Newsdate: Tue 09 February 2016 – 6:45 am
Location: SAN DIEGO, California

Each year, Equestrian Professional, the business site for professional horse owners surveys horse professionals to get information related to the state of their horse business. This horse business survey is shared at the annual Rethinking the Horse Business Webinar.

Survey on conditions of professional equestrians

This yearly survey enables Equestrian Professionals to provide an inside look of how horse professionals from a wide variety of breeds and disciplines are faring under present economic conditions.

According to a news release from Equestrian Professional, "We then crunch the data, put together charts, and compare the results of the current year to past results. This survey enables us to provide you with an inside look of how horse professionals from a wide variety of breeds and disciplines are faring.

Here are some of the most interesting results we are seeing at first glance:

1. While we definitely want to see more survey results before we consider this to be truly analogous data, we have seen a rather remarkable turn around in horse professionals reporting a profit rather than a loss.  Last year, 41.24% reported their business operated at a loss in 2014. This year, only 24.59% reported a loss for 2015. Here is a chart showing the numbers we have collected, so far.
2. This year, in the comments section regarding the biggest challenges the horse professional was facing, we saw an interesting shift. Many of the comments revolved around the challenge of financing or completing capitol improvements. For example: Building new paddocks, barns or arenas.  Even though some of the horse business owners were struggling with getting financing, we view an increase in capitol improvements as a positive indicator of growth.
    
3. Another interesting trend is the number of horse professionals who reported challenges in finding school horses and resale horses. While we recognize that this is a significant challenge, it is a refreshing change over past years when the prevailing challenge around the topic of horses was the flood of unwanted or abandoned horses.
    
4. We'll finish this preview with a comment from the “Insights and Observations” section of the survey - “Work harder, advertise more, network, raise your prices accordingly, don't let anyone pay late more than once.”  While I'm not sure some of us can work any harder than we already are, I'd echo the other three in a heartbeat."

This is only the tip of the information iceberg that this year's survey is providing. They have over 155 responses so far and the goal is to hit at least 800 survey responses. Last year, they had nearly 1000 survey participants by the day of the webinar.