A "Day Off" in the Life of a Horse Trainer
"Don't you ever take any time off?" I get asked this question surprisingly quite frequently as a horse trainer/riding instructor from my clients, family members, neighbors, etc. Here at Pleasant Hill Horsemanship, I am the sole "employee" meaning I am in charge of everything from picking poop to riding out the bucks. I decided it would be fun to make a blog about what a horse trainer does on their day off, but one thing to remember is every horse trainer has different schedules, possibly even extra help specifically for chores or generic exercise, and different methods to run their business. Not all of our days off will look the same, but I know there are plenty of horse trainers out there who work completely on their own as well, and I am sure their time off looks pretty similar to mine.
3:00am
To be quite frank, I don't even have to have an alarm set this early in the morning anymore. As sure as the sun comes up every morning, I get up somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00am. Since I have started this training business, I have always completed what I refer to as "night checks" on the horses. As any horse owner can tell you, a horse truly only needs maybe 15 seconds of unsupervised time to get themselves into some sort of trouble (okay, let's be real, one second is all they need). In order to help me sleep some at night, I have to check on them a couple times just to make sure all the horses are healthy. If I'm lucky, I can see every horse from the deck with my awesome high powered flashlight. If I'm not so lucky, I get to go for a walk and make sure everyone is where they are supposed to be and not showing any symptoms of being ill - I have meticulously placed all of the horses' access to their hay to encourage them to be seen from my deck, but if they decide to hang out anywhere else, I get to go for a walk. If you're curious when the next full moon is, I can be your go-to gal with my routine night checks. This morning was a lucky morning, I could see all the horses happily munching on hay. Back to bed I go!
6:30am
This is another alarm I really do not need to have set anymore, what can I say, I love what I do! This time I will head out to complete my morning chores. This always includes filling any empty hay bags, graining, watering if the troughs are lower, and looking over every horse for any cuts or swelling and their pen in case any new hazards came up such as a branch or weak fence spot. I have other critters to take care of in the mornings as well - goats, chickens, dogs, cats, and of course my own horses. All in all, morning chores take me an average of an hour if all goes well. This morning chores took a little longer as the electric fence was dead. Fortunately, it was a quick fix as a branch had fallen with the wind over night and just knocked the wire off an insulator. After chores, I head back in to enjoy a quick breakfast and watch a Sunday Sermon with my hubby.
10:00am
I am headed back outside because one of the training horses I have in has a mild case of rain rot I am treating. Fortunately, it has been warm enough I am able to give him a bath with medicated shampoo. Since my husband also has the day off, he was able to help. This took a bit over an hour with the bath, dry time, and treatment I put on after baths. Fortunately with my husband's help and the fact this horse seems to love bath time, this activity does not take as long as it could! After the bath, my husband proceeds to make sure the tractor is good on oil/fuel for our afternoon plans while I check hay/horses again before we head in for a quick lunch.
1:00pm
One of our larger pens is in need of a new round bale, so that's the first thing on the agenda. I feed the round bales with a hay net, but after 4 or so years of feeding with a hay net, we've become pretty efficient with our methods of getting it put on the round bale.
1:30pm
Due to the crazy amounts of rain we have been having, I have been making sure the horses I have out on dry lots have bedding outside. The sheds are always dry for them, but I like to make sure they have somewhere dry to stand/lay down/eat hay to help avoid the many problems that can be caused by mud/damp conditions. Since it is so muddy, today we get to fork out the bedding by hand. Have I mentioned how awesome it is to have my husband home today?! After forking out bedding, I have a wee bit of time to catch up some things outside before evening chores need to be done.
3:30pm
Evening chores are done a little bit earlier in the warmer months, mainly because that is when I have a break from my afternoon lessons and my beginner lesson kiddos in the evening. Evening chores generally take a bit longer than in the morning as I stuff all the hay bags as full as I possibly can to make sure they last through the night - it's not as much fun to have to fill empty hay bags in the middle of night as one might think. Typically, with all the hay bags I have, I only need to fill all the hay bags once a day. In the mornings, I only just fill up any that are low/empty to help save some time so I can keep going with my day. All the horses have access to hay 24/7 as horses are "grazers" meaning they benefit greatly from having access to hay 24/7 to just keep munching. This helps to avoid scary things like colic, so making sure there is always a full hay bag in each pen is important in my book. I fill up any lower water tanks, grain, and once again just check over everyone. I also take care of my other critters and after about an hour and a half, I can go inside to get cleaned up and take my awesome hubby out for dinner.
7:30pm
After getting back home from running some errands and enjoying dinner, I do one more check before it gets completely dark (it saddens me that it is already getting dark out this early). I look over everyone again, check the fence, and look one more time for any hazardous things in the paddocks. I always like to do a check right before it gets dark to lessen the chances of having to deal with a broken fence/sick or injured horse over night. Fortunately, everything looks good, so I can go inside and clean up my house a little bit and catch up on my business paperwork (something I am absolutely horrible at actually doing) before enjoying some down time.
10:30pm
This is my first "night check" time. Most of the time, this is when I am heading to bed, but if for some reason we have gone to bed early for something, I'll still get up and check on everyone at this time. I got to go for a walk as two of the horses decided to hang out in the shed instead. Everyone looks good, so off to bed I go, ready to go back to a full day of work the next day.
Again, I've had just a few clients wonder about what I do on my days off, or quite truthfully if I even take time for myself, so I thought this would be a fun blog post to make. As you can see, my "days off" are really more for the horses than they are for me, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I already know some my clients reading this are thinking, "So do you ever truly take any time off?!" Not all my days off look like this. I have wonderful family members that are able to do chores for me if we're going out of town for the afternoon. Most of my actual vacations are planned around horse departure and arrival dates, which doesn't happen very often! "Love what you do, and you will never have to work a day in your life" has been a saying I've dedicated my life to. I'm blessed to be able to care for such amazing horses, and to have a husband who enjoys helping me so our days off can be spent together. I also blessed beyond words with AWESOME clients, without you guys, this would still be a dream!