Horse trainer

Horse trainers train horses for racing, riding, show or work. This involves exercising them, feeding them and talking to them, to get them used to human contact. In horse racing, a trainer prepares a horse for races, with responsibility for exercising it, getting it race-ready and determining which races it should enter. Leading horse trainers can earn a great deal of money from a percentage of the winnings that they charge the owner for training the horse.

Outside horse racing, most trainers specialize in a certain equestrianism discipline, such as show jumping, reining, rodeo, sport horse disciplines, training of a specific horse breed, starting young horses, or working with problem horses. There are a wide variety of horse training methods used to teach the horse to do the things humans want them to do. Some fields can be very lucrative, usually depending on the value of the horses once trained or prize money available in competition. However, as a rule, most horse trainers earn, at best, a modest income which often requires supplementation from a second job or additional horse-related business, such as horse boarding or riding lessons.

See also

• List of race horse trainers
• Horse training
• Horse racing