Whether the ailment can, or should, form the basis of a career with horses is another matter, one that particularly has to do with money. Unless you have a good bit of it, or are willing to work long and hard for very little of it, you may be better off riding horses than raising them or otherwise involving yourself with them financially.
Yet for the apt and dedicated victim of horse fever, there are many career opportunities. Keep in mind (as we mentioned with dog careers) that success may well depend on having a variety of talents. Your chances for eventual financial success are better if you generalize rather than specialize. This rule can, of course, be broken by the truly skilled specialist. But please keep the concept of combining your talents in mind as you read about these separate horse careers.
HORSE BREEDER
It is appropriate to begin equine careers with the one specialty that makes all the others possible. Although fossils from millions of years ago show that America once had horses, there were none when Columbus arrived. The Spanish explorers DeSoto and Coronado brought the first horses to this country. The wild horses of the American West are believed to have descended from them or from those brought to our shores by 17th Century Spanish missionaries. The Colonists brought horses, too, and it was then that breeding became a career. Today's horse breeder is a "descendant" of sorts from-among other famous Americans- George Washington.
Horse breeding generally calls for more formal education and money than most other equine careers. The breeder needs to know the nature and characteristics of the horses being bred-and there are many distinct breeds within the classifications of pony, light horse, and draft horse. The breeder must have a working knowledge of: nutritious feeding practices; selection of stallions and mares for breeding (genetics); safe foaling (birthing); healthy stabling conditions; horse exercise needs; equine diseases and first aid; safe horse transportation; good record-keeping and sound business practices; and marketing knowledge-where and how to advertise, proper pricing, good salesmanship.
These are the things that protect the breeder's profit. Considering the hefty investment needed in horses, pastureland, buildings, feeds, employees, vans, and veterinary fees, making a profit calls for careful attention to every detail.
For every famous racing stable with its outstanding winners, there are scores of others that do not make a profit, so chancy is Thoroughbred racing. Many successful horse breeders prefer to pass up the high-rolling in favor of breeding sound, saleable ponies and light (pleasure) horses which are honestly represented and sold at fair prices. Understandably, many horse breeders not only breed and raise horses for sale, but offer the other services such as boarding and riding instruction covered in this chapter, to make their considerable investment pay on a daily basis.
How does the horse breeder learn to evaluate mares and stallions as producers of quality foals? Experience as a horse farm employee is the best way for you to start, but formal education in high school and beyond, at a land grant or agricultural college, is recommended. But many multi-curriculum colleges also offer the courses you will need. High school and college courses should include animal husbandry, animal science, biology, business management, economics, farm management, genetics, and the basics of animal health and veterinary medicine.
From a start in agricultural or vo-tech high school and membership in a 4-H Club or Future Farmers of America chapter, you could work on a horse farm during summers and between semesters at college. Considering the relatively low pay, it may take time to save enough to buy your first mare to breed or stallion to place at stud, but that should be your goal.
With all the variables of expense versus income, it is hard to say what a horse breeder can earn from her or his entrepreneurial business ... but the better the breeding involved, the higher the price of the product. The hours of outdoor work are long, the challenges are considerable. They are offset by having the breeding farm as your country home, and by the daily joy of living, working with, and developing your own horses.
STABLE OWNER AND RIDING INSTRUCTOR
Kate Goldenberg, a Bedminster, Pennsylvania, riding instructor and stable owner, feels that most self-owned animal businesses are expensive propositions. "In my work, fencing, grain, safety features on stalls-all these cost money. And if you don't have quality, people won't board with you. They have to trust you to care for their animals."
As riding instructor, trainer, breeder, and horse farm manager with her husband Kenny, Kate Goldenberg is aware of this faith placed in her. For her, animal care is a full-time job that cuts no corners. Make that a 24-hour job-mares have a tendency to foal at night!
Kate also sees her field in terms of intrinsic rewards. "There may be a satisfaction in getting rich," she says, "but if you look out over your beautiful farm and animals and don't have a pennyin your pocket, you are rich." Like many professionals, Kate cautions: "Don't confuse affection for horses with an aptitude for working with them. Do stable work, either as a volunteer or for a little pay, to make sure you're up to the demands that animals make-they can be confining."
Like most people who operate riding facilities for profit, Kate Goldenberg offers a variety of services, from boarding others' horses to giving lessons and leading trail rides with her own animals-even staging horse shows on her farm. Kate is of the school, that teaches do it right or not at all. A damp, drafty stable, an over-age horse van, and inadequate cleaning, feeding, exercise and grooming will cost more in equine ill-health and other problems than such short-cutting will save.
Volunteering is the best way to get your feet muddy (if not wet) in the horse world. Working with an experienced stable operator, you'll learn how to ride for pleasure and for show; how to groom, saddle, and feed horses; how to treat simple ailments that do not need a veterinarian's attention-and how to recognize troubles that do. As a start, you may muck out the horses' stalls, that never-ending job that gave Hercules fits at the Augean stables! But mucking, like every other chore, goes with the territory.
One very worthwhile task for the volunteer and the dedicated stable owner is giving riding lessons to the handicapped, also called therapeutic riding. Although the idea is relatively new, it is growing in popularity. Most participating organizations are members of NARHA, the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association. NARHA supervises therapeutic riding pro-grams to see that their safety standards and teaching methods are followed. Only gentle, specially schooled horses and ponies are used, and instruction is given by highly qualified professionals. Therapeutic riding helps physically handicapped, mentally retarded, learning-disabled, and emotionally disturbed children and adults adjust to and improve their handicapping conditions. It improves coordination, posture, balance, strength, and muscle tone. It also fosters feelings of self-worth, self-confidence, and accomplishment.
Where would you fit into such a program? Probably as a volunteer walker who would move alongside the horse or pony, helping the handicapped rider stay balanced, comfortable, at ease, and in control. You could do this independently with a participating stable, or-more usually-as a member of a Scout or 4-H group.
As part of your learning experience as a stable hand, you could perform similar duties with a riding instructor as he or she conducts beginners' lessons for regular students. It's a good beginning in learning to become a full-fledged riding instructor.
A riding instructor must be able to do two things well: to ride proficiently, and to convey that skill to others. The first attribute is self-evident; only the person capable of managing any horse in any situation from trail riding to show jumping with the confidence built through experience can do a proper job of teaching.
Communicating your skills calls for the ability to recognize and correct their lack in your students. Almost anyone can hang on to a horse. But achieving a proper seat and maintaining control through the use of hand and leg "aids" that a horse knows and will respond to are skills that must be taught. When beginning riders are instinctively good, the instructor must be able to recognize these skills and teach the rider how to improve on them.
With most beginners, the instructor must be able to correct a host of mistakes and improve the student's performance by word and by example. With some students, this requires almost infinite patience.
The self-employed riding instructor charges from $15 to $40 for a riding lesson, depending on the number of students (the private lesson is more expensive) and the nature of the lesson. (For dressage or advanced jumping, the price may be as fancy as the hoofwork.)
HORSE TRAINER
Although there are certain procedures common to all forms of horse training, there are as many variations as there are needs for horses (cowponies are trained with different techniques than jumpers, for instance).
Among the traits shared by horse trainers are excellent health, an understanding of horse psychology and health, patience, gentleness, and the willingness to work long hours for relatively little pay.
The sooner a trainer can work with a colt, the better. It's not unusual for a trainer to work for short periods with a foal, building a relationship through petting, soothing words, and gentle handling. The growing animal is taught in successive stages over a year or longer to accept a halter and be led on a short line without fear. The line is gradually lengthened and the colt is taught to start and stop on command, to go through its gaits (walk, trot, canter, perhaps pace, single-foot or run, depending on breed and training). It is taught to stand still for grooming and to accept the confines of stable-yard, barn, and ring. Later, it learns to accept bit, bridle, saddle, and harness cart, not always in this order. Eventually comes riding, sometimes by the familiar trainer, often by a co-trainer or assistant who rides while the trainer directs the proceedings, with and later without the long line. With consistency and kindness, the rider-trainer schools the young horse in the meaning of commands given by reins, knees, and heels. These aids are used to teach the horse when to change gait, to slow, turn and stop, so that the response will be the same no matter who is riding.
Training uses the punishment-reward system, not with treats but with gentle words, pats and relaxation in the saddle for a good performance; more stern speech, leg, and rein pressure to say in essence, "Not so good-let's try that again." Stronger punishment is used sparingly and with great discretion.
That's basic training. Horses can be trained more specifically, depending on breed and purpose, and many trainers specialize. A hunter or show horse is taught to jump. A cowpony learns to change gait, stop, and turn instantly and accurately, and to react to the pull of the roped steer. A harness racer is taught to trot or pace at speed. Dressage and circus horses are patiently trained for their special work.
Horse trainers, specialized or not, learn their art by doing- usually starting as apprentices to established trainers. On a dude ranch or at a riding academy, you may begin as a groom and advance to trail ride leader and riding instructor. At racing stables and tracks, dedicated youngsters often begin as grooms, exercise riders, and hotwalkers who walk horses to exercise them and to cool them down after races or practice runs. This work develops the students' own riding talents.
Training, like instructing, is not known for its high pay. The "plus" side for you may be the chance to learn on the job, to work largely outdoors, to work seasonally or full-time, and-with luck and talent-to make a living based largely on your own increasing abilities rather than on formal education beyond high school-although this can often be extremely helpful.
The big money-makers among horse trainers are those able to recognize and develop equine and human talent for showmanship and particularly for racing. The race horse trainer rarely owns the horses he or she trains, but trains them for the owners of stud farms and racing stables. The trainer's skills extend to selecting the best of the horses in his or her charge for specific events, and picking the right rider as well. In the case of show horses, the rider may be the owner, and the trainer may work with rider and mount as a team.
The more experienced race horse trainers are often paid a percentage of their horses' winnings-usually 10 percent-and this may result in a very substantial income if you're dealing with big winners. More down-to-earth is the $600 a month a novice trainer may earn-a comfortable but not highly impressive figure when translated into annual income.
LOOKING FOR EXCITEMENT? TRY LIFE ON A DUDE RANCH
Certainly nothing can better prepare a young man or woman for a life with that mysterious creature, the horse, than a season or two at a dude ranch. We're talking rugged here-but there's plenty of fun to be had during a summer spent outdoors, devoted to managing horses for ranch vacationers to ride. When you finish a season in one of these popular but highly athletic hostelries, there will be little you don't know about caring for a horse-or cleaning a stable!
Let's take a specific ranch, the Triangle X Dude Ranch in Moose, Wyoming (307-733-2183). This ranch may hire a young person for just one summer or for season after season. High school juniors and seniors and college students are those usually hired. They tend to return because they've learned the ropes (literally!) and they really enjoy the duties. (Hint: Apply early for summer work.)
You need not be a suburban or rural student to land a Triangle X job. Many wranglers and horse and mule pack guides come from eastern cities or midwestern towns.
The Triangle X Dude Ranch consists of 1,500 acres for the dude ranch and 800 more for the horse ranch. The young ranch hands take care of more than 300 horses and mules used for riding and pack trips. Young women and men work together to ready these creatures for their duties. Female high school and college students will first perform simple equine chores, building toward the more intricate, physically demanding tasks of dealing with horses. Once they've mastered these skills, they become wranglers.
Wranglers corral the ranch horses, let them loose at night to graze on ranch lands, then feed and saddle them. On local rides-slow, intermediate, or at a gallop-two wranglers go along for the safety of the "dude" and the horse.
All wranglers and pack-trippers must learn first aid. They are also encouraged to know how to shoe a horse. Thus, life on the dude ranch caters to the two-legged and the four-legged creatures. But when the work is done come evening, the young workers will sing or play guitars under a star-filled sky. It's the real thing-not a "horse opera" (slang for a western movie).
Young women seem to enjoy the wrangling jobs more than men and often have an empathy with horses that many macho male cowboys lack. In fact, a young woman is currently the head wrangler at the Triangle X.
Female ranch workers are less likely than young men to go on the pack trips planned for ranch customers because tracking through the local terrain or to nearby Yellowstone National Park is tremendously strenuous. However, any totally qualified young woman is welcome.
Most dude ranch workers will put in one, two, or three summers. By then, they are ready to go into horse training, breeding, and racing if these are their animal care career goals. What more memorable way could there possibly be to start an equine career than on a dude ranch?
PROFESSIONAL RIDERS
Anyone who primarily earns a living by riding horses is technically a professional rider. But the term also applies to Grand Prix horse show contestants, and is usually reserved for harness racing drivers and flat racing jockeys. They are professionals inasmuch as they are paid in proportion to their skills and victories versus defeats, just as other professional athletes are. Being a Grand Prix rider, harness driver, or jockey generally isn't something a "horse person" starts off being; rather, it is something they eventually may become after months or years of long hours spent in hard, time-consuming work with horses.
Talent and luck have a lot to do with whether or not you as an exerciser or apprentice trainer ever get a shot at professional riding. Size and weight aren't all-important in Grand Prix, competitive dressage, circus work, or even in harness racing, but to the would-be Thoroughbred jockey, less is more. A normal weight without constant dieting of 105 to 112 pounds is essential; the less weight a race horse carries, the better.
Alison Kramer of New Jersey is 22 years old. She fell in love with horses at age 11 when she learned to ride at an equestrian school. After graduating from high school, Alison worked with show horses and later had a job training yearlings.
Later, Alison has worked as an exerciser at race tracks in New Jersey, New York, and Florida, "but I always wanted to be a jockey," she says.
Finally, in May, 1983, trainer Henry Carroll let her race "Quick Hitch" at Monmouth (NJ) Race Course. Although she finished sixth in a ten-horse race, "it was a great experience."
For every Steve Cauthen-the first jockey to earn $6,000,000 for riding 488 winners in one year-there are hundreds who work under contract to racing stable owners for a salary-plus-bonus for wins, or who freelance, picking up "rides" at the request of trainers who match them with suitable horses. Travel expenses and costly riding gear are usually the jockey's responsibility, and their costs can cut severely into earnings-jockeys must travel to race "meetings" throughout the country. High incomes are not unusual for jockeys with good reputations-but not celebrity status. Racing is held only when, and where, it is warm but not hot. In this seasonal work, there may be several "dry" months a year-and jockeying is definitely an early-retirement career. Retired jockeys often work in other areas of racing. One English steeplechaser, Dick Francis, has become a highly successful mystery novel writer!
OTHER TRACK CAREERS AND BLACKSMITHING
There are careers on race tracks for experienced people who work with horses but don't necessarily ride them. During a meeting, race tracks will employ racing secretaries, stewards, judges, veterinarians, specialists who tattoo horses' lips to identify them, and identifiers who verify the horses' identities against their tattoos and their registration papers before they can race.
Then, there is the blacksmith, often called a smith, farrier, or horse shoer. Only the most skilled may be licensed to work at race tracks, but whether at the track or the horse farm, the job is equally demanding.
We'll bet there's at least one blacksmith whose truck reads "We Make Horse Calls," for indeed they do. The "village smithy" no longer stands "under the spreading chestnut tree" but rolls instead, from stud farm to race track to riding academy. Although there are some women farriers, Longfellow's poetic line, "The smith a mighty man is he" generally holds true, for horse shoeing calls for a strong back, legs, and arms. It's work that should be started early in life, according to professionals.
There is a difference, though. Today's blacksmith is more equine podiatrist than ironworker. In fact, with most race horses, the shoe of choice is lightweight aluminum. In many cases, the inbreeding that has been used to develop race horses with great speed may also have created the hoof problems which the blacksmith must recognize and correct. This is done by tailoring the fit of the shoe. Although the farrier's experience helps determine the correction that must be made, the desired result is often a matter of trying and trying again until the race horse's speed, gait, and comfort are right.
The blacksmith's day starts early-especially at race tracks. Each previous day's thrown shoes or other problems must be solved before the horses' morning workouts. The rest of the day at the races is taken up with routine shoe changes and consulting with trainers and jockeys on problems that arise.
Race track work usually involves testing and licensing, but whether or not a farrier works at the track, he or she may take smithing courses in vo-tech high school as career preparation, and definitely should serve an apprenticeship with a skilled smith. A blacksmith must, of course, be able to handle horses, often when they are not on their best behavior. Need for tailoring and special shoes extends to show and pleasure horses, too.
In addition to a sturdy pickup truck, 4 x 4 or van, today's blacksmith needs to invest in the equipment of the craft: powered grinder, drill press, forge, anvil, gas torches, and finishing tools (knives, rasps, etc.). This is at least a several-thousand-dollar investment.
An experienced blacksmith may be able to shoe from 5 to 10 horses a day, depending on the travel involved. The money is such that a capable blacksmith with a following can be assured of a good living plus a fair degree of independence.
EDUCATION
The education in high school and beyond described in the horse breeder profile would be excellent training for most horse careers, as a supplement to learning-by-doing. There are a small but growing number of colleges and junior colleges that offer courses related to horsemanship. Some schools of equitation offer certificates of proficiency.
Harcum Junior College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania is close to the world-famous Devon Horse Show grounds; Chesterland, the site of national horse trials; and the Radnor Hunt Club. Over the past ten years, Harcum has established itself in the field of animal health care by offering majors in many animal care areas. The school has recently added an Associate Degree program in Equine Studies. Among the electives: equine breeding; therapeutic riding; equine business management; teaching of equitation. To prepare for these careers, students at Harcum take courses in animal biology, equine health and disease, lameness, equitation theory, equitation instruction, organization of events, stable management, and equine business management.
The Harcum program has equivalent programs in other parts of the country. School counselors, librarians, and veterinary technical schools should be able to direct you to this field that offers everything: the bountiful outdoors, mental and physical challenges, and the constant company of one of nature's most beautiful creatures, the horse.
