Guest Post: Equestrian Careers

by Christine Meunier

For those who love to horse ride, it may interest them to know that there are a myriad of equestrian careers they can pursue. Better yet, not all of them require that you have a horse of your own. It is possible to establish an equestrian career on other people’s horses!

Let’s consider some different career options:
1. Jockey
If you’re a fan of going fast on horses, then perhaps the idea of being a race jockey is for you. You can ride many horses in a race meet, all of them owned by different people. You’ll need to be a fan of early mornings, however.
If you find that you’re too tall or weigh too much to qualify as a jockey, then you can always consider being an exercise rider. Early mornings for this role are a must but the bonus is that your afternoons should be free.

2. Catch rider
Many people like to invest in performance horses but don’t have the interest or skill to ride and compete themselves. Instead, they employ someone to ride their horses in competitions. Such a person may be referred to as a catch rider. Again, the horses will be consistently owned by varying people, but you’ll get plenty of hours in the saddle! Many shows run over weekends, so this is worth noting.

3. Polo player
Polo is able to be played professionally by those with skill – and horses! This is one sport that requires more than one horse to be able to compete at the higher levels. Consequently, it can be pricey! It’s a fast actioned sport that makes use of riding skills as well as hand eye coordination.

4. Eventer
For those who like to mix things up, eventing may be the way to go. It requires horse and rider are skilled in dressage, show jumping and cross country. This is a sport where riders can compete on their own horses, or someone else’s. What may appeal to the high achievers is that eventing is carried out up to Olympic level.

5. Endurance
Endurance riding can be done on a recreational level or at a higher competitive level. Although there are opportunities to prove a horse’s capabilities in endurance, there is not a lot of prize money involved in this sport. Consequently, to make it a career riders may need to look at coaching and breeding and training horses to sell for the sport.

It is possible to make a career from riding horses. It’s just a question for the equestrian of which way they want to go. You can check out more horse related careers over at Equus Education – http://equus-blog.com/

Author bio:
Christine Meunier is an equine author and educator in Australia. She loves all things horses and dedicates her time to writing educational novels, horse courses and educational resources. Her greatest passion is Equus Education, a blog about 170+ horse careers around the world.

For more details about Christine’s work, check her out on our guest author list.