Pondering new horse-related career - help!

[tobiano1984]

Hi everyone,

As a lot of you know I was involved in a road accident a few weeks ago in which I lost my young horse of a lifetime and currently am laid up and stationary with numerous broken bones. I was really touched by the support and help offered by 100s of you, it takes other horsey people to really understand the pain involved with losing a special animal.

Anyway, life goes on and I am now having to re-evaluate my career choices. As a quote I saw recently said, 'when something in your life goes wrong, yell PLOT TWIST! and move on'. Whilst I will never forget my gorgeous Rupert, I do not want to fall into a hole of misery and want to take the opportunity to make some changes to my life.

Previously I was running a small livery & training yard - just with a handful of liveries to cover costs and then buying and selling young, ex-race or written-off horses and working on them and selling. I was doing very well with this although as many of you know it isn't a very reliable career and when things like my accident happen, it stops being a career altogether! I'll keep the yard with my own horses and DIYs but will not focus on it as a sole income stream any more.

Before the yard I worked in PR (travel and lifestyle) for 7 years both in agencies and freelance and continued that part time alongside the yard. I have a business degree too.

So now what I'm pondering is trying to find a career that no longer relies solely on the physical side - partly because it will take me ages to be back to normal physical strength and partly because this has shaken me up and I realise how fragile things are (mostly me!).

My ideal is to have a yard and train horses for sale and for other people, I've studied horsemanship methods here and in the US and have my own methods that work well, but I'd also like to run a more sensible/reliable career alongside that will produce a steady income. Ideas include Equestrian PR so far, as I know the PR world well and it wouldn't take too much to adjust to a different industry providing I can find the clients. Or I thought about doing a bitting course as there seems to be a lack of independent bitting advisers, and this is something that interests me.

Has anyone else got any ideas/experiences of non-yard based equestrian careers? i've worked as a consultant/freelance for years so would rather stay self-employed or part time to allow me to continue with horses. When I sort my earnings out I'd love to travel particularly more in the US and study other horsemanship methods more and follow a wild mustang herd - my principles of training are based on herd behaviour so I'd love to see the real deal up close.

Thoughts welcomed

 

[Abacus]

I think your attitude, thoughtfulness and resilience are absolutely inspiring - well done for using the time so well, and for grasping an opportunity rather than drowning in misery.

I can't help much with an equestrian career, as I am one of the dull ones that sits in an office all day wanting to be with my horse, and not quite brave enough to try something else.

However, I do think as you do that there seems to be so much uncertainty over bitting. There are lots of posts on here about which bit to use, and most of the answers recommend nice bits that suit many horses, but there's no science behind this. Further, I have also thought that there is scope for a 'tack adviser' - someone that can look at the whole horse from saddle to girth to bit to bridle, and get the best combination for the horse. I know that's a lot of training, but wouldn't it be interesting?

Hope you're feeling better soon. x

 

[tobiano1984]

Thank you. I'd be interested in studying the science behind bitting. Tack adviser is a good one - although I've been a bit put off by saddlery due to the huge amount of time it takes to properly train, although I guess to just dispense advice you could do a saddle fitting course rather than full master saddler... x

 

[Calcyle]

Bitting sounds like a good one - certainly something that's lacking in our area judging by what I see on facebook, if nothing else. As far as saddle-fitting is concerned, I've yet to find a traditional saddle fitter who I'm happy to recommend to people, and almost everyone asks me for an opinion - if you could do that well then I would certainly send people your way.