Horse Pros: Now Is The Time To Start Long-Term Financial Planning

Let’s make a slightly delayed New Year’s resolution, horse professionals: 2025 is going to be the year that you look at your savings and retirement plans, or lack thereof, and put some actual plans in place. I know, I know, horse people never retire, we just subsist on coffee and ibuprofen and yell, “half HALT!” louder and louder. But just imagine for a moment that you made plans and saved and could decide whether or not you’d like to have a different life at some point in the future. 

As promised, I’m delving deeper into the first of four subjects I outlined from the results of my 2024 survey of horse professionals. We’re going to start with long term financial planning. (Groan. I know.) When people talk with me about this subject, I usually hear Charlie Brown’s teacher from Peanuts, “Wa WAA wa WAA wa wa,” and my eyes glaze over. But that’s precisely why I’m starting with it. It is the LEAST urgent but the MOST important. Something is always more urgent than your retirement plan: the horses have to be fed, the tractor broke down again, that pony looks a bit off. But just because it’s not urgent doesn’t mean it’s less important. In fact, your long-term financial health couldn’t be more important. So let’s dig in.

First off, I am not a financial planner and am absolutely not qualified to give anyone financial advice. I am a horse trainer who has done a decent job at saving since I was young. And now I’ve done a smidge of research on the topic—dangerous! My first and best piece of advice is to go and speak with a certified financial planner for your specific situation. Just like with training horses, there are some universal truths that are helpful to understand. But each person is unique, just like each horse is unique. Reading a couple articles or listening to a podcast makes you about as qualified as an amateur who has watched a couple YouTube videos, bought a rope halter, and is ready to head out and train Trigger tomorrow morning. Yikes. 

In my survey of over 1,500 horse professionals, more than half of respondents had no long-term investments outside of their horses, their property and their equipment. This sounds terrible but is actually about even with the rest of the American population at large, according to survey done by The Harris Poll. When I asked people why this was true, I got all kinds of answers: I’ll start saving when I get my debt paid off. I’ll start saving when I sell this amazing horse I just bought. I’ll start saving when I finally get this next farm improvement done. I’ll sell the farm eventually, and that will be more than enough to retire on. Hell, I can’t save anything, because I don’t make anything! 

So when is the best time to start saving? The very best time is about 20 years ago. The second best time is right now. I spoke with Alex Williams, president and financial advisor at Stable Wealth, a company with offices in Florida and Washington, which creates personalized plans tailored to each client’s (especially equestrians) unique financial goals. Alex is the husband of high-performance dressage competitor Jennifer Williams. He has watched Jennifer train many horses over the years, from youngsters to Grand Prix horses vying for the Olympic team. And in his more than 25 years of being a financial planner, he sees the similarities. 

“Watching Jennifer’s journey and commitment to dressage inspired me to build the firm. Riding and investing both require precision, discipline, consistency,” he said. “There are so many parallels. The long term training of a horse is not quick and exciting on a day to day basis, and neither is investing. It’s a little like grass growing.” 

I also spoke with Kate Rhodes, an advisor with New York Life, who specializes in helping many small business owners, especially horse pros, to navigate the world of insurance options—life insurance, long-term care, short-term disability, etc. She also runs Westhaven Riding School in Port Orchard, Washington, where she works with lots of kids and adult amateurs. She had a bad riding accident years ago and experienced the difficulty of keeping her business and finances in order while dealing with a serious injury.

“My mission,” she said, “is to help small business owners, especially in the equestrian world, navigate insurance options and create safety nets so they can focus on what they love without fear of the unexpected. I want to ensure others are better prepared than I was and have the peace of mind that their dreams and livelihoods are protected.”

Case Studies: Recognize Yourself?

OK, so it’s going to take commitment, discipline, education and some serious planning—all things we’re happy to give to our horses. Let’s look at three case studies and imagine these women also gave that commitment, discipline and education to their long-term financial planning. These cases are completely made up, but hopefully you can see yourself in one of the examples. 

My hope is that you can get ideas for how you could start planning, no matter where you are in your horse career. These are totally oversimplified, so take them with a grain of salt. They are ideas to get you inspired to seek professional help for your individual situation.

Trainer #1: Early Career  

Ella is 24 years old, starting out as an assistant trainer for a big hunter/jumper barn, with a few clients of her own on the side. Her annual salary before taxes is $41,600 ($800/week) plus shared housing on the farm with all utilities paid. She has credit card debt of $8,500. She’s unmarried and doesn’t have children. 

Ella’s parents made her open a Roth IRA when she was 18, and they helped her max it out for two years, but since then she hasn’t contributed and hasn’t wanted to ask them for financial help. Ella has a grandparent who has offered to help her in the past with long-term investments or some seed money to start a business. Ella’s biggest advantage is her young age and the many years she has ahead of her to utilize the magic of compound interest.

One of Ella’s students, a successful business owner, helps her come up with a basic financial plan: When she receives her bi-weekly paychecks, Ella will pay herself first, meaning an automatic $400 will come out and go first toward paying off her credit card debt, which will take about 11 months. The credit card debt must get paid off first, because the interest rate is 24%. The opportunity cost of putting money elsewhere while paying 24% interest makes no sense. Once her credit card is completely paid off, the $400 will continue to be deducted and will go into a savings account, with the goal of saving three to six months worth of expenses in the event of an emergency. 

By making the credit card deduction automatic, Ella follows one of Alex’s biggest recommendations: consistency. 

“Consistency is the most important thing in financial planning,” he said. “Pay yourself first—10% to yourself—even if you make $30,000, tell yourself, ‘I am worth it. I need to value myself and my retirement.’ If you have a long term mindset and vision, you’re going to be heads and tails above the average investor.”

Ella invests her emergency money in a total stock market index fund. It’s fairly low risk, doesn’t require much thought or research on her part, and will be easy to get her money out if she needs it quickly. 

Ella took her very generous grandmother up on her offer of some money for savings and was able to max out her Roth IRA both years while she paid off her credit card debt and built her emergency fund. The Roth IRA is a good choice for Ella, because the money she puts into the fund is after tax (and she’s in a low tax bracket now), and when she withdraws it one day, she will do so tax-free (at which point she hopes to be in a higher tax bracket).

Ella’s employer, like 96% of all professionals surveyed, does not offer health insurance with her job. But after two years of hard work and proving herself, Ella is able to negotiate a raise and convince her employer to match her contributions to a health savings account. She and her employer don’t put much in there each month, just $75 each, but this fund gives Ella peace of mind if she had a medical emergency. Plus she can keep it invested until retirement, when she’s much more likely to have larger medical expenses.

Ella also got a small short-term disability policy that will replace $2,500/month of her income for up to two years, if she gets injured or sick and is unable to work. This policy costs her $50 per month and gives her some peace of mind if something were to happen. 

Trainer #2: Mid-Career

Georgia is 37 years old and runs her own three-day eventing barn, which she leases from a farm owner who lives elsewhere. Her yearly profit varies but last year was $48,000. Owning the farm she now leases is her dream, as she loves the land and facility. The owner would like the property to remain a horse farm and has expressed a strong interest to work with her if possible. Georgia has very little debt, just small monthly payments on a truck and tractor, which she always pays on time. She has $50,000 in savings (invested in an index fund) and long ago got a traditional IRA but didn’t really understand it and has only contributed a few times. She has one child in elementary school and is recently divorced, but she got their house in the divorce.

After the divorce, Georgia sat down with a certified financial planner to understand her options. Because she has very little debt and already has enough in savings that could be her emergency fund, this planner recommended opening a SEP (Simplified Employee Pension) IRA. Georgia has no full time employees, so the SEP is a good option for her, and she can contribute even more per year than with a Roth or Traditional IRA, which is helpful because she hasn’t been regularly contributing to an IRA up until now. She plans to make automatic transfers to this SEP IRA each month, and whenever she has a little extra, she is going to contribute even more, so she has a good nest egg building for her retirement. (Click here to learn more about the difference between Roth, Traditional and SEP IRAs)

Georgia worked with a life insurance advisor and selected a universal life policy with a $250,000 death benefit, so she’s got a lifetime of coverage, cash accruement and something to leave her child to pay estate taxes, etc. when she passes away. It costs her about $150 per month.

She worked with her accountant, financial planner and the owner of the farm she leases to come up with a multi-year plan to buy the property. Because the owner really wanted to see the facility remain intact, as a horse farm, she was willing to work with Georgia on the price and a timeline for payments. She sold her house in town and used some of that money as a large down payment while storing some away in savings. She knows she will have to work hard and stick to a strict budget to make it all work, but she is realizing her dream of owning and living on her farm. The farm will also round out her investments, as it will very likely increase in value over the years by a significant amount. 

Trainer #3: Ready For Retirement

Katherine is 62 years old, owns a farm with her partner, and runs a riding school that has served her community for decades. Her annual salary is $54,000. Her partner has a corporate job with a 401(k). Katherine is counting on selling the farm to provide them with retirement income, and her only current debt is three more years on their farm mortgage. The farm is in need of many repairs. 

The couple met with their certified financial planner to outline a timeline for selling the farm and beginning their retirement. Their risk tolerance is low, and their planner listened to their concerns and asked hard questions about their goals and timelines. They came up with a plan in stages. 

Stage 1: Start to clean out their house, barn and outbuildings, and identify repairs that will increase property value. A new roof for the barn and a resurfaced driveway became their top priorities. A plan for selling the horses came together. 

Stage 2: Crowdsource from their beloved community to help with these projects. A few long-time families threw a huge party to raise money for the improvements, as a way for the community to say thank you. It was a resounding success, and the donations helped fund some of their improvement projects. They took out a small loan to cover the rest. 

Stage 3: Market and sell the updated farm. Put proceeds from the sale of equipment and tack into some very safe bonds. The profit from the farm will pay off their remaining debts, and a portion can be used as a down payment on a much smaller house near their grandchildren, with the rest placed into various investments. This plan will allow them to put a portion of their investments into a fixed-income annuity to help pay for long-term care policies for both of them. 

Now Is The Time To Start 

One of the things I’ve been hearing again and again from trainers is that they know how important this is, but it’s overwhelming to them to think about where they would start. My hope is that these examples show that nothing is simple, but a plan can be made with the right help. Progress looks very gradual on a daily or monthly level, but looking five to 10 years out, big goals can be met and enormous life changes can occur. Each person has many choices to make for their long term investments. The alternative option of choosing to do nothing is still a choice and will guarantee you an outcome you do not want. 

Reframe it in your mind like training a horse who comes to you with many problems: It’s going to take patience, a long-term plan, and working together with a team (vets, farriers, etc. with the horse and planners, accountants, lawyers with your own financial plan). Most of us trainers get excited to help a horse like that, and maybe we can give the same compassion to ourselves. Get some good professional advice and stick with it, automate your savings, be disciplined and patient about the progress your investments will make, and never ever give up!

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.