they only have to pay for half of the premium. I work 7-6 at home and usually 5-7 at horse shows and never take a lunch break. I have 25 horses that I manange farrier, vet, turnout, feeding, routine injections (depo, adequan, allergy, etc) schedule customers, body clip, help with barn chores, ride 4-5 a day, clean tack, occasionally teach lessons when trainer cannot, website. I also do the horse show packing, grooming, clipping, shipping and office planning, keep up with things to bill, manage customers, etc.

I get 1 day off a week when we are not showing and it pretty much doesn’t happen at all at shows. We were away for the winter for 11 weeks and I got a total of 4 days off. They did just start contributing to retirement and I usually drive a company vechile to horse shows. I don’t have a set number of vacation days but I usually ask for 3-4 extras here and there around holidays or friend stuff but only when it doesn’t conflict with shows or the BO/HT’s vacations. I would agree with laugh attack that it’s really not enough but I am crazy enough to love this life so it works for me.