What kind of jobs can you get? I’m super passionate about horses, but scared to take the leap into making it my career, or sticking with my current path in a STEM field. Any experiences or advice anyone has would be great!
There are two people I have met in my almost 60 years of horse ownership who made their living with an Equine Science degree: The first is a well-known trainer in the area --attended Finley for his ES degree --BUT then went to Scottsdale and worked for some of the biggest names in the horse show world in that area --after 15-20 years of learning all he could, and competing successfully, he returned to this area (his home town) where his parents “sold” him the family farm (500 acres) and financed a state of the art facility where to this day he trains, boards, and gives lessons. However his big money maker is his judging --he travels most weekends to rated shows where he is a highly regarded judge (he is one judge at the WEG pretty much every year, and Congress, and World). His parents continue to live on the farm and he rather looks after them (or sees they are looked after) and he too lives in a house on the place. So there’s one example of someone who made a living with an ES degree.
Second one is a woman who works for ADM as an Equine Specialist --she is paid by ADM to talk to people like me who have questions on their horses’ feed and which ADM products to use based on my hay analysis (free advice, by the way). She also travels to different places putting on Equine Nutrition seminars for feed dealers, veterinarians, and people like me. That’s where I met her in person after talking with her on the phone a few times (always lots of horse questions when I get a new critter in the barn). She had a lovely display at our County Fair --but it is the second largest county fair in the US so worth her time to come and set up a booth.
Good luck!
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In general, an equine science degree isn’t going to be enough to get you a good job that pays enough to live on or afford your own horse.
If you want to maximize your chances, go to a good state university with an ag program that offers equine science classes and get a degree in Animal Science with an emphasis on Equine Science. With that, you can work for a feed company, be a county extension agent, work for a company that manufactures equine supplies, be a veterinary pharmaceutical sales rep, and such. However, I’d call these more equine-adjacent than equine careers.
Realistically, the best way to nourish your passion for horses is to stick with a STEM career where you can make enough money to actually afford to pursue your equine goals.
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My equine science degree enabled me to become a permit specialist for Puget Sound Energy. So in reality, nothing.
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Take a vet tech course.
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Jobs directly with horses break down into three categories.
There are talent jobs, where you demonstrate high skill in the sport while young, go on to compete and then sell your expertise as a coach, trainer, judge, horse dealer. Looking at your former posts I’d say you are not on track for a talent career at this point (most of us never were either). These are the only jobs where you might be paid to ride someone else’s horse. These jobs tend to be structured as small business so you need to have capital to buy a farm and attract clients. High failure rate especially at the lower end.
There are trades jobs, like farrier or body worker or clipper or high end groom or braider, some of which can provide a decent income (farrier) but all require specialized manual skills and apprenticeship that you don’t get in university. These jobs tend to be structured as an independent contractor (grooms are usually on salary) so you need to run your own business, pay your own taxes and insurance, and hustle for clients. Related to this are barn manager jobs where you need to learn a lot of skills, but are on salary (usually low for the responsibilities).
Then there are labor jobs, cleaning stalls, most low level grooms, etc. These tend to be hourly wage, no benefits, minkkim wage.
Outside of this there a jobs that are adjacent to horses, require horse knowledge, but are not based at the barn.
These include vet, either practicing or in research. Working for a feed company, pharmaceuticals, tack or riding clothes company, which could be labor, design, management, marketing. Working for computer or media or film companies that touch on horsey topics. CGI horses for video games!
I’m not sure what an Equine Science degree is. Run far away from any program that’s teaching basic barn management.
As the list above suggests the jobs that might be horse adjacent require more training, pay more, mostly occur indoors, and require you to be really good at an advanced skill set that you only get in university. They give you the boost in income and working conditions associated with professional jobs. You will work for salary and benefits (vets are more often self employed small business).
Everything directly with horses tends to be pulled down into the low pay and poor working conditions associated with agricultural work.
So the big question for you is where your academic talent lies. If you are ahead of the curve in STEM subjects you are very fortunately placed to head into a number of lucrative careers that can offer a lot of job flexibility once you are established. You will need to decide what part of STEM works for you. Hard sciences and research or doctor or vet? Technology and computer programming? Engineering at any level? Math, in any of these or as an accountant? How are your human skills, can you rise to team leader or management in your field?
Honestly some of the happiest ammie riders have good jobs that pay well and the capacity to ride and take lessons and pay for a boarding barn or buy acreage for a hobby farm.
One acquaintance makes a crazy amount of money traveling around as a salesperson and Rep for a medical tech company. Apparently she goes into the operating room to tell surgeons how to use the stents she sells, which shocked me. She had undergrad pre-med, and ended up detouring from Med school to do this. Another friend does HR remotely for a computer startup and her husband is a game designer remotely. They do very well, have free time, and are planning to buy acreage up in the ranch country.
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What kind of jobs can you get? IMHO…none. If you are in a STEM field stay in it and have horses as a hobby.
According the the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there is predicted need for 139,000 new engineering jobs 2016-2026.
According to BLS the median wage for agricultural engineers is $83,000. If you want to go into other engineering, the pay is higher. Petroleum engineers get paid the highest with a median pay of $131,000.
You can play a lot with horses for that kind of pay.
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Depending where you live. Some cities have no horse access. Some cities $100,000 doesn’t go very far in real estate and horse care. Pick a career that doesn’t require living in Manhattan or San Francisco.
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If you don’t have a specific vision for what you would like to do related to horses, I would stick with the STEM path. If you do have a specific vision (work in nutrition, podiatry, training, saddle-fitting, there is really a wide range), I’m not sure that an ES degree is really the fastest and most direct route.
When I was in college I spent about a year as an animal science major before realizing I didn’t really want any of the jobs I was likely to get (or at least what I could imagine at the time), so I switched to an ecology program and it has worked out really well for me, with an assistantship to get my MS (and allowed me to use my AS credits towards my bachelor’s). No regrets here. I’ll get to retire at 57 and will likely do something horse-related as a part-time gig to offset my horse expenses.
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Probably not much unless you plan on adding another degree after. I have an animal science degree, and many of my classmates did get jobs in various fields after (I can think of people who work at pet food companies, producer organizations, etc.), but ultimately, I believe that it’s best as a pre-vet degree, most of the people in my program wanted to be vets and it prepares you well. A bunch of us also went on to get graduate degrees and I think it was mostly because really, what DO you do with that degree alone? A masters made many of my class mates much more employable after and I can think of ones who are nutritionists, work in behaviour consulting, work for pharmaceutical companies, some are in university administration, etc. PhD’s…a little bit less direct, and two of us from that undergrad class are, after about a decade, applying to vet school after all of that.
The other thing to remember is when you are charging money, the clients are the humans and not the horses. You don’t get to duck dealing with people by working with horses. Ans arguably people in a well run office or business are easier to deal with than individual clients in a training program.
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Don’t do it. As others have said, there’s really no use for an equine degree. Getting a hands on horse job (training, riding, grooming, etc.) is more about experience, connections, and hard work than having any certifications. For the horse-adjacent jobs you’d be just fine getting a standard degree with some crossover, like business or biology, and then focusing your job hunt accordingly. That way if you decided not to follow the horse route you’d still have a degree people value in other fields. Depending on what part of the STEM field you’re focused on you could probably find a number of ways to incorporate horses into your professional life without going all-in on an equine degree. Vet school could be something to consider, although that comes with a whole other set of challenges.
In my opinion the best thing you can do if you want to be around horses long-term is get a degree in a high-paying field and go the amateur route. The professional horse world can be pretty brutal - low pay, long hours, harsh conditions, not much stability. Realistically it’s just not something that works out for most people, no matter how passionate they are. There have been several threads on here about careers in the horse industry and the pitfalls of working student jobs that you might find useful. If you’re really serious about pursuing it as a career you should consider a taking a gap year for a working student position or something before you make any big decisions you might regret later (like spending $$$ on an equine degree). Given your experience level you may have a hard time finding a legitimate working student gig, so vet any potential jobs carefully. Volunteering at a horse-related non-profit is another way to get your hands dirty and get a sense for what the work can be like.
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I know one graduate who was able to get a job at New Bolton. The money wasn’t good, but the experience was outstanding. She couldn’t find another opportunity to make a living, however.
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Highly recommend working in tech, OP. I’m a dummy with a Public Health BSci and I work remotely in tech and do well for my geographical location, and even better for my age group.
Having an engineering degree (aka technical knowledge and vernacular) translates well into so many industries and roles.
ETA: college sucks. But having money after college to be able to ENJOY horses without having it be your full time career is cooler.
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Focus on energy-related careers. Energy storage, renewables, grid resilience, transmission engineering, etc. These fields will be booming for at least the next 10 yrs and very lucrative.
Agree with all the others. One of my former boarders has an equine science degree. She’s a recently divorced single mom of two that feeds for me once a week, and for a billionaire a couple of more times. She’s in her 40’s, and makes $20/hour.
I don’t recommend it.
Not really anything much. If you insist on doing something in animals you’d probably be better off going a general route rather than anything horse specific.
As for STEM - I’m not a math/science person, work as a journalist and can’t afford horses currently (that said I wouldn’t trade journalism for anything) - my riding instructor in my early 20s, the first real riding instructor I had after getting out of a rough lesson/boarding barn situation worked as some kind of engineer. Really cool woman, had a small facility that took boarders, she taught lessons, had a motley mix of boarders as she wasn’t too far out from a city across the state line (she had some casual trail rider types, a few adult ammy dressage riders and one gentleman who was a fox hunter whose horse HATED loading onto trailers for some reason.) she had an outdoor arena, indoor arena, some wash stalls and a small XC course for practice (I mean like “jumps in a field” when I say XC course). She was primarily an eventer, the main lesson horse was her retired eventing horse, a Trakehner gelding (If I had to pick a favorite breed out of the horses I’ve ridden I’d say TBs as the first horse I owned was an OTTB but after knowing that horse I’d say out of the warmblood breeds/types I’ve probably got a soft spot for Trakehners.)
Do you genuinely dislike your current path in a STEM field or are you just wishing you could spend all your time in horses? Because as everyone else is saying, life in college and life post-college are different. (I can’t even speak well to the “typical” college experience as I did community college and online courses.)
Since my early 20s I’ve volunteered off and on, schedule allowing, at a therapeutic riding barn to get my horse fix (been more off lately between pandemic and journalism schedule and the fact that this place is approx. 45 minutes away from where I live/work so getting over there regularly is just not in the cards right now). I think this is a somewhat underrated option to just be in/around barns. You probably will not be around well-connected professionals as you would be in a working student gig, but you will likely be around a mix of horse folk from all backgrounds (and a few non-horse folk who wanna help out and learn about horses in the process).
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Okay sadly that is more than I make. 
ALSO: I LOVE journalism but if you wanna make money it is NOT the career to pursue. (I went in knowing I wouldn’t get rich.)
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Couldn’t agree more. I’ve been volunteering with a therapeutic riding program since I was a teenager and I’ve picked up so many foundational horsemanship skills there that I wouldn’t have had a chance to learn at the barns I rode at. You get exposed to all of the same skills that other barns use (saddle fitting, feeding, groundwork, first aid, etc) in an environment that’s already used to teaching volunteers with varied experience levels. It’s a practical solution for getting people experience actually working with horses instead of just showing up to ride; whether we like it or not the days of kids getting dropped off at the barn all day are pretty much over and realistically not making a comeback any time soon. OP doesn’t say how much experience she has, but if she’s only been riding for a year or so at a standard lesson-type barn it’s entirely possible she’s never had a chance to work a shift of barn chores or trudge through pastures in freezing rain or experience any of the other delightful realities of caring for horses. These non-profits are some of the last places people can show up with little to no experience and actually build their skills in a safe environment. And as a bonus it’s completely free and helps out a good cause!
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