Its been nine years since I have had to do this but any ideas on going rate? First show in two weeks!
20% of total grooming fees for the entire show, per groom, per horse is āstandardā. I usually tip each groom $100 per horse at each rated show.
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Please tip a bare minimum of $50/ day plus buy food/ bring a cooler of drinks, etc.
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Why donāt you ask your trainer, or someone else in your barn who has shown recently? They would know best what is standard for your region, discipline and level of show.
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What the heck are you paying per day if your tip is $50? Itās only $60 a day for full groom at Palm Beach/WEF!
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Itās possible Sansena is tailoring her response with a custom calibrated pita upcharge
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Second this. Tipping by the day or by the show is not the norm here, though some may tuck some cash in a thank you card at the end of the season.
$300 in tips (+ food and drink) on top of $450 for care for one week of showing isā¦ a lot.
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If you (g) feel the grooms see anything more than whatās the equivalent to MUCH<minimum wage/ hour, youāre fooling yourself. Those grooming fees go mostly into the pocket of your trainer or barn budget. If you think it goes directly to the groom, youāre under the wrong impression.
Converselyā¦ an owner could get up at 1 - 3 a.m. every day of the show, muck stalls, lunge, feed, groom, tack up, make sure heās at the ring/s on time, bathed, untacked, bathed again, wrapped, tack cleaned, stall mucked again, fed again, braids taken down, and finish your day after night check at 9 - 11 p.m., only to do the exact same thing the following day/sā¦ and avoid those exorbitant grooming fees.
A groom is lucky to take home $150 day for the care of ALL the horses in your stable. On top of being away from home, and having to live in essentially ācustomer service modeā 24/7 until theyāre back home, horses unloaded, clientsā belongings put away, horses wrapped, feet packed and horses have been secured for the night.
(edit)
I will add, that the owners who help as you described below, whether itās packing or unpacking, wrapping their own, Asking First, then doing whatās needed for their own horses and/or possibly othersā should not consider tipping nearly as much.
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it has been a few decades since we were showing from a training barn but our one horse we had there the same groom took care of our horseā¦ this groom provided excellent care to our horse, you would have thought she own the horse. We just started sending her a monthly stipendā¦ and made sure our horse bought her groom lunch at least once a week
When showing our trainer and his daughter were the show grooms, so we did not tip them as were billed for their service (and a lot more)
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Sansena, I completely agree that grooms are underpaid for the work they perform and the responsibilities they have been given. We as clients expect grooms to handle our horses with exceptional care and have custody of an extremely valuable animal for the vast majority of time spent at a show.
Respectfully, I do not believe discussing the purchase habits of other equestrians to be either constructive or relevant to this particular situation. Buying a custom saddle or an embroidered cooler in no way becomes mutually exclusive with paying grooms a respectable wage. I just believe tipping is the incorrect method of accomplishing an important goal, namely, paying the correct wage to a qualified groom.
I believe the solution lies with the trainer. It is their business and, thus, their responsibility to correctly staff and compensate the employees of the business. That being said I completely understand that whatever costs are incurred by the trainer will ultimately be passed on to the clientele. If and when an outstanding groom is identified by the trainer the discussion could easily take place between all parties involved. The trainer may approach his/her clients and suggest an increase to grooming fees to retain this particular employee. The arbitrary tip that may or may not be given to the groom is very ambiguous.
If I use Ontario Canada as an example, our minimum wage is presently $14.00/hr. I will make the assumption that a groom is able to care for 3 horses at a show. If the argument is that the groom is underpaid and his/her income should be adjusted, I completely agree. Assume the trainer approached these three owners and suggested a raise for the groom of $6.00/hr. At this point the groom will be make $20.00/hr which equates to roughly $42000/yr job. Using 10 hr day the expenses per owner increased $20. When you reference $50/day plus lunches etc I have a difficult time making the math work. Just my two cents( or because it took so long maybe three or four cents).
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I tip $50 for a one day show and $100 for a rated multi day show. Iām in PA. YMMV.
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While I agree with @Sansena that tipping grooms is important, I believe $50/day/horse is well over market. If I have 2 horses showing from Wednesday to Sunday, that would be $500 in tips to my groom for 1 horse show.
I tip more like $40/horse for a 1-day, and $100/horse for a 4-5 day show. Maybe up to $150/horse/show if there are extra demands/issues.
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I have been a show groom (dressage). $50- $100 for an entire show was normal. $50 for a weekend-length show, $100 for a championship or 4-5 days show. I absolutely did not expect tips but was quite thankful when I did get them. I would have had a very hard time accepting $100/day/horse as Sansena suggests- that seems very over the top. And, well at least at the barn I worked for, grooms did not directly get the day fees, etc- meals, hotels, drinks were all paid at shows as well as receiving our normal daily salary.
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I do think I wonāt tip $100 and not because Iām spending all my money on matchie stuff.
Sansena, the vitriol is completely out of line and completely misdirected.
Iāve been a client and a groom. Iāve worked and shown schooling to A circuit. Iāve done everything from self care to ring service, both ways. You are preaching to the choir that grooms are worth their weight in gold. I maintain that tipping isnāt normal here. I am not going to justify myself any further.
My advice to OP to ask around still stands. I would hate to advise her incorrectly, as Iām not familiar with the saddlebred circuit, her region or her barn. It goes both ways - COTH could give her a number that is lower than the norm for her barn, which isnāt fair to the grooms.
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I will check with my trainers tomorrow and some other customers. I know I tipped both grooms for Christmas and they were very grateful.
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00Seven, You are 100% right, and I apologize for the hostility. I did not consider that the OP wasnāt showing in the typical H/ J/ Big Eq world and that there would be, of course, different tipping philosophies. Please forgive me.
I have a dear friend who nearly killed herself working for one of THE major, high profile barns in my area. She made a pittance.
Itās useless to edit since youāve copied my post, but I was too strong in my wording and appreciate you calibrating me.
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Sansena, thank you for the apology and I wholeheartedly accept. I also apologize for copying your post - Iām going to remove it, I didnāt mean to back you into a corner.
To be fair, I believe that there is less of a tipping culture here in Canada than in the U.S. - our minimum wage is $14 here. Iām just googling it now and it looks like we have a āpay more, tip lessā standard towards the service industry.
I was very lucky to be well compensated, and the way that trainers treat their grooms is very important to me now. Our head groom has been with us 15+ years and the home chore staff all predate me (5 years now), which I think is telling. Specifically, my trainer has an open tab at the horse show cafe and the grooms are welcome to put their meals on it.
I actually really like your suggestion about a cooler - I usually pick up a few cold gatorades with my lunch and hand them out, but a cooler with ice back at the stalls would be a better idea for sure.
Another thing that I do and encourage others to do is to help with Sunday packing up. Thereās a fine line between being helpful and getting underfoot, so its worth checking with the trainer/staff, but itās a good idea to make yourself available for an extra hour and help them get home (and to bed!) earlier.
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Interesting about tipping in Canada. Iām also going to make sure I give some food to my groom. The groom also has an Arab he works saddle seat so Iām letting him use my very nice saddle seat saddle and I will get a little something for him in a gift card in addition to cash.
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not for many good grooms in the US. 450 a week would be a poor salary for a groom at a program in the US, 700 is more standard. And tips would be on top of that.
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