Building off another thread…
Answer: Me.
Bills are getting insane in the hunter/jumper world and I’m feeling intense pressure to either commit to a 2-week/month all-inclusive plan with the expectation that you’re showing 2 weeks out of the month, or a base training board plan that is going up $500+/month and going to also increase in the a la carte services. Yet, nothing has changed or elevated otherwise from the provider/professional end.
Food, energy, fuel, insurance, medical care, horses, life in general all cost more even if the professional services offered haven’t changed.
Hugs.
Things are getting tough all around.
Everyone is trying to survive.
Take a serious look at the horse world environment you are living in. Look for an off-ramp. Mine was to change riding discipline and location. Go from woe is me to I feel free.
This is more sarcasm than anything else. We’re not in a dire state. I’m just annoyed that it’s gone from being a stretch to absolutely unreasonable to afford some of these costs.
I hear you, and very much agree with the offramp idea. I think offramp can mean change your goals in your current discipline. In the division I prefer to ride in, the horses have become unfathomably expensive. I determined these are some of my options:
Cut showing from in half. Will ultimately require my moving the horses to a less horse-friendly facility.
Sell my horses, lease a low-adult jumper.
Sell my horses, lease a 2’6 hunter at a barn with regional showing only.
Sell my horses and ride at a local lesson barn, quality instruction, but jumping limited to 2ft, lessons twice weekly.
Out of all these ideas, 3 and 4 are starting to look the most attractive!
3 signs you are broke
Yeah… it’s become uber competitive in my division as well and it’s a bit disappointing. I can put down beautiful rounds where horse is jumping round and correct and I’m lucky if I am in the low ribbons.
Unfortunately, I’m over 6 figs in on this one, so it doesn’t pay to really offramp my goals. Ideally, I’d prefer to scale back to 16 shows a year rather than 22+, but in my current environment, that’s not something that the barn considers feasible or part of their program. Honestly, I would think that most programs would love having an amateur that wants to compete 16-18x a year at a high level, but it’s becoming harder and harder to find. Horse is pretty solid and needs little prep (doesn’t even get lunged at shows and only gets paste on day 1). So a lot of our home time is just hacking or flatting for muscle memory and strength conditioning. Pro maybe rides the horse 1-2x a month if that. Horse lessons 1-2x a week when pro is home. What I’m saying is that it’s not a required intensive program or tons of hands-on need, so it’s just frustrating.
Glib answer - one with a horse? 
It has gotten stupid expensive. Stalls at shows out here have gone way up—heard a rumor that HITS Del Mar stalls are $550 or $600. A fiend texted me a photo of a $9 bottle of “Smart” Water from HITS.
I’m OK but couldn’t do this indefinitely. But I’m also old so age is going to limit me. So I justify it based on not having that many showing years left and having a stockpile from years of lame horses.
We do jumpers which saves in a number of ways. We don’t get any extra stalls. Groom in stalls. No grooms, though we do hire someone to feed, clean, and water AM and PM. On the other hand we’re generally up for a good VIP, especially since we’re at the show all day every day.
22+ shows is really crazy, I guess I can understand that that’s a great business model for the barn, but not at all necessary to qualify for indoors even in the 3’3 amateurs if that is one’s goal. Do you feel like you could move to a barn with more regional showing where your horse could be more competitive, or to a barn that mixes a few top shows, a less competitive winter circuit, with mostly regional shows? The barn in my area that is showing 22+ at WEF or more recently WEC ocala, Traverse, etc., with some clients showing 16-18 seems to have an average hunter price of 400k+, with clients regularly purchasing the year prior’s top junior hunters, which is WAY out of anybody in my barn’s league. Is there anything in between? I am having trouble paying for 12 show/year and feel very priced out of the hunters so looking to bail.
From the bottom. Hay here is $800 a ton and can approach $1000 a ton if you buy at the feed store. Beet pulp and alfalfa have gone up at least 50%. whole flax has gone up 300%. Gas is $2 a litre. A 3 bedroom bungalow is $1.5 million or up. A two bedroom condo starts at $500k. Low key horse acreage is $5 million. The basic price of keeping any horse or person is skyrocketing.
At every level some people are getting priced out. Of horses, but of other things too.
Yes, it sucks to be fairly well off and then not be able to afford the things or activities that you would think correlate to that income level. But it’s happening everywhere in regards to all amenities. A low six figure income in my area can get you a condo but not a house, certainly not acreage. It won’t get you hunter circuit horses and program.
However if you are at the top end of horse pricing you can always figure out how to downgrade with no harm to the horse. When you are with a given coach, and you like them, you don’t want to leave, everyone else looks crap, but also you don’t actually know the full local ecosystem.
Adult hunters in the USA is from all accounts a game for the significantly wealthy, and so when inflation hits a percentage increase is going to be that much more in dollar figures.
I get my horse everything she needs, I keep my own truck and trailer, but we don’t compete and I recognized when I returned to riding that I didn’t have play money to be involved at that level. I would never maintain a hobby that took a serious bite out of my actual living expenses or made me need to budget the other parts of my life. Of course I tend to live below my means generally which I find very comfortable.
Holy smokes. 22 shows a year 
My thought exactly! 6 is what I can do comfortably. But questioning whether that’s worth it too. Jingles. We are all feeling it from every angle.
They ideally would like 24.
I had to negotiate a month of downtime and that’s still not ironed out.
Consequently, I did try to push the idea of being more comfortable around 18 shows and was reminded that it was a competitive program and that horses should be showing twice a month. Sigh. I really don’t know what to do. Love the professional, but feeling this pressure is making the situation sour.
I don’t even understand how this would be possible if the ammie owner had a job or any kind of personal life. Or does the coach take the horse to the show for 2 weeks, you pay everything but just fly in to ride on Saturdays? And coach gets to collect points during the open shows in the week?
Myself, l like to think of the balance between cash outlay, physical work commitment, and my own time in the saddle. I want to maximize my time in the saddle and minimize the cash and work part. Right now I’m happy with self board to keep costs down, in a place where chores are easy. But I don’t compete in anything, and I know that if I wanted to id need to be in a much more supportive program.
But the idea of paying double (board plus show fees) to send my good horse away for the trainer to ride two weeks out of the month, at a point where I am not progressing but just maintaining a made horse and chasing points … Well, I’d have to have way more income than I could ever imagine having for that to make sense, and if I had the money for that I’d buy a ranch and hire a caretaker 
or something.
24 shows sounds like a schedule for people who have no job or family, or maybe a kid who rides a bunch of horses and doesn’t go to real school.
Wowza! I’m in a full care (training included) type program in Texas. I cannot imagine doing 22, much less 24 shows a year. Do those amateurs not work? I work full time and already use a significant amount of my PTO to horse show. I’m guessing everyone that shows 24+ weeks a years is independently wealthy?! I average 10ish shows a year and that’s my max, for both budget and time away from work. Some of my barn does more like 16-18, but not much more than that.
wowza
I have a farm in Florida, and I show about 6-7 of the weeks of circuit. I get there in November and Leave in May, so clearly i’m not showing very much. I think this year i did 8 weeks including shows in April. then I show 3-6 times all summer long. Haven’t done indoors in a while so I usually have downtime Sept-Dec. This is prob not ideal for when I get to Florida, but it’s so hard to be “on the road.”
I would hate to show that much. I can’t imagine how my horses would feel. I know 2x a month is a thing, but usually with some larger gaps/rest built in. I mean, how do you even have time for doing their maintenance and working them back up. I also have several horses with different conditioning needs, so i can’t be away that much with the show horses because the ones at home don’t do anything.
I would go the $500 + a la carte route or find another barn that is more aligned in terms of frequency of shows. I realize finding another pro isn’t always easy. Especially if you have a good rapport with the current one.
It is a shame this has changed how you feel, but I’m sure this is how this person makes a reasonable enough living (by their measure). I would hope he/she/they would be understanding if you did need to make a change. would they possibly even recommend someone?
Two shows a month is a lot year-round. We did four weeks of Thermal, with two weeks back-to-back. Then a week of Paso in April and one at Temecula in May. Now on a break and gearing up for two weeks at the beginning of August.
I’m retired so being gone isn’t a work problem, but I like my community and house and spending time with the horses at home, and wouldn’t want to be away half the time. Though, I assume that people who show that much are probably not at the show the entire week.
I may have actually made a comment that went something like…So when does this account for vacation time or anything outside of horses? Which was met by… “Oh, don’t worry, I can take horse to show for you and you can go away and enjoy”. #notthepoint
I agree that it’s getting wildly expense and it’s taking a toll on both me and horse. I’m trying to balance out a career and a family, as well as carving out weekends and time to pack everyone up to go to away shows. Adds a lot to the plate to try to finagle schedules and book hotels and map out meetings and work obligations around travel requirements that are anywhere between 3-7 hours depends on away show locations.
As I said, I love the program and professional, but I’m growing tired of the constant pressure to constantly show. It starts to just drain on you financially and psychologically. I’m fortunate to be a decent position where it’s not going to cripple us to continue, but it’s also started to make me uncomfortable to be forking out $8-10k per month when I feel like I’m starting to notice some cracks in the foundation and have lately needed to helicopter parent the horse in order to ensure that things go right for show, which IMO, at those rates, should be things that just happen and never be a concern or a mishap.
Honestly, the more I’m typing, and the more I’m reading responses, the more I know the answer…
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