This is the part that seems to be overlooked. No one who is anyone in the business got there because they went to an equestrian school or rode at college. You get to be good in the business by learning how to ride, working for someone with a good reputation and paying your dues. Then you hope to find a couple good clients (wealthy) to get out on your own. If the OP really wants to be a professional she needs first talent and then willingness to go live and work at a top barn and show 40 weeks a year. It will also help to have some money. But spending 60k a year for high school and riding horses that a school owns isnt going to do it. That money would be better spent on lessons and showing. Also if you dont have the money to do either its a moot point anyway.
What? Really?
Grier and “prettiest horse.”
Grier is on the edge of my neck of the woods. I can’t speak to their riding program but a childhood trainer was an alumna. I went to a show there once as a kid in the 80s and remember three things: the smell of the paper plant, I fell off, and we went to Gardiner’s Candies. Wait. Four things. Trainer lied about how many of us were sharing a motel room and I had to hide in the car a while.
Sorry. Carry on.
I believe the person that rides with Laura Kraut that won a 2* Grand Prix in Miami in the last year went to https://www.grier.org/
I desperately want to read “tongue-in-cheek” into that but this is the horse world and if I’ve learned one thing, it’s overestimate nothing.
And let’s also note that the horse she won on is owned by the family LLC. Further supporting the socioeconomic differences other posters have been trying to emphasize for OP. Makes it a lot easier to succeed at the top of the sport when your family can use their wealth to provide you with the quality of horse who can compete there.
Hmm interesting.
I’m not sure what the difference is between USEF HJ premier, national and regional. I know that in EC Dressage, you can compete Gold national, silver provincial, or bronze local. The difference is the cost to compete and the level of award you are collecting points on. It isn’t necessarily the level of competition. We have some very sparsely attended Gold shows, where it’s much easier to ribbon than some of the very popular and much cheaper unrated schooling shows (that use the same judges). Now h/j is a more popular discipline than dressage but I’m sure the same thing applies. Going to a national rated show is not necessarily a huge deal. I see Grier also has reining, dressage and recreational riding programs.
That individual has definitely had connections and experience in the horse world far beyond this boarding school that helped her get where she got (not trying to say anything about talent/commitment/whatever, just that the training received at this school would be a very minor part of this rider’s journey to where she is today).
Aw, come on! I think it’s kind of apparent that a kid provided the “prettiest horse” language for the website and didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just teens being proud of their school horses.
I am guessing they decided that since his photo was used on the prizelist, it must be that DHS decided he was the prettiest horse…
He is pretty 
Googling further I see Grier prides itself on dance, the arts, music, theatre and riding. I would have loved that at 15 but I’m not sure how well that serves a middle class girl in 2024 who needs to make her way in the new millennium. I’m sure they have math and science courses, but there is zero zero zero on STEM careers on their website. I don’t see how this ladders into doing business and science adjacent courses in agriculture management at university.
Agreed.
The op is young, and she wouldn’t be the first kid to think they wanted to be a horse pro and later on decide otherwise. And that’s ok.
Hopefully her parents can comfortably afford the school, and it helps her get a great education that she can’t get at her local school in Texas. If so, then good for them and she will figure it out eventually, and hopefully have a solid education to use to pursue a rewarding career… maybe a career that will allow her to fund a nice horse or two, and enjoy competing as an adult amateur.
I think Foxcroft has a solid riding program, but also has robust academics. At least, that’s what I have heard. I knew a few people who went there 30 years ago
Ohmygodyes. Ditto on how it depends on your team.
Ours was small. We took anybody (though I can’t say it was calculated sourcing of WT riders, lol) … and anyone who wanted to, showed. It was that way for a lot of schools in our region – and now, several decades later (gag), despite some changeups in the schools included in that region, it’s basically the same way.
But mainly I came back here to say I hope the OP updates us and also to wish her well.
The Reins? I literally cannot think of a family that owns/has owned more top horses. Maybe the Magniers. That’s it.
According to the FEI website, she is 20 years old this year and has multiple horses showing at the FEI level. So presumably she won that class last year at 19 over a lot of very experienced international competitors. Good for her.
Somehow I don’t think her choice of boarding school was the biggest factor in that success.
A couple things to add here, and too many points to respond to an individual post:
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When riders ride at the level of Cassidy Rein, they often have their private trainer and do not ride with the school. They might have one or two horses boarded there, but their top horses certainly are not at school. They most likely do not show with the school either. The Rein Family owns Team Canada’s most valuable horses. They have influence.
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Being on a selective Varsity equestrian team is nice, but it is bittersweet and exceptionally difficult without your own horses. I’m saying this as someone who truly experienced it. I was the only rider on the team without their own horse. I so desperately wanted a horse to be on the same level as everyone else on the team. I often had the horse I was riding taken out from under me. It was devastating for high school me. I never showed off campus and there were few campus horse shows. I often felt left out and alone.
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Look closely at Grier (if that’s the school) specifically. Talk to the trainers and ask which of their riders have gone D1. See if they have a track record. If you’re paying this much for tuition, you really need to think about paying for college too.
I loved my high school more than many things in my life, and, looking back at that experience, I am so grateful. But, I was different, I was often sad I did not have the same things as my peers, and I often had to work harder. It sure taught me the value of a dollar and how to market myself. But it certainly didn’t set me up for a D1 school (and I obviously did not go to one).
One of my best friends actually spent a year or two at Grier as a day student and rode with them before leaving to go to public school and get her own horse.
My friend enjoyed her time at Grier but the trade-off of having her own horse and the chance to do other things was worth it to her and she ended up going to Penn State/admitted to Schreyer (the honors college). She’s not riding at the moment (by her own choosing) but she did get to move to where she always wanted to live in CO and is doing really well for herself.
It’s obviously a different situation given that my friend is originally from Centre County in PA and her local educational options outside of Grier were a lot better than it sounds like OP’s are, but she’s never indicated to me that she regrets leaving it/making the switch to public school. As she tells it, she had a lot more opportunities available to her when her parents’ money wasn’t tied up in her tuition (and that was day rate, not even boarding).
Just food for thought, fwiw.
I think the Harry Potter series has also created a new culturally available fantasy about boarding school. It’s that the school will magically recognize you as one of the chosen, come seek you out, and then lift you into your rightful place away from the Muggles. That is so attractive to most young teens.
But my reading of novels has much more featured the old 19th/early 20th British boarding school that was harsh, strict, competitive and something to be endured. I.know times have changed. But what happens if you spring for an expensive boarding school and you still feel out of place? There’s no escape, there’s no going home at 3 pm.
My kids rowed. I thought that was expensive (they had to row on a club team as they went to a public school with no crew program). Thank goodness it wasn’t THAT expensive. And it did help them get into good colleges.
I remember a conversation I had years ago with a very successful trainer in the horse show world.
He had a couple of sons who had no interest in horses, but he said that whatever sport it was they did had a remarkably familiar feel to him regarding the way it was set up, the travel costs, the price structure, etc., etc.
