[QUOTE=ponymom88;5917152]
If she was going to college I would apply for financial aid. Has anyone ever heard of anything for equestrians? Any suggestions/ideas are very greatly appreciated.[/QUOTE]
Which is why I’m not a professional horse trainer but a fabulously-educated citizen and a kinda happy white collar worker.
I read your post to mean that DD already knows a lot and rides well. She’s getting to the place where she needs a better athlete under her to get any farther in an obvious and public way. E. g. the child needs some kind of 3’6" hunter or eq horse. I’ll assume that you don’t need to own The Winner or The Easy Ride. But you do need the sorta-sound, maybe-a-tough-ride animal that can at least get into this ring where kiddo has a shot of being seen as the “better half” of this partnership.
If you want this, I believe you must have connections and some money in order to stay around the trainers and shows that seem important enough to you. It might get a little cheaper than what you are doing now, but it won’t (usually) become free for the kid and her family. With either opportunity, the rest is up to her to keep and grow.
If DD can manage to separate out the “I want this to be my career” from “I want to spend my life training horses,” there is a lot she can do now to make herself happy without necessarily giving up on the career goal.
Most of all, she can branch out. She should sit on anything she is offered. She should go work for a dressage trainer. IMO, great, dressage-based flatwork separates the men from the boys when it comes to legitimate horse trainers who can make enough of a living to stay in the game for a long time. If she gets the chance to learn from the guy who starts colts, makes cutters or reiners, she should do it. If she can teach some beginners, that’s good, too. Learning about conditioning from an eventer will serve her well… hanging out and asking questions at vet and farrier appointments is not wasted time… you get the idea.
That will give her the depth of experience she needs to bring as a pro. Riding all those horses and working for all those people in various disciplines will enlarge her tool box exponentially.
By the way, doing well in school and enjoying that should still be her “day job” until she finishes high school, if not a bachelor’s degree of some kind. IMO, you are doing her a disservice if you don’t make clear. To invest in your kid’s career dream to the point that you rhetorically poo-poo the basic education just about every professional is expected to have is closing off an avenue that’s difficult and expensive to re-open.
The best part is that if she always means to prepare herself to be a pro, she can still ride and train like one for the rest of her life. I got this from my junior career. I can choose and make up my own with minimal help. I know how to hire and fire the right pros for the horse. I ride better than some pros and I train better than even a larger set of them. Professionals like to ride the horses I have made or prepared for them. I have good relationships with horse people-- trainers, vets, farriers, BMs and such because I walk in with a lot of experience and an understanding of what they do.
She’ll do all right, even without the money. She just needs to put in time and a professional attitude to finding and using the opportunities that she can… even if you guys don’t know what those are yet.
Yup. Big business. Big. Cattle breeders make horse breeders look like impoverished backyard hicks. It’s really impressive.
Basically my point is that an animal science degree is NOT a death sentence for employment, as evidenced by Emily, the post that I’m quoting, my vet school class, and I’m sure numerous other examples!