In early July of this year, I decided to write a post on Facebook explaining my decision to radically change my business.

I had already told my clients, family, and friends, but I figured I would let everyone know. I tried to decide if a short, upbeat post was the best way to go—no intimate details, just a perky announcement about my new life. But that felt a bit disingenuous. I was excited about my plans, but I was also feeling many other things. And I knew I wasn’t alone, so I decided I would be totally open and honest about why I decided to stop leasing a farm and taking horses in full training and instead become a freelance instructor. I hoped it would resonate with folks, but I didn’t expect much. Here’s what I posted: 

“I sat down and did the math on what my finances would be like if I just taught two days a week and had no expenses outside insurance, my car, memberships, etc. I would make MORE working that little than I do right now,” I wrote in part. “And I run a pretty great program—my barn is always full with a wait list, about half super nice young horses and half FEI horses. My students and I compete a lot, very successfully. But the cost of running a program like this is so high, that even though I am ‘successful,’ I barely make a living wage. I pay my wonderful assistant trainers more than I make (because they 100% deserve that salary and more!) And of course I could raise prices even more, but I think I charge an awful lot, and at the end of the day, I just feel awful about expecting people to pay SO much for a luxurious hobby.”

I added that my single biggest challenge in the past few years has been getting and keeping good employees and paying current wages.

“In the past I didn’t pay hardly anyone,” I wrote. “I just had working students who worked off their housing, board and training. And that worked much better. But that seems to be a thing of the past? People now expect all that and $600+ a week. And if my business made so much money that I could do that, I would love to. But the math just flat out doesn’t work.”

I pressed send on that post and went back to work, and I didn’t look at Facebook for many hours. Then I got a text from a friend that said, “How does it feel to break the internet?” I didn’t understand what she meant, so I opened up Facebook and saw the post already had tons of comments and many shares. 

Over the next couple of days, I was really surprised by just how much this post resonated with people. Other professionals, especially, felt seen and had stories of their own to share. I received dozens of private messages and direct emails from people who wanted to share similar stories with me, tell me they were happy for me, a few who wanted to give me advice on how to run a better business, and of course a couple strange ones (because the internet is just weird). But the vast majority were people telling me they had already done what I was doing—either recently or long ago—or were thinking about doing the same thing, all due to the problems I outlined in the post. 

The post ended up with almost 700 comments, over 1,000 people shared it, and almost 5,000 people liked it. I’d clearly hit a nerve, and there were many areas of discussion. 

The biggest area seemed to be finding and keeping good employees. But also frequently discussed was the bigger philosophical question of why we do this job. Everyone can agree with the generic argument that we do this because we love horses. But there are a million ways to love horses, and if you’ve chosen to do this professionally, I don’t believe that means you must accept that you will never make money or never have time to yourself. Most horse trainers wear their exhaustion as a badge of honor. We brag to each other about how many horses we rode that day, lessons we taught, how early we woke up, and how many days we worked without a day off this year—or this decade. 

Finding self-worth through working yourself to the bone is not unique to the horse industry. But it is not sustainable—in any profession—to exhaust yourself and make no money. It was not sustainable in my “successful business” to work an extremely hard schedule and make very little money. In most parts of the country, it is very hard to find a spot at a good boarding barn. This is due to many factors, but a big one is that most barn owners cannot continue to run their boarding barns, because the expenses outweigh the income. And no matter how much you love horses or your clients, you can only continue that for so long. So the options are to sell the farm and cash in, raise board to cover ALL expenses (including your own labor), or be wealthy and benevolent enough that you’re willing to subsidize your boarders’ horses. 

A common theme among the comments and messages I received was a worry that boarding horses was going to get so expensive, especially if we barn owners actually charged enough to make a small profit, that horses would become even more of an elitist sport, available only to the wealthiest among us. And if being a professional isn’t a viable career option unless you’re also very wealthy, then fewer and fewer people will become good trainers or run a great boarding barn. If you love horses, this should worry you for the future.  

So now that I am in my new life as a freelancer and have a newfound bit of bandwidth, I am looking more in depth at this whole issue. Even though my post showed that I am clearly not alone with my concerns, I want to get more data. I’ve created a survey that I would appreciate trainers, barn managers and facility owners fill out. You can find the survey here.

I plan to sit on a panel at the 2024 Adequan/USDF Annual Convention in December, where there will be multiple professionals discussing this issue. It’s multi-faceted, and of course there is no easy answer to any of it.  But I’m happy to continue the discussion that my post started, get ideas and stories from across the country, and I’ll report back with some findings and any great insights! Thanks to all of you out there who have contributed and continue to do so. I’m not giving up on the horse industry, but I would love to help improve it for all of us.  

Eliza Sydnor Romm is an FEI rider and trainer from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She is a USDF Certified Instructor and sought-after trainer and clinician. She teaches horses and riders of all levels, from starting under saddle to Grand Prix.

Susan DiFelice is a lifelong rider and award-winning equestrian illustrator. She founded Allpony, an educational platform offering courses, games, and printables on horsemanship, which was recently acquired by U.S. Pony Clubs. She is passionate about fostering creative partnerships and producing illustrations for professionals and brands seeking to make an impact in the equestrian world.