How do professional riders earn their money?

[tasel]

No, seriously... I have been wondering about that for quite some time. We all know how expensive owning a horse can be! Yes, there is prize money.... but it's not necessarily Wimbledon or the Football where it's seriously huge.

Ellen Whitaker won £25k at the British Open - I wonder how much the cost was just to participate in the event. I know much of the costs are covered by the horses' (wealthy) owners rather than riders. Plus, is prize money also taxed???

Then, there are sponsors/adverts, etc. but mainly for a niche market (equestrian) so would never pay as much as the BIG brands in other sports - you know, Nike et al.

And these are just the TOP talent - what happens to those in the middle?? I mean, I have seen a fairly decent amount of riders I have never heard of, and still do it for a living. Yes, ok... you can trade horses, but there's a limit to that, too.

Yet, a fair few of these riders still manage to have their own yard, grooms to work for them... where do the figures add up?? Am I missing something? Unless the owners of said horses are tremendously wealthy and pay for the upkeep of horses they don't even ride... I just don't see where it's coming from?

Please enlighten me!

 

[martlin]

Owners pay for the upkeep of horses, for the entry fees and so on, but they also dip into prize money.
You get things on schooling livery, you teach, you deal, whatever really.
Yards are quite often rented and the livery fees cover grooms etc.

 

[BBH]

I think unless you're a ' name' its very hard and until you've built a reputation you probably have to juggle other jobs around your horses.

As a professional or someone on the way up you can do various things to earn money,

Lessons, both private and clinics
Take horses on competition, sale, training, backing or problem solving livery
Ride other peoples horses at home or at competitions
Attract sponsorship
You could broaden your appeal by offering companies insightful training, coaching and more importantly ' how to win' sessions.
Motivational speaker
You could write or contribute to magazine articles or problem pages
Write books as per John Francombe who is a very successful author, in fact he's someone who has probably gone on to have just as successful a career after his riding days as to when he was in the saddle.

There's probably a whole truckload of other things aswell oh maybe like Tina Cook do a bit of commentating.

 

[Lobelia_Overhill]

Sponsorship
Liveries
Lessons/clinics
Prize money
Appearance fees at "do's"
Advertising for their sponsors

 

[3DE]

There's also producing youngsters - they may not make the grade for top competition but would be a prize to a competitive teenager.

And sponsorship. Someone I know has two sponsors - one sponsors her waggon so pays for the service/mot/repairs etc and one her horses - she gets physio and tack (only loaned though) for free.

 

[Prince33Sp4rkle]

teach everyone you are asked to teach
ride anything and everything
buy and sell
owners pay for their horses
try and get a feed or bedding sponsor as thats a major bill each month sorted!

the first 3 are the major ones really. you have to be an excellent business person as well as a good rider and trainer.

 

[EgerdenFarmStud]

They don't.... Haha, We never have any money!!

My OH is a showjumper, and we make our money from ...

Riding for other people ( either meeting them at shows or having their horses on full livery etc )

Teaching,

Prize money,

Breaking horses,

Selling our homebreds,

Having horses into sell.

There are loads of ways really, it all adds up, sometimes you could have a great month and earn a fortune, others you could not own a penny. We have one great owner who pays all diesel for lorry and buys horses, we keep them and then shoes rfegistration, entries etc are split down the middle, same as profit once sold...It works really well!

Sometimes I do wish that we had normal stable office jobs though!

x

 

[natalia]

By working very very hard and not turning down any jobs.

I have to do the following- teach, buy & sell, take in breakers, sales liveries and produce horses for owners. By no means a real pro comp. rider but do A LOT of producing young stock which often go on to good careers. Sadly mine are normally taken up to bsja BN and Disc level then sold on so out at shows most weeks. My bread and butter would be the breakers for which there is a waiting list but they cover day to day costs.

 

[tasel]

Gosh, that all sounds terribly complicated... but I tell you, it beats any sort of office job.