Anonymous wrote:Surprised that the networking within the horse world has not been mentioned yet. Having access to the best horses, trainers, teams, etc is essential. For families with significant resources, building relationships with key people in the horse world—like top breeders, trainers, and current horse owners—is crucial and there are A LOT of egos. These connections are vital because they give the insider knowledge about where to find elite horses, before they’re even listed for sale, what trainers are the best and how to best game the compeition schedules to maximize points. Getting a word of mouth invitation to to some of the most exclusive events or joining elite equestrian clubs (The Equestrian Club of Palm Beach, etc) is also key.

In these extremely high-net-worth circles, it’s not just about having the money. It's about leveraging relationships between families. Families get early invites to private auctions or be given first pick on horses through their network. Essentially, so much of the top of the horse world if not just about being able to write a check.

In the world of dressage, high-net-worth individuals can even create their own competition events. By organizing and funding exclusive dressage competitions, they can effectively create a controlled environment where their horses and children (or children of those in their horse network) are more likely to succeed. Yes, this involves setting up shows with hand-picked judges and carefully limiting competition from other top riders.

Similar to how a lot of high-value items are traded amoung the very weathy. In the art world, connections with influential dealers, collectors, and gallery owners provides access outside of a public market. In the world of yacht ownership, high-net-worth individuals can gain access to invite-only yacht clubs and private sales to find limited or highly sought-after yachts.

I'm from the west coast where barrels, and to a lesser extent reining, western pleasure, and endurance races, are more of a thing. Anybody can participate and there is more "backyard horse" culture and doing your own grooming - but above a certain level it is about money and connections, and frankly just time (which requires money).

Trailering horses to events takes time, riding takes time, caring for your animals takes time even if you hire help. Anybody with unlimited time can get better at a sport, but with horses you have to spend a lot of that time just keeping up your "gear" (including horse) which you don't encounter as much in other sports.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprised that the networking within the horse world has not been mentioned yet. Having access to the best horses, trainers, teams, etc is essential. For families with significant resources, building relationships with key people in the horse world—like top breeders, trainers, and current horse owners—is crucial and there are A LOT of egos. These connections are vital because they give the insider knowledge about where to find elite horses, before they’re even listed for sale, what trainers are the best and how to best game the compeition schedules to maximize points. Getting a word of mouth invitation to to some of the most exclusive events or joining elite equestrian clubs (The Equestrian Club of Palm Beach, etc) is also key.

In these extremely high-net-worth circles, it’s not just about having the money. It's about leveraging relationships between families. Families get early invites to private auctions or be given first pick on horses through their network. Essentially, so much of the top of the horse world if not just about being able to write a check.

In the world of dressage, high-net-worth individuals can even create their own competition events. By organizing and funding exclusive dressage competitions, they can effectively create a controlled environment where their horses and children (or children of those in their horse network) are more likely to succeed. Yes, this involves setting up shows with hand-picked judges and carefully limiting competition from other top riders.

Jennifer Gates didn't need connections when she had dad's checkbook

Of course money is necessary. But you are missing out on juicy nuances of the horse world if you don't try to understand what kind of work even the richest horse girl needs to do to get access to certain equestrian circles that will essentially ensure sucess.

Are there equestrian boys?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up with a number of "horse girls" and not all of them were super rich but they all had families that spent a ton of money on it obviously. I do think there is actual talent and skill involved because some people bail on it early when they don't do as well as others despite spending similar money.

But I think the biggest factor is time put in. The more you train with your horse the better you and the horse will be and the better you perform at competitions. The issue for most girls is that even if their parents are willing to commit unlimited money to it the girls also want to have a social life and "be normal" to some degree.

I think if you have a kid who is willing to live and breath equestrian sports for her entire teen years and you are willing to spend the money then yeah you probably have a realistic shot at competing at the Olympics because you probably have the baseline skill and talent level to sustain that interest and are willing to put in the hours. This does seem different from other rich kid sports like tennis or golf or lacrosse where some kids are just fundamentally better at the sport and you start to see real separation between people who can be competitive at the college or pro level and everyone else starting in the early teen years or even before no matter how much money you are willing to sink into coaching and home training facilities and travel and all that.

I think a lot has changed. I don’t recall any horse girls in the 90s jet-setting all over every other weekend. So similar to all the other travel sports frenzy of the 2010s and 2020s, horse families are blowing tons of money normalizing the extensive travel schedules. Like travel youth baseball or soccer on steroids.

It was definitely a thing in the 90s. I used to be a groom for top barns. Lots of girls flew down to WEF Thursday nights and back Sunday. It was great because Monday to Wednesday I got to ride their million-dollar horses for them. The pro usually jumped it around Thursday before the kids got there.

Anonymous wrote:Surprised that the networking within the horse world has not been mentioned yet. Having access to the best horses, trainers, teams, etc is essential. For families with significant resources, building relationships with key people in the horse world—like top breeders, trainers, and current horse owners—is crucial and there are A LOT of egos. These connections are vital because they give the insider knowledge about where to find elite horses, before they’re even listed for sale, what trainers are the best and how to best game the compeition schedules to maximize points. Getting a word of mouth invitation to to some of the most exclusive events or joining elite equestrian clubs (The Equestrian Club of Palm Beach, etc) is also key.

In these extremely high-net-worth circles, it’s not just about having the money. It's about leveraging relationships between families. Families get early invites to private auctions or be given first pick on horses through their network. Essentially, so much of the top of the horse world if not just about being able to write a check.

In the world of dressage, high-net-worth individuals can even create their own competition events. By organizing and funding exclusive dressage competitions, they can effectively create a controlled environment where their horses and children (or children of those in their horse network) are more likely to succeed. Yes, this involves setting up shows with hand-picked judges and carefully limiting competition from other top riders.

Jennifer Gates didn't need connections when she had dad's checkbook

Surprised that the networking within the horse world has not been mentioned yet. Having access to the best horses, trainers, teams, etc is essential. For families with significant resources, building relationships with key people in the horse world—like top breeders, trainers, and current horse owners—is crucial and there are A LOT of egos. These connections are vital because they give the insider knowledge about where to find elite horses, before they’re even listed for sale, what trainers are the best and how to best game the compeition schedules to maximize points. Getting a word of mouth invitation to to some of the most exclusive events or joining elite equestrian clubs (The Equestrian Club of Palm Beach, etc) is also key.

In these extremely high-net-worth circles, it’s not just about having the money. It's about leveraging relationships between families. Families get early invites to private auctions or be given first pick on horses through their network. Essentially, so much of the top of the horse world if not just about being able to write a check.

In the world of dressage, high-net-worth individuals can even create their own competition events. By organizing and funding exclusive dressage competitions, they can effectively create a controlled environment where their horses and children (or children of those in their horse network) are more likely to succeed. Yes, this involves setting up shows with hand-picked judges and carefully limiting competition from other top riders.

You don't have to be good to participate. Pay money = access, period. It's not like a travel sports team with cuts based on talent level. If you have a horse, pay money, and show up you can enter events and compete.

DS does a sport where if we had millions I could see how you could spend your way to the top. It would be at the expense though of anything resembling a "normal" childhood and I think even with the resources we would wouldn't buy our way into it. It's fascinating watching it all play out though - while you need to have the drive and talent, the money ultimately is what will get you there.

There are a lot of different subsets of equestrian sports, and while none of them are cheap at the highest levels, there are some where it’s easier to balance relative lack of skill with money.

The hunter circuit (Florida, Upperville, Madison Square Garden and other indoors) is the most notorious. Winning rounds look smooth, steady, and polished. This can be achieved through hard work, or by buying a fashionable horse, prepping it with lots exercise and/or calming drugs, and having the rider (wearing just the right clothes) hop on and get packed around. It’s often the discipline of choice for girls who want to jet in on Thursday and go back to school on Sunday. Junior hunters (those under 18) have several high-level awards that kids can spend their time chasing, and there’s a sense that you gotta spend the money now because time is running out. This is not an Olympic sport.

The jumpers prioritize speed, so you do need to learn how to ride as the fences get higher, or you’ll, you know, die. But a large checkbook buys a lot of spring, and can help cover a multitude of sins. (Bought too much horse? Put it in full training with a pro and just lesson on it occasionally.) And there are more options for riders once they age out of the juniors, including the U.S. Equestrian Team.

Dressage is also a Team/Olympic sport. You can definitely buy your way up the levels to a certain extent, but because the horse relies on the rider for cues, lack of control of your own body is going to be very apparent to the judges.

Eventing (the third arm of Olympic equestrian competition) used to be very much a “hey, kids, let’s put on a show!” discipline, but it’s evolved over the years with various rule and format changes. Still, this is probably the grittiest, most welcoming and low-key of the competitive English saddle disciples. (Fox hunters — not to be confused with the show hunters above, but that’s a whole other TED Talk — are not competitive. They are often rich and/or drunk.)

I know very little about Western competitions, other than there’s a crazy amount of money in running barrels. Rodeo scholarships are definitely A Thing at some schools.

It doesn't take a whole lot to become better than good at show-jumping. The rest is the horse and trainers.
There's a reason the horses sell for millions.
The only reason I made it to top 5 as a 10-year old kid in national competition was the horse my father had.

No one is automatically good at a sport.

Anyone who learns to ride is automatically better with horses than people who haven't learned to ride. And like with anything, experience matters. But that's it.

No! You need to have the necessary drive and interest, OP. Riding well takes a lot of practiced observation and skill, just like chess or violin.

My family rides and my uncle has stables. My aunt participated in the Olympics, years ago. We all have varying degrees of skill on horseback.

Anonymous wrote:You have to have money to make it. But you don't make it on money alone.

It also depends on the specific equestrian sport. Riders piloting horses around 5* cross country courses didn't get there on money alone—that takes talent, athleticism and nerve.

I was going to mention the nerve also. I imagine in addition to money that's a key skillset that differentiates the good from the not good riders.

You have to have money to make it. But you don't make it on money alone.

It also depends on the specific equestrian sport. Riders piloting horses around 5* cross country courses didn't get there on money alone—that takes talent, athleticism and nerve.