BRS and having own horse

[jaynee3]

Hi,
i am looking into going to british racing school as i would like to become a work rider.
Just wondered how people have managed to fit in competing and having their own horse whilst working at race yard.
i currently compete BE and would love to continue both and wanted to hear other peoples experiences.

 

[LEC]

I have had lots of friends do morning lots and then freelance in the afternoons with riding theirs or other horses. Friends who do it full time tend to find it harder to run eventers but not impossible.

 

[Elf On A Shelf]

If you just have one horse then it is possible whilst working full time as a work rider. It's easier if you work in a National Hunt yard than a Flat yard as there is plenty of down time in summer for you to get away competing. The proper NH season is October to April. The Flat season runs all year round now with beach donkey derby racing but is busiest with the turf season from Easter to the end of September.

It also depends where you work. A lot of yards do mornings then evening stables so you have a 2-3hour break in the afternoon so you could ride your own in that gap all year round. The yard I work on doesn't do this, we work 7am-3.30pm-ish. A lot of yard still work every other weekend where you work 13 days in a row to get a day off. Even if you do get a day off every week (Sunday one week, a week day the next) you still work 6 mornings a week as standard. Getting a Saturday off during busy season is nigh on impossible. Hence you need to decide if you want to go down the flat route or the national hunt route.

 

[RachelFerd]

It wasn't a problem time wise, but for me working as a work rider didn't pay enough to let me live independently and event. I left racing back to the world of offices in order to earn enough to event more seriously. If you've got a set up where you can still live with parents, or have some extra funding coming in from elsewhere, then it is more do-able. I did continue to work ride in the mornings before my office job for a long time (until I moved to a better paid job a long way away from racing yards) to top up the eventing fund!