Well, I’ve “herd” some folks are at least schooling for Traditional Reined Cow Horse events…
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Ooh, I saw that thread, too! I was following with interest. Seems like the consensus was $50,000 for the whole 12 week circuit with a BNT. And that was not showing all 12 weeks, because the horses would all go lame. That was with some weeks not showing (the horse goes “home” to the farm that the BNT has rented in Florida).
It does put horse prices into perspective. If there are plenty of people who can pay $50K to attend a show, then buying a horse for six figures is no biggie at all.
ETA: I am not one of those people. I nearly vomited on my keyboard.
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This is a great post, @McGurk.
I would like to add, I took my SHOW hunter foxhunting. With prior owners, he had showed at WEF, Hampton Classic, WEC, all local Eq Finals, etc.
He took to Foxhunting like a duck to water, and it was really nice to ride something so educated, that could extend or shorten his stride as needed, could see a distance, could move laterally away from objects, had wonderful manners in company. We had a blast, and it did him a world of good.
I see no reason why people feel the need to sh*t on either discipline. There were many benefits on riding an educated horse in the hunt field, just as there were many benefits to bring a horse that had only ever been ridden in the ring out to experience new things. He gained newfound confidence, where before he had been a bit of an anxious chicken. By the end of the hunt season, he was actually taking me TO the jumps in the ring.
Also, we seem to have strayed pretty far from the OP’s original topic.
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These suggestions are not very realistic for the OP and I certainly don’t recommend moving a disabled parent to accommodate someone’s riding hobby. When you say “find where you can afford land” are you actually suggesting the OP buy land, build a barn and keep her horse at home? Aside from the additional expense of buying land and buiding a barn and the time involved in caring for horses at home, there are career considerations to take into account. Living further away from the job which helps finance her horsey habit is just one more added stress to her schedule. OP already has what appears to be a demanding job plus a second job, her free time for riding is limited already. Finding an instructor to come to a backyard barn is not necessarily easy either, that involves travel time on the part of the trainer, so additional cost for lessons, if OP can even find one that will travel. Maybe these suggestions would work in Australia but for many parts of the US they just won’t work.
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Thank you, I thought the ignore feature was discarded when the new format was adopted. So glad to see we still have it. 
Well, technically there are no foxes in fox hunting, just as there is no real hunting in field hunting. Hunting live animals is generally banned as it’s not kind to the animals. All the hounds are doing is tracking a scent. Shall we call is scent tracking?
It’s really just an beloved tradition named for the activities of days gone by. Much like eventing is no longer a test of military horses’ ability to traverse the countryside and engage in battle. Much like dressage maneuvers aren’t used for defense.
But for some reason it’s only wrong for hunters to have evolved on this thread. But hatred of hunters is a common theme on here, and mocking those who enjoy the division is a daily sport for some.
Again, failure to evolve results in extinction. I’d much rather see these sports evolve than disappear.
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People agisted at our property. We could have 20 horses. It was self care. They had to feed twice a day and clean the yards. They could take the manure or put it on our manure heap. If they put it on our manure heap it was ours. I would bag it and sell it at the front gate or they could come with a trailer and take a load.
Each horse was separated in a yard or paddock. All had shelters. By putting your horse in you agreed the fence was adequate and it was your responsibility to keep it that way.
There was a feed and tack shed for you to keep in your space on an honour system. There was a jumping paddock and a 20m x 60m dressage arena. We were within riding distance to the local Ponyclub who had a cross country course and in he other direction, the Daisy Hill State Forest.
For an extra fee we would feed and rug, etc.
Why do people call it eventing when it’s happening virtually every weekend and half the time there are no spectators? And it starts at the tadpole level. And is sometimes over in a day. With no pomp and circumstance. That’s not much of an “event.”
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These are SUPER interesting statistics to consider as to why , to the original question of this thread, showing on the rated circuit with a six figure income doesn’t feel like enough. Nearly $200k of investment income on average for members means those members have to have extra money to INVEST - not in retirement but in true stocks and investment accounts, and able to make income/dividends that alone could support a rated show budget for a year plus some.
And a quarter have a second home?!
That is a truly eye opening stat!
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It does explain how much the stock market’s ups and downs can affect horse prices and showing. Some of the statistics were interesting–four horses on average, 40% farm ownership, 66% with a college degree. Given the wide varieties of backgrounds in the data pool, makes you wonder how much the top and bottom skew things.
I’d love to see an anonymous member profile of say, one person selected from the top, middle, and bottom tiers income-wise.
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Bottom likely isn’t even a USEF member if they only show unrated.
WHY is there no laugh-react on these boards?!?!?
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If we are talking about the same Facebook thread on the costs of winter circuits, one poster said it was her daughter’s last junior year and she would be spending over $200k by the time the circuit was over.
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I tend to think Oscar Wilde’s quip about “the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible” applies equally to riders of all types, whether we’re chasing foxes or ribbons.
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Well that manages to be uncharitable to everyone on the thread, especially those of us that like to chase both foxes and ribbons.
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I saw that thread, too. And I saw that particular response. For some reason, it rubbed me so wrong. It was said so flippantly. I know I’m just jealous, but still…doesn’t it feel a bit boastful?
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Oh no! 
@CBoylen, I didn’t mean to sound uncharitable! I simply meant that I find these Sharks-vs-Jets fights about disciplines to be funny, because at the end of the day, we’re all crazy people doing equally crazy, largely unnecessary stuff with our ponies. (Obligatory disclaimer: Not intended to slight COTHers who are using their horses to deliver medicine in remote areas, clear and plow family farms, repel tigers with their attack-trained killer minis, etc.)
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I did not realize until this moment how badly I needed an attack-trained killer mini.
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The tone was so casual which was part of what I found interesting… I was like, oh, this person and I live in completely different realities. My college education cost what they are spending at a horse show this winter! I am very privileged and my parents paid for it, but they saved and invested for 20 years to make that happen. Compared to the average American I am so, so well-off and lucky, and there is a still an almost unfathomable gap between me and the type of person who can afford to have a horse or two at WEF for the winter.
There is SO much money at the top of the sport and that really does affects us all… there’s a trickle down effect making everything expensive because someone out there is willing to pay bonkers money for a show circuit or a horse or a custom coat or a saddle. I heard a great podcast with Hope Glynn where she basically said the billionaires are pricing the rest of us out of the sport. As a buyer for a tack shop, I saw it all the time in tack and apparel lines. There is no breech on earth with manufacturing costs that justify a $400+ price tag. But lots of horse people will happily pay that, which means more breeches at that price point are produced, and the reasonably priced lines see that consumers are open to higher price points and raise THEIR prices, and on and on.
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