Thank you for your thoughtful response! This helped me immensely. I think I have started to realize that the part I love about having a career with horses is the riding and showing aspect (obviously), and really the thought that one day I might get lucky enough, or work hard enough, to have my own barn with my own quality horses. However, that is such a small part of having a career in horses and not guaranteed at all. So I’m probably better off if I do something that allows me the time and money to do that, and where I still actually enjoy it when I do!
6 Likes
Thank you so much for the insight. You’re absolutely right! It’s probably a good idea for me to gain experience in other industries regardless, in case I have an injury or something down the road that makes doing horses not an option. And if not, I can always come back to horses if I want! I really appreciate you writing this, thank you again!
2 Likes
You’re welcome! Good luck!
1 Like
Without naming names, there are some omissions in this thread worth knowing.
Any bootstraps story should thank any glaring advantages that were adjacent to said pulling. I could tell you I turned a liberal arts Bachelors degree into a 6 figure income, a paid-off farm, 32’ LQ, lake house, and 3 boats.
That is true…ish. let’s skim over the spouse who bought and built 75% of it, the combined work tenure of 70+ years, and that one boat is a derelict sail boat and the other a rather sad and worn inflatable. Now one is nice and new, that’s totally true. Oh and I inherited 2/3 of the lake, I gotta buy out the siblings.
Horses will wreck your hands, that is also true.
17 Likes
Same. I took a sabbatical in my 30s and rode and taught for a year or so. By the end of that time I was desperate to do anything but talk about and think about horses that much 
launching a big gnarly software tool for a bunch of pissy doctors? Where do I sign???
I just remembered that one of my favorite coworkers runs the lesson program at a high end hunter/jumper barns. How? She works 7-3 more or less as needed being a saleforce guru then heads to the barn.
5 Likes
Reflecting on myself and my peers (age range: 30s-ish) with big competitive goals, I understand your frustration; despite having taken a variety of paths in life, no one I personally know in my peer group has “made it” in horse sports in terms of reaching their ambitions. For example:
- Horse vet: loves her job but works too many hours and does not make enough money, and has too much student loan debt, to afford to compete or buy anything other than a free/low cost project.
- Doctor: has horses, and makes good money, but has students loans and is too depleted from her job to ride enough to compete.
- Lawyer: has horses, and makes good money, but has student loans and not enough time and money to do much competing.
- Professional rider: paid to ride all day every day! But cannot afford to have her own horse (even a free horse: cannot afford vet, farrier, etc).
- Farrier: too tired and sore from working to have enough energy to ride much or compete.
- Equine massage therapist: enough time to ride a lot, but not enough money to do much competing.
- Saddle rep: ditto.
- Tack store employee: employee discount! Plenty of time to ride! But no money for anything.
- Mid-level manager at big company: has time and energy to ride every day and has enough vacation days to compete several times per year.
- School teacher: taught school And ran a small training barn, getting up a 4 am every day to muck out before work. Then stopped teaching and went pro full time. Rides and shows all the time. Has the benefit of having a duel income household, and she saved up and bought a nice horse before quitting her job, so now as a pro she has a nice personal horse.
This is just a small sample size, but the theme is that they are all struggling towards their competition goals, and none of them have “made it” yet (even though they are all talented, committed horsewomen). So, what I am trying to convey is that the grass isn’t always greener. But I do find it interesting that it appears (from my small sample size) that teaching and the corporate job lent the most freedom to ride and compete. (Note: other careers that apparently are good for having time and money to compete include tech/programmer, engineer, nurse, various medical-related careers).
Consider your options within the horse world. Importantly, you can forge your own path. You could have a part-time/seasonal non-horse job and and a part-time/seasonal horse job concurrently. You could develop a plan to work in X job for X time to make more money, then plan on transitioning to something else. To some degree, just creating a roadmap is empowering.
Finally, Read in the middle are the horsemen, by Tik Maynard, about his journey as a working student.
6 Likes
A few years ago I was working a remote marketing job in the AM, then going to the barn to ride/develop a couple sale horses in the afternoon. I got laid off from the 9-5 and slid into doing the horses full-time, had fun for maybe 6 - 8 months, then scampered right back to my laptop. Like, I do not want to wrangle green horses all day while out in the elements. I want to send emails all day in front of an air conditioner, then go wrangle one green horse after work, as a treat.
9 Likes
Ain’t that the truth! I have some near peers that are competing FEI, have multiple horses, have been featured by COTH, etc. All of them tell a great story of hard work and bootstrap mentality. True, they are all hard workers, and all had access to $$$ well into adulthood or live on a family-funded farm with parents who happily purchase six figure “investments” for them to this day.
To the OP, I’m going to be a little less Pollyanna about a career change. I’m hiring right now and had 100 applicants for a mid level role. With that many applicants I default discarded any without direct experience. The world is very volatile right now and employers are getting a little reticent about posting roles.
If you want to exit the horse industry, I’d spend the next 6-12 months heavily leaning into volunteer or contract work in an area of interest. Help that friend figure out a Wordpress website, design some sharp visuals via Canva, find someone who struggling with a one person business and see where you can fill the gaps. If you toss together some meaningful ways of how your skills transfer and get good at writing cover letters there are opportunities. Word of mouth will be your most powerful tool though. Let people know you are seeking opportunity and don’t have a mindset of being “beneath” a role or salary if there’s any way you can swing it.
I did three degrees back to back and then landed in an area with absolutely no industry for me. I took a job making painfully little money but it was genuinely interesting and gave me chances to meet people. I networked like heck and became really good at what I did. In 7 years I more than doubled my salary. Am I making a $$$$$ salary, heck no. However, I am obsessed with what I do and it is genuinely good for the world. I can afford a few months of stupidly expensive glue on shoes for the pony without worrying about other bills but competing isn’t on the table. With time, I’ve found that the goals of my early 20s don’t resonate the same way and I’m happy with how life is panning out.
5 Likes
Thank you for being transparent! With the little research I have done so far on looking into other industries and jobs, it really does seem like most of them have hundreds of applicants and are not as easy to jump into as one may think.
This is totally true, but another thing that I didn’t mention is, other than my jobs working in horses, I have never been hired for a job that I have done before. Meaning, I’ve gotten very good at translating how my existing skills can fit into a new role and I applied for so many jobs that I wasn’t qualified for on paper (and got rejected a ton too!). No one knows how many times you got rejected except for you, and getting rejected costs you nothing but not applying could mean that you missed out on an incredible opportunity.
A lot of people look at a job description and think there’s no way they will get hired because they don’t have any relevant experience. My first job in tech was at a small startup and I happened to interview with the VP of product who was also a horse person. She walked out of the meeting room and in front of me said to the CEO " she’s a horse person so you absolutely have to hire her because she will figure it out." 
You never know who will be reading your cover letter or resume so like @GraceLikeRain said, get great at writing cover letters and resumes and just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. The networking is also an excellent tip. Make sure you make conversation with the most important person in the room, leave a good impression, and never ever ever burn bridges.
6 Likes
These days, getting a job is all about getting past the AI screen. You need to work your network and find someone willing to speak up for you. Or volunteer somewhere where you can develop your skills.
There may be local opportunities with tack stores or saddle fitters or supplement sales folks - something that will tap into your equine experience. Put yourself out there and ask.
If you really want to compete at top levels still. You were with the wrong “dream job”. Look to the other good elite athletes or your own chance on riding for owners/ breeders. Just a thought.
If you want to stay in the horse business then you should have stayed with this position. I think many pros would be thrilled to have less hours, great pay and wonderful clients.
3 Likes
OP, I mentioned reading Tik Maynard’s book because in it, he describes working for Anne Kursinski (as an adult working student) and he wrote that she was planning on arranging for him to show horses owned by others. In the book, it doesn’t pan out, but he indicates that if he had stayed, those riding and showing opportunities would have materialized, as well as the opportunity to transition from unpaid student to paid assistant trainer. I note that he was already an excellent rider when he took the working student position, but did not have a resume of show jumping or equitation ribbons/results/achievements/accolades. The book indicates that her offer to connect him with horses to ride was the result of observing him work with horses, not show results as a junior rider.
My takeaway from that passage of the book was that one path to success in show jumping for someone who is an excellent rider is: work for someone at the top of the sport, and riding and showing opportunities may potentially arise from there.
Ultimately, the author took a different horse pathway altogether.
2 Likes
This podcast is worth a listen. Needless to say, not everybody will have the same results. But it provides a pretty good look behind the scenes of somebody working their way through the horse business.
