Being a groom

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111ex111

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Im thinking of getting a part time or full time job as a groom and then maybe studying for my BHS stages.
is anyone a groom at the moment or has experience working as one? whats is it like, did you enjoy it or hate it?
would just like to hear peoples opinions/experiences etc to give me a bit more of an insight!
 
I'm a groom and have been since leaving school :D I love it I get to play with ponies all day and get paid for it :D
I've worked on many diffrent types of yard. All were fun yet challanging in there own ways. Don't get me wrong it's bloomin hard work. Long hours and often little thanks. SOME (some not all) employers treat you like dirt and expect the impossable for very little money :mad: I have a good few tails that would put you off being a groom, but then again I have worked in some lovely places.
I am now working freelance which I love. I'm my own boss and can choose who I work for and when. I have a lovely bunch of regular clients who all apreciate what I do for them and have lovely horses for me to look after and ride :D
Working with horses doesn't pay alot and as I said is bloomin hard work. It's very diffrent from owning your own.
What sort of yard are you thinking of working on?
 
I once worked as a groom on a yard in italy, arrived to a very shabby, fly filled caravan and a yard owner that had absolutely no idea of how to handle a horse! she didnt believe in head collars and lead ropes and would just open the stable door and literally stand there waving her arms shouting 'shoo! shoo!' to get them to the fields... most often they wud stroll straight for the hay pile and start munching and one day she was doin her usual shoo trick and her horse belted her straight in the stomach...i laughed...a lot.

So anyway afyer 2weeks of nazi horse camp me and my fella packed our bags and did a midnight dash humming the great escape theme tune through the mountains to the nearest town. It makes for a great story bt i wudnt do it agan! lol

so all in all, be careful where you decide to work...and the moneys pants :) x
 
Yep ive got my stages, grooms diploma and stable managers, also have my level 2 sports coaching. I got them over the years to educate myself and occassionally help out mates, i havent worked professionally as a groom as i also have a very good career in another field which pays much better than grooming, allows me to work 2 days a week and keep 3 horses, i could never do that on a grooms wage.
Sadly most of the grooms i know are paid a pittance for working dawn till dusk doing very hard work for little reward, many cant afford a horse of their own.
I do think their are other rewards in working as a groom though, working with good horsemen/women ( if youre lucky) learning about, and working with many different types of horses, and if youre very lucky, good riding lessons being trained and guided by someone happy to help you be all you can be in your chosen field, but be under no illusion, its hard work and a demanding job.
Good luck if you choose to pursue it :)
 
If you like your social life, fancy having a mortgage one day or a half decent car, or want to be able to walk into tesco after work without being glared at and walked away from, and you want to have time to enjoy your own horses... then being a groom is not for you.

I did it, I hated it, and now appreciate my 'proper' job with decent money, and plenty time to enjoy horses.
 
It's hard to find a proper job. Lots are the illegal jobs where you have no rights and the employer can treat you like dirt then fire you if you complain. You could work freelance (self employed) but then you have no secure wages and people will still want you to work for peanuts. I believe there are reasons why its mostly young women who are grooms.

1) due to the working conditions and the nature of horses, many end up injured, some permanently. By the age of 25 to 30 most have had enough or are no longer able to do the work.
2) its not a well paid industry, you'll be lucky to find a job paying minimum wage. Unless you want to live with your parents forever its generally not viable.
3) with the decent jobs many are live in, often in shared accommodation or grim conditions, neither of which is suitable when you want to settle down with someone and start a family.

It's not an industry I'd recommend anyone get into unless they were naturally physically strong and assertive enough to insist on proper pay and conditions. I enjoyed my time as a groom in a proper job but wouldn't have wanted to still be doing it ten years later and I would never have done it as an illegal job with ridiculous pay and conditions that put my health/life at risk on a regular basis as many of them do. My job was reasonable, but extremely hard work for the wages. My boss was fair and treated me with kindness and respect. Many grooms are not so lucky and are little more than slave labour.
 
rachaelstar- Im 17 and have left school so dont have a job at the moment

I havent got my own horse, I share so not having my own in the future will not bother me, even though its my dream to have my own! Obviously I dont want to be a groom for my whole life, I am quite interested in being a vet receptionist or receptionist for a charity (most people laugh when I tell them that but I would love to be a receptionist/admin!!!)

would you reccomend it for a part time job for a 17 year old who has nothing else to do? :rolleyes:
I obviously know how to do yard jobs but wouldn't say im very experienced, I was looking at a groom on a livery yard, defo not a competition yard I think I would be way out of my depth!!
 
I did it as a part time job when I was a bit older than you and it actually helped me to get my first mortgage! I was working full time but my grooming job was also "on the books" and being able to prove the extra income allowed me to get enough mortgage for my first house.
However, I was very lucky and worked for a great yard where I learned loads and was treated very well. I would recommend the part-time idea as you get the experience and enjoyment without losing the ability to earn a living but choose your employers carefully!
 
I groomed part time whilst i was at school and college. I then went full time after college.
I posted on another thread about what my typical day as Head Girl on a busy commercial stud was like. Just to give you an idea of what its like at the higher end of the scale.

When I worked with horses the hours were long and the work was hard. A typical day for me as head girl of a big stud would be:
On the yard for 8am, feed, haylage and turn out the first few stallions.
Organise other staff and make sure they were doing the same for the other horses on the yard.
Muck out ten full beds
Sweep yard and fill nets
In winter, muck out youngsters pens, in summer get mares through the stocks for scanning
Swap stallions on the horse walker/in field
Fifteen/thirty min break depending on how quickly we'd got done
Organise staff, allocate jobs, swap stallions in fields.
Collect semen required for mares on site aswell as those to send, process for fresh ai and chilled. Make sure staff has the right mare in the stocks for insem.
Work horses, either by lunging, long reining, hacking.
45 mins lunch
Tack up horses for YO to school, allocate staff member to do jumps for YO
Work on the horses in for breaking
Check all fields with horses in
Swap stallions in fields/walker
Answer phonecalls, take visiting mare arrivals, deal with college and uni students, keep tabs on staff, inject mares with oxytocin at hourly intervals, keep the liveries happy....
5 mins break
Bed down 10 stallions, make sure staff are on time bedding down the rest of the yard
Haylage and feed
Sweep yard
Check all yards and lock everything up
Finish somewhere between 5:30 and 7
Do my horses
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Back out at 9 to check all horses are rugged accordingly and everyones happy.

Then during the stud season foal watch shifts throughout the night involving organising the shifts, assisting foaling, staying up if there were any complications... Then back out on the yard for 8 the following morning.
I loved my job. The work was hard, the hours were hard, my boss was vile, and the pay was crap. But I loved it.
I now work in a sheltered house for the elderly which is my first non horsey job from being 15, im now 22. The job is easy and the pay is good, but I miss working on a yard and I'd trade it all to do it again.
 
If you want to be a receptionist/admin, then yes I would start looking at grooms jobs on livery yards and at riding schools. Ask if you can help with the admin side of things and then go from there :)

I would also recommend getting your name on the books of some temping agencies for admin work, see if you can shadow an older friend/your parents friend for a day at work to get some experience :)
 
i've got work experience in a vets in October and im going to ask them if I can focus more on the admin side, but I dont know if being a groom would be the right job for me at the moment :/ I defo do not want to work at a riding school, have very bad experiences with them!!! really do not know what to do!...
 
Yes, been a working pupil & groom, did all the stages etc. It's hard work, both physically & mentally, not a job for anyone who is easily offended or lacking confidence. It is very badly paid with long unsocial hours. But extremely rewarding if its a good (by grooms standards) job. And although not a novice when I started, the quality of training, skill, & experience I got is worth a fortune in its own rights. With hindsight, still very glad of that period in my life. I stopped because being a single mum with a newborn it just wasn't compatible. And even now, I need my better paid job. But still something I loved, & when my daughters older I would happily let her do the same. But as a long term career, its rarely sustainable.
 
I worked as a groom part-time then I was your age.
I loved it, but it was very physically hard work.
I worked on a livery yard (I would recommend this for you) and my boss was brilliant which is what made it so good, I had another job on a livery yard and the boss was awful therefore I hated it!
A quick run through of my day... (Always with one other groom) 7.30 start; feed horses; turn out half each; muck out about 10 stables must be thoroughly clean and neatly presented; make feeds and fill haynets; poo pick selected fields for that day; maybe ride one (hack or school); lunch break for an hour (more if time allowed); finish any poo picking or ride another; do any odd jobs; start bringing in about 4; all in feet picked out groom those that needed; clean tack from ridden horses; tidy yard; skip out; feed at 5; hang haynets up; final rugging then hometime at 5.30!

In the summer, its a lovely job - out in the sunshine, playing ponies all day having a laugh, what could be better!? However, in the winter, its really hard. We always turned ours out rain/shine/snow so they weren't full of beans, but they are more or a handful when its cold and windy and you spend a lot of time digging paths in the snow!
Money isn't great, but its a job you can have with no qualifications.

I would recommend it for part time work, just a little extra cash and something to do, but not a full time job. :)
 
Just to add, my friend was a low paid WP for an olympic eventer for a year, then worked as a groom for a family who did a lot of horse breeding for a year, then worked as groom at a hunt yard. She stayed in all those jobs for about 1 year each.

She now works for an amateur eventer who has her own business, looking after her 4/5 horses, and keeps her own horse on the yard. She now earns a decent wage, and has much more of a 8-5 job with defined weekly hours, thanks to her boss also running a legit business, she also does this right. My friend has been here for about 5 years I think :)
 
hollieeb if you are looking at admin, look online of office juniors and admin assistants. Even if you don't go straight into vets/charity, you will have lots of experience when you do! They will train you well and you will learn lots about how a business runs. It's how I started when I was 17, now 20 and office manager! :) it's not my dream job by any means but opens up lots of doors.

It will mean that when you go for vet/charity admin roles you will already have the experience in place, which is key for a business like a vets. If you have an industrial estate around you, it would be worth taking your CV round to the businesses and introducing yourself (I know it can be really scary but you are much more likely to get a better result) and you might just welll find that a business is looking for an extra hand!

Good luck! xxx

P.S. I wanted to be a groom too, but have realised I'd much rather just have horses as a hobby, when you've had a bad day in the office it's not because you've fallen off and broken your wrist! You're inside in the winter & don't get rained on ;)
 
rachaelstar said:
What job do you have at the moment?
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Jenni_ said:
If you like your social life, fancy having a mortgage one day or a half decent car, or want to be able to walk into tesco after work without being glared at and walked away from, and you want to have time to enjoy your own horses... then being a groom is not for you.

I did it, I hated it, and now appreciate my 'proper' job with decent money, and plenty time to enjoy horses.
Click to expand...

Gracie21 said:
hollieeb if you are looking at admin, look online of office juniors and admin assistants. Even if you don't go straight into vets/charity, you will have lots of experience when you do! They will train you well and you will learn lots about how a business runs. It's how I started when I was 17, now 20 and office manager! :) it's not my dream job by any means but opens up lots of doors.

It will mean that when you go for vet/charity admin roles you will already have the experience in place, which is key for a business like a vets. If you have an industrial estate around you, it would be worth taking your CV round to the businesses and introducing yourself (I know it can be really scary but you are much more likely to get a better result) and you might just welll find that a business is looking for an extra hand!

Good luck! xxx

P.S. I wanted to be a groom too, but have realised I'd much rather just have horses as a hobby, when you've had a bad day in the office it's not because you've fallen off and broken your wrist! You're inside in the winter & don't get rained on ;)
Click to expand...

Thankyou!! im trying to get as much experience under my belt as possible but its difficult to find admin work experience for some reason :/ I love working with animals and have 100+ hours of animal-related work experience, its just getting the admin/computer skills side of things!
Im definitely not going to become a groom full time, I would love to have my own horse in the future so getting a good paid job is important! I dont want to take the fun out of horses by becoming a groom then hating it!
 
The only regret I have is I never did any of my stages but I've been very lucky in the past through word of mouth. I always wanted to work for the police but never could as I didn't have any of my stages even though some ex employees were willing to give the police a write up. Also take your HGV.
 
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