05/27/2026
May is mental health awareness month, and I think it's incredibly important to continue to shed light in the equestrian industry and toll it can take on your mental health. As professionals, we take on a million rolls, most of which were incredibly under prepared for. Business owner (how many of us went to business school and chose ponies instead) life coach, emotional support to clients, negotiator, mentor to working students, accountant, marketeer. These jobs come on top of the emotional gauntlet riding over grown chickens with 4 legs and a death wish.
On Monday? You're on a high, you're planning your show schedule, you've got a budget, you're committed to the gym, all eyes on the prize. On Tuesday, you're teaching lessons to pay for all of these adventures on your schedule. You're listening to your clients marital problems as she's sobbing after trotting a singular cross rail, you're helping your working student have a break through on their tricky horse they've put a lot of blood sweat and tears into. On Wednesday, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and you're sitting there with the vet putting down a 5 yr old with all the promise in the world because sometimes, there are design flaws. Sometimes no matter how much money is in the world, none of it is enough to fix *this*. All the other horses still have to get ridden. Get fed. The lessons still have to get taught. The bills still have to get paid. On Thursday? Your top horse with all those hopes and dreams quietly said, has a slightly large ankle. And suddenly, that schedule, that budget, morph into a very different schedule, a very different payee. And on Friday, we realize that all of our budgeting, and all of our planning, did rely on others paying a lot of money for a hobby. And sometimes they just, don't.
I've talked in the past about my own struggles with ADHD, but I think it's important to know that there are days where getting out of bed feels beyond me. That going to the barn and looking at an empty stall of a horse I'd dreamed of running around top courses with, is in someone else's barn so I can afford to try again with the next one. So that I can pat the vet bill on a horse no longer in this world. There are days where I have started from absolute scratch, and had to look myself in the eye, and know, there's an absolute high probability I never "make" it. And I have to decide all over again, if all the hard work, the heart ache, the disappointments, are worth the effort.
And on those days, you can find me spending a few more minutes brushing a horse's tail. A few pop tart wrappers in the garbage from extra treats that make me smile. Maybe on a particularly long fitness set.
Or maybe still in bed. Because it's ok to be sad sometimes. It's ok to mourn the loss of horses, clients, goals, dreams, money, effort, time. And it's ok to admit that those pressures are hard. And it's ok to get help for all of that. It's ok to go to therapy. It's ok to be on medication. It's ok to address your anxiety.
Let's break the stigma that if you just work harder and put your head down, and don't complain , that's how you get ahead. Let's break the stigma that the highlight reels of social media are the whole story. Let's break the stigma that getting to 5*/GP/the Olympics, is going to make you happy.
Only you can make you happy. And it's ok to get help to find your happy again: and it's ok if horses aren't it.
