08/17/2026
Good think to think about!
I don’t know how many ways to say horse trainers don’t make any money… but horse trainers don’t make any money. 🤣
I think sometimes the clients do not understand this. Yes, you may write your horse trainer a check for $1200 or $1500 a month, but I assure you, once you figure out the costs, there is no money….
You have to:
➡️Feed the horse. (Hay/Grain)
➡️House the horse. (Whether you rent or you have a mortgage, there is cost here.)
➡️You have to physically feed the horse.
➡️Clean stalls
➡️Fill waters
➡️Turn out the horse and bring them in.
➡️Groom/bathe the horse.
➡️Maybe you have labor costs.
➡️You have to ride said horse.
➡️Likely you aren’t billing for all you should.
Let’s say you charge $1250 a month.
Let’s say you feed a bag a week at $20 bucks ($80)
8 bales of hay a month at $15 ($120) I feed way more than this; and to keep weight you need to. Clients don’t pay for you to buy in bulk to save money.
Clean stalls 2x day and clean or fill water everyday 15 min at $15 hr. ($225)
Shavings??? 🙃
That leaves you with $825 left over. Whether you own or rent; you need to factor that in, and if you ride every day, you have to pay yourself your time.
If you train horses you need:
➡️A facility (an average facility is usually around $2500+ a month to rent, but if you have a mortgage and run a business, you need to factor that in.)
➡️A truck ($50,000 truck is around $750 on average, most of us are driving $100,000 trucks.)
➡️A trailer. (Cheap would be $25,000)
➡️Saddles ($2,000 each)
➡️Bits ($100-$250 each)
➡️ Splint boots, girths, bridles, breastcollars, saddle pads, reins, training tack, etc.
➡️Tires, oil changes, fuel, wear and tear
All of these things wear out and need to be replaced.
I say all of this to tell you that as a trainer, we are greatly invested, sometimes YEARS, hoping that we either make money in the arena, or make money on the sale of the horse (commission.)
When your horse does poorly, I assure you, NONE OF US WANTED THAT. We are trying our best because we have endless hours invested in fluffy.
That being said, fluffy doesn’t always (let’s get real… RARELY) have/has the same plans we do.
Fluffy doesn’t know you invested $15k in training and he isn’t in the 1D.
Fluffy doesn’t know he won’t be good enough for your kid.
Fluffy likely doesn’t know he is a major pain in the a**.
Fluffy doesn’t know he is going to take 9 million man hours to make a Futurity horse.
So have some grace for your trainers. They are not paid enough to deal with your bulls*** too.
Training horses is a horrible business model. It’s based solely on what you can produce in a day and your client doesn’t want an intern training their horse. The more horses, the higher the overhead. There aren’t many trainers that are *making* money.
If you get hurt, who pays your bills?
This is not directed at anyone. Rather an industry wide thing I see ALL THE TIME!
