What did you do? Money making opportunities for younger riders

[DaisyBabyCat]

My daughter is 14 and has been riding for 7 years. She has her own pony and she really loves to show. We do mostly local shows but do go to a couple of the larger shows every year. Last year we went to 8 shows for a total of $20k which only includes shipping, show fees, hotel, barn fees, braiding and groom tips. We are not rich but we are comfortable. $20k is just too much when you add the everyday horse things on top of it like board, vet, farrier, tack, clothing, etc.

My daughter is a good girl and is very appreciative of what she has and what she has been allowed to do. At the barn she is very serious, is extremely hardworking and very dedicated to this sport. Much more so than any of the other girls there. I told her we can’t do as many shows this year as last year due to the cost. She has mentioned many times over the years that she wants to make money so she can help pay for part of the shows. She’s sold her old clothes at times and made some small horse things and treats to sell. She’s worked at horse camps and taught lessons but she wants to bring in more money.

So those of you who are not rich and showing every weekend, what have you done, at the younger age, to bring in money to help pay for your horse girl life?

[Scribbler]

@DaisyBabyCat

My daughter is 14 and has been riding for 7 years. She has her own pony and she really loves to show. We do mostly local shows but do go to a couple of the larger shows every year. Last year we went to 8 shows for a total of $20k which only includes shipping, show fees, hotel, barn fees, braiding and groom tips. We are not rich but we are comfortable. $20k is just too much when you add the everyday horse things on top of it like board, vet, farrier, tack, clothing, etc.

My daughter is a good girl and is very appreciative of what she has and what she has been allowed to do. At the barn she is very serious, is extremely hardworking and very dedicated to this sport. Much more so than any of the other girls there. I told her we can’t do as many shows this year as last year due to the cost. She has mentioned many times over the years that she wants to make money so she can help pay for part of the shows. She’s sold her old clothes at times and made some small horse things and treats to sell. She’s worked at horse camps and taught lessons but she wants to bring in more money.

So those of you who are not rich and showing every weekend, what have you done, at the younger age, to bring in money to help pay for your horse girl life?

I don’t know how any girl of 14 could legally earn $20k or even $10k outside of being a child actress or model.

Age 14 is just old enough to go into the workforce in some jurisdictions but I don’t think working at McDonald’s will be useful here.

Kids with horses break down into:

1. Parents can and do pay full cost including showing

2. Parents can and do pay full cost with an understood budget. That was my case, and learning to work within a budget was a valuable lifetime skill.

3. Parents can’t afford to fully support the riding and child cobbles together lessons, working student, stall mucking.

Your family has landed at #2 and child is just getting to be old enough to understand budgeting and making choices. I suggest you sit down with her, with input from coach, and prioritize shows. More local or fewer local and one big splash? Cost out what gear and board cost. Let her research what hourly wages pay.

No one gets everything they want in life and money is a huge limiting factor. A 10 year old can’t really understand this fully but a 15 year old absolutely can.

Perhaps try to work on goal setting outside of competition, so that shows aren’t the only fun thing. Or start hauling out for trail rides if the shows are the only way to get off property.

One way to mitigate costs is to work as a groom at shows but that can really interfere with riding as your priority has to be getting paying clients ready. Also learning how to braid well can save you money and earn income but it has to be recall really good to charge.

[teatime0714]

I dog walked, braided and did some touch up clipping back in the day. Started by braiding and clipping (ears, nose, legs, bridle path - left the body clips to the pros) my own horse to save money. This turned into braiding and doing clean up clipping for my trainer’s sales horses for lesson credits. Eventually I was braiding for smaller barns in the area going to local shows and would sometimes be given horses from our barn’s regular braider when they had too many on their list in the morning and they wanted to be done for the night. However, it took as few years to get to that point. Hunter braids take time and lots of practice to do correctly and quickly so they’ll stay.

The dog walking was very much a neighborhood thing after school. We lived in a neighborhood full of homes with dogs and working professionals. I would spend an hour after school walking dogs before heading to the barn.

It also really does help when you’re told just how much everything is - it puts a lot into context. My mom made sure I was in the show office with her at checkout time and I was the one making out the check. Same thing for paying the board and training bill. We got to a point where I was told how many shows we could do with my parents paying and then I would do the math on how much more I could make braiding and clipping to figure out how many more shows I could potentially do that year. At first the answer was may 1 more show, but became a lot more as time went on and I got older.

[HeartsDesireEventing]

I worked at a couple different barns - first just for a friend of a friend when I was young enough my mom still had to drive me to my job, and later at a local breeding farm. Mostly normal horse care things - feeding, cleaning stalls, filling waters, etc. Definitely not earning thousands of dollars, but useful horse care experience and pocket money.

Segued as I got older into some in-hand/longing work with the weanlings/yearlings at the breeding farm, as well as some under saddle schooling for local horses in the area (had a bit of niche/training loop going to 3 of our local foxhunting barns giving the foxhunting horses basic dressage schooling to help their balance). Had horses in training and resale project horses at home periodically (but we had a farm, which made this doable). None of this earned serious money of course, but with my parents supporting the care of the horses I was able to cover entry fees (in eventing/dressage).

[teatime0714]

Agreed on this response - at this age the work cannot fully cover these costs. The best you can do is educate her on what it costs so she understands and appreciates the reality. Then she can do some things to help out as well, but the knowledge of the costs is important for context setting.

As an adult I never even went back to the hunter ring despite truly loving the hunter ride due to knowing (from that childhood education my parents gave me) I wouldn’t be able to self fund the show schedule I wanted even with a good 6 figure paying job because I’m the breadwinner. I’m now having a whole bunch of fun working up the dressage levels and showing in a much less expensive way due to how dressage competitions, finals and awards are structured.

[endlessclimb]

Until she can drive, there really isn’t a good way. Agree with all of those that said budgeting and “life isn’t fair” type things are important to learn at this age.

To make extra money, I rode a lot of troubled and underutilized horses. I didn’t need my extra money for shows (I was on the hook for board and farrier and vet) so being pro didn’t matter. It made it easy on my mom, because she could just drop me off at the barn for the whole day, instead of needing to shuttle me places to make a buck.

I also cut a deal with my parents on ironing clothes - $0.25 per garment. It helped that my father was a clothes hoarder so I could basically iron until my arms fell off and still have more. That allowed me to make enough to afford just the horse - shows were out of the question. I hitched rides to trail heads to trail ride.

[Fuego1]

I agree she won’t be able to cover all of those costs, but having her learn the value of money and paying certain expenses (maybe she just buys her tack, or pays 1 bill, etc.) is a super important life skill.
I wasn’t showing but I picked up several “side hustles” as a teen to help pay horse bills and continue to do some of them today. I got into photography including photographing some smaller horse shows and then doing portraits of people with their horses, I gave beginner lessons (maybe not the best idea liability-wise), fed horses/dogs for people who went out of town, etc.

[poltroon]

I agree, there really isn’t a way for her to make that amount of money.

I did things like braiding and clipping, and I’d encourage her to learn those skills, to do them for herself, and get expertise so she can do them for others for pay.

My mom also worked in the show office for our at-home shows which paid much of my entry fees.

The biggest thing she can do is put herself in a position where she is incurring less expenses. This could include catch riding/riding sales horses, so that other people are paying the fees, choosing shows that are less expensive (how much of those costs are trailering, stall fees, hotel), doing her own grooming, etc. She maybe could also groom for others at events where she can’t show, depending on how your barn is set up.

It’s admirable that she wants to contribute and completely reasonable that you need to back off. It also may be helpful to have her make a plan - these are the shows I want to do, here’s what they cost, here’s what I can contribute. This kind of planning is a valuable skill on its own. This can also be helpful in prioritizing quantity vs quality etc.

[teatime0714]

Depending on the make up of your barn a little tack cleaning business can clean up. Not something I did personally, but the last time I was at a large facility maybe 5 years back there was a junior who charged $5 to deep clean and condition a full set of tack (saddle, bridle, bit and irons). About half the 40 stall barn was amateurs and she did a roaring business. She could usually be found in the tack room for hours on Saturdays and Sundays making her way through the adult amateurs’ tack.

[Ponyplusaninch]

I did the working student thing to cut down on costs, but I have a hard time imagining a trainer taking on someone younger than 15. I was 16, and it was HARD.

And frankly I look back and wonder if it was worth it, because I was so so tired by the time I had to get my own horse ready to show. Then it wouldn’t go well, and it would be like “what did we just spend money on?”

Is it possible you and your daughter could talk about a goal or two she has in mind? So there’s more of a quality focus vs quantity?

For example: I desperately wanted to show at KHP one year. That was the goal; it also meant a lot of other shows had to be sacrificed so that I could go there. But it was worth it to me.

Local finals of sorts can also be a great goal and don’t necessarily mean showing all over the place to qualify/attend.

[Mardi1]

Clean tack ! Bridles, saddles, martingales, leather halters, etc. Charge per item/cleaning, or offer a monthly package that includes a number of cleanings. Offer cleaning at both the barn and shows, if that’s possible. Another benefit: your daughter would be able to see tack that may need repair, and she can tell the owner or trainer before it breaks.

The benefit to trainers is that their grooms can spend more time taking care of the horses if they don’t have to bother about tack. I’ve seen grooms dunk and rinse the just worn bit into the water bucket used for dirty tack sponges. I told him he used the wrong bucket, and he shrugged his shoulders, so did his boss. They don’t care.

I would gladly pay someone with an attention to detail and good work ethic to regularly clean my tack.
I bet others would too.

[Trekkie]

I started babysitting when I was 12. Also pulled lots of manes as a kid for $$. If it an option at shows do self care and skip the groom fees. Tack cleaning for $$ is a great idea also. She won’t be able to make enough money to really pay her way but it will teach her a work ethic and she can take pride in her contributions.

[c0608524]

At 15 I started bussing tables at a local restaurant. Minimum wage plus tip-outs. I worked there from grade 9 to my first year of college. It did eat a little bit into my riding time, but not much. Growing up my parents didn’t have a ton of extra money - we never went hungry by any means but they never would have been able to afford 20k a year to show.

So, my parents paid for my once a week riding lesson and I made enough money to part-lease a lesson horse. We only went to schooling shows and my parents did pay for that a couple times a year when I was younger, but by the time I hit 18 I was fully paying for all my horse extra curriculars.

I do credit my “can talk to anyone” skill to working in a restaurant, and as lame as it sounds it’s a bit of a life skill that’s followed me well into adulthood.

[PNWjumper]

As a kid and young adult, I worked off a lot of the regular costs (lessons/training/board) - or at least part of the regular costs. I cleaned stalls for my trainer for many years for a reduction in board, started riding horses for him when I was advanced enough as a trade-off for training, showed horses for him to work off show fees, etc.

When I got older I started braiding, and that paid for shows for a long time. Not sure it would make anywhere near enough of a dent now, but all of those things do add up. Clipping and grooming, especially if you’re in a bigger barn, also make a lot of sense.

To the previous poster’s point, my daughter started working in a restaurant (hosting and bussing) this last year and I’m surprised by how much money she’s making. Maybe if I had known I would have told her she had to start paying for MY shows

[MHM]

Braiding is extremely lucrative, with minimal costs, although it takes some practice and some excellent time management skills. Although the time management skills can be useful for the rest of her life.

It would be hard to do a huge amount of braiding without a driver’s license. But maybe until then she could braid for the people in her own barn or others at the shows she would be planning to attend anyway.

Many braiders start out by helping other braiders with their overflow once they learn to do a good job. So that might be an avenue to explore.

Best of luck to her.

[dmveventer]

At that age she’s looking at babysitting or petsitting if you have potential customers in the neighborhood. Maybe barn work if you can drive her out there reliably, clipping or mane-pulling if she’s good at it and the barn isn’t already handling that for most clients. Once she’s old enough to drive she’ll have a lot more options. I went with retail and then waitressing which was good, steady money and was a lot easier to get to than the barn so I could work more hours.

I think it’s great she’s willing to work for it. I held jobs all through school to fund my half-leases and some extra (schooling) shows and it taught me a ton about managing money and prioritizing, put me way ahead of my peers on that front. That said, I would just be realistic with her about the numbers since it’s unlikely she’ll be able to make enough to really tip the scales on showing more. Definitely encourage her to earn some spending money, just don’t let her get her hopes up that a few side jobs here or there will mean she gets to show as much as last year.

[DaisyBabyCat]

Thank you for your response. She would love to be a groom so we’ll definitely look into opportunities to do that. I might have not been clear though, in no way did I expect her to come up with $20k on her own We will definitely be prioritizing shows this year but she wants to earn money so she can contribute towards the cost of the shows we do decide to go to. So I know McDonalds money isn’t a lot, and is not going to pay for a whole show, but it is enough to contribute something which is important to her, so it is useful.

[BrownDerby]

This may be small fry but I knew a pair of twin tweens who set up a boot shine service at Thermal a few years back and they did quite well. I think at the time they charged $15.

[DaisyBabyCat]

Thank you, dog walking or even pet sitting, is a good idea. She has learned to clip her own horse so that saved us money this past season. She was recently asked to help another boarder clip their horse (unpaid) and that went really well so maybe offering her services to do the non “body” parts would be an option. How did you get started with the braiding/learn how to do it. I know there are probably tons of YouTube videos now days but it’s hard to know which ones are good. I imagine there is a proper way to do braids and some tips and tricks that would help to make it easier. I’m guessing there is also braiding etiquette that needs to be followed as far as which shows and which horses she could do without getting blacklisted by the braiding community

[DaisyBabyCat]

Thanks, I like the idea of her making a plan and having to make the decision of quantity vs quality of shows. Our barn is going to be deciding this week on which shows they are going to go to this year so it will be a good time to try and have her figure it out. Is there a certain tactic to finding catch rides and sale horse rides outside of her own barn? She currently schools the ponies at the shows for the less experienced riders at her barn (for free) and she has also been riding a couple younger green ponies for the barn to get them ready to be sold or go into the riding program (for free). She would do great with riding the sale ponies because she is an excellent rider yet she is pretty small so she can fit on the smaller ponies too. It would be nice for her to get paid for some of these things.