06/21/2025
This is VERY true
Are most horse professionals and farm owners really philanthropists and not making any money?
Well, what started like a casual conversation at the dinner table with my non horsey hubby has turned into a mind boggling realization.
Apparently 72% of our business owners in the horse industry are unpaid volunteers!
No no this is not a typo or a mistake, most people who own a horse business or a horse farm do not pay themselves.
And yes I did verify this theory and started to ask people around me who have very active “successful business” including showing at top venues and having trucks, trailers, farms and imports. And to the question : do you pay yourself a salary, their answer was : “no, do you?”.
So yes I do pay myself a salary, because I work 7 days a week in a tough tough tough industry and while I’m still the little 9YO girl who thought horses are magical, I refuse to work for free.
Everybody gets paid around me, my employees, my farrier, my vet, my maintenance guy, the magnawave lady, the braider, the show organizers … so why should I be the one giving up my time and life and not get paid?
Well apparently, I’m not the norm. And when I say I get paid, I don’t mean that I pay myself to make a truck payment, to enter a show or to pay for the farm mortgage.
I mean that I pay myself a sum of money that I can use for things that are not in any way shape of form related to horses (vacations, investments, kids, retirement,..).
So where is all the money going? Because the clients certainly feel that horse professionals are making a s…load of money. After all, board, show fees, horse prices are at an all time high.
How sustainable is this if the entire industry relies on volunteers? Considering that the initial investment to even start a horse business is astronomical, how do we expect the new generation to even make it?
Does this trend mean that the future of our industry lays in the hands of generationally wealthy young professionals that can get the funding to survive as philanthropists? Or that nepotism will be the only other way in besides trust funds?
What should I say to young talented professionals who asked me to mentor them: yes kiddo, you should work 7 days/.week 14 hour days and do it for free, because horses are great.
And in case you were wondering, while both my daughters are horse lovers and will have horses in their lives forever, neither of them have expressed any interest to take over Equisale. My older daughter said, “ Mom, I want a very good paying job, where I can afford nice horses and still have a life”, you are right kiddo, you are right…
BTW the picture that shows this poll was posted as a story that got over 7,000 views and over 1,500 people answered. So at the next show you go to, if there are 100 trainers that owns their business, 72 of them are watching an amateur chip the single oxer up the diagonal for free. Let that sink in. (And yes that darn single oxer… everytime)
