I’ve started showing A shows again with a small show barn and am used to navigating all the fees, day fees, and show bill splits for feed, shavings, grooming stalls etc. The trainer has recently purchased her own personal horse that is competing as well. Shows are a financial reach for most of us… and on the last few show bills (and I got confirming #s from the show office) that the trainer is NOT including HER horse in the horse show splits (those charges added to your show bill by the horse show for horse feed, bedding, grooming stalls etc) … so the few clients showing are paying for their own horses PLUS her horse’s share of feed, bedding, grooming stalls etc. I personally don’t think this is a fair practice… but I am curious to know if this is industry standard or am I justified in being quite upset.
Not fair at all. I was not thrilled when I found out a past trainer was doing this (not just for their horse but their spouse’s too).
Pretty standard, but maybe not quite the thing for this particular barn’s situation. Your trainer may be used to this practice but not realizing it’s a strain on her current clients.
Of course it’s “not fair” on the surface and not good business practice if it causes the clients to feel taken advantage of.
But the reality is that you are going to pay for those expenses somehow. Being out there showing, etc. is a business expense for the trainer. They could just as well switch to a fixed fee for shows which more than covers everything and then you either agree to it or not.
So consider how you want to approach this one and whether this barn is a good fit.
That doesn’t really apply here, as I think what the OP is referring to is horse show splits - the division of expenses done in the horse show office that covers bedding, hay, additional stalls for tack or whatnot. It’s variable from show to show and is not something that the trainer has control over, but IMO, the trainer shouldn’t be passing off the expense of showing their own horse onto clients.
When I worked in the show office for national-level rated shows, the trainers had to come to the office to submit their trainer splits by a certain day of the week. If they didn’t come in to do it, then things would be split evenly amongst all horses in the barn by default.
I can’t say specifically what proportion of trainers did a special split rather than letting us split it evenly because they all had to go to a particular person on the other side of the office and didn’t go through me, but there was a constant flow of trainers coming to that desk early in the week.
Now, some may have been because X client provided their own hay and shavings, rather than the trainer excluding their own horses from the split, but from watching people go to that desk and from verifying all of the invoices that went through my desk, I would say that quite a few don’t evenly split things amongst every horse in the barn.
If people had multiple horses, wouldn’t that change the split? Or at least, how it got billed?
OP here… Splits were done evenly between all horses showing EXCEPT the trainers horse. Show office was told to exclude her horse from the splits (meaning split the charges for grooming stalls/stall for her dogs/feed/bedding etc between on her clients’ horses bills as well). This added at least $200 to each of our show bills
In my admittedly limited experience, it’s a per horse split. If the trainer has 4 horses there, the bill is split into fourths. If 2 of those 4 horses are mine, I pay 2 of those 1/4 shares.
But, as @Night_Flight said, the trainer can have it split any way they want. For example, if the trainer wants to split the cost of the tack stall on a per person basis rather than a per horse basis, it can be done that way.
In response to the OP’s question, I agree, excluding the trainer’s horse from the splits seems unfair. My trainer doesn’t do that. She pays her horses’ shares of the split. However, I don’t have enough experience with enough different trainers to say what the typical practice might be.
I believe that the default is to split by the number of horses unless instructed otherwise.
Based on my limited experience, this is not the norm. All office splits are by the number of horses, including any belonging to the trainer. But I have not played the game on a consistently high level.
Not sure what the policy is for splitting up trainer’s expenses such as food, hotel, etc. Pretty sure current trainer includes her horses in the denominator for that. And she’s quite good about commuting from home when possible and bringing her own lunch.
In the past I have paid the grooms directly.
In defense of the trainers doing custom splits, they’re also done when two people are sharing a horse. It’s not uncommon for our trainer to have horses half leased and both riders at the show. Their split share is then split evenly between them. I’ve particularly seen this as it’s not uncommon for the trot-a-pole and crossrails level kids to be splitting a leased or school horse.
Is it common? Yes. Is it fair? No.
Finding out about this additional expense after the fact is the thing that rubs me wrong here. My trainer friend spells out all fees (splits, trainer fees and lodging, hauling, ect) in writing well in advance of a show. People at my barn fine tune their personal budgets in order to afford show season.
Not quite on topic but similar --the first time the kiddos trainer hauled her 3-Day horse to a venue, he was clear about the cost per mile for the hauling and the training fee for his work with the kiddo during the 3-Day (warm up, walking course, etc). He brought his wife, and two young riders (a year or two younger than daughter) with him in his 4 horse LQ trailer. All good.
Until his wife told me that I had incorrectly paid his fee --I was to pay 1/2 of the hauling, not 1/3. Huh?
She explained that “the girls” parents couldn’t afford to pay 1/2, so she was dividing it into 1/2 based on “clients.” She viewed “the girls” as one client, and kiddo as a second client. I gave her a long look (teacher stare). I said I would pay it this time; however, we would need to discuss it again before the next HT. To me, playing the $$$ card in a sport as expensive as eventing is a non-starter. And I probably said that too --maybe nicer, but probably not.
If trainer and his wife wanted to subsides the two young girls --on them. But I was not going to pay their way.
Apparently the trainer and his wife saw my point of view --forever after (and we showed with “the girls” for about 10 years --every rider paid her share. I don’t know what he charged the parents for his coaching of the two girls --not my business --but he was a great trainer and instructor, so I was good with paying is fee for my kiddo.
Aside and of no relevance --at one point a few years later, the wife shared that there had been a bit of a falling out with “the girls” parents – When we travelled alone with the trainer and his wife, we always paid for their room where we were staying (unless he brought the LQ trailer --but usually if it was his 2 horse since it was just him and the kiddo riding in the event). The cheaper ride actually covered their room, so all good. Anyway, turns out at one event we did not attend, “the girls” parents had put the trainer and his wife in a flea-bag motel while the girls and their parents stayed some place upscale. A bit of hard feelings there --but I guess it all was sorted at some point . . .
To my mind, the practice of having to carry the trainer’s horse(s) is questionable at best, and if not disclosed beforehand, a huge red flag. Shows are expensive enough without all the add-on fees (set up, tear down, etc). Paying the split for a trainer’s horse (and dog stall? WTF?) would make me consider whether I wanted to show with that trainer in the future.
Been there, done that, have the scars.
When I showed each horse (owner) paid for their share of the bedding since various horses had their own bedding needs (and some of us brought our own because it was much cheaper). The trainer had the tack stall on their bill and it was paid split by the number of horses, so if the trainer had horses there, they paid a portion too. Hotel and such expenses were split by rider.
In my time working in offices at very large shows, the trainer has total control over the splits. They come into the office and tell the office staff how they want the splits applied, and that’s what the show office does. If the trainer doesn’t come into the office and give us their splits, the total bill for feed, bedding, extra stalls, etc., would stay on the barn account and the trainer was then responsible for the entire amount (this rarely happened).
This is a genuine question, since showing is so different here. Why would a Show Office be required to sort out the bill for a trainer’s clients. Isn’t that the trainers very business? Why doesn’t the show bill the trainers in one complete, convenient, lump sum and then the trainer sorts it out with their individual clients? It seems a bit Byzantine.
I have been in a book shop where I took my selected book to an assistant at one desk, they issued me with a docket to over take to a cashier at another desk where I handed it over, paid the amount required and got a receipt for the money from the cashier, then had to go back to the assistant at the first desk to collect my book. But it was already in a paper bag waiting for me: full service, there. I could never work out if this was a means to employ as many people as possible or if the proprietor didn’t trust the staff not to cheat.
It’s at least partially a cash flow problem. A trainer with multiple clients could have a bill from the show office in the high thousands of dollars. Tens of thousands of dollars wouldn’t be out of the question for larger operations. The trainer likely can’t carry that cost while waiting for clients to reimburse them.
Generally the show office is already tracking costs for each individual horse (stall, class fees, office fees, etc) and each client leaves an open check or credit card with the show office to settle charges at the end of the show. That skips the step of the trainer acting as middleman and paying the show just to be reimbursed by the clients. It’s also fairly common that the clients just give the open checks to the trainer and never set foot in the show office themselves. So in reality the trainer is doing just what you suggested, they are sorting things out for each individual client but doing so with the show office so that each client is charged directly. That’s what people are referring to in terms of handling “splits” - the trainer divides up shared show offices charges amongst the clients in real time at the show.
For other charges that don’t go to the show office (training, rides, hotel, etc) the trainer will bill clients after the show.
