Ever since I can remember, I had a thirst for knowledge when it came to horses. I was the kid at school who would only read horse books. I had one called the ‘Encyclopedia of Horses’ that was so heavy I could barely pick it up, but I read it cover to cover so many times the edges became ragged. As I grew older and moved within the industry, I became aware that there was very mixed level of knowledge within it. There was almost a culture of ‘gatekeeping’ knowledge, and I identified that there was essentially a cycle which existed whereby if you didn’t have a specific set of experiences you couldn’t gain knowledge, or if you didn’t have those experiences, the knowledge you did have counted for less.
Over the years, I had often wondered how to break that cycle: to share knowledge more widely, empower people to learn in a meaningful way, and use that to support access to employment opportunities.
The concept for EQUK was born in part from a visit to Piggy March’s yard in February 2023 where I heard her speak about using Piggy TV as a means to help more people by creating an online platform to share knowledge. Based on what I knew of the horse world, I knew there was a need for a service like EQUK, and so I set about learning how to make it a reality.
April 2023: Ebony Horse Club Visit
I began by reaching out to various yards and organisations that offer equine assisted therapy and diverse riding experiences, and who are already well established in the equestrian third sector.
In April 2023, I met with Yard Manager Beatrice, and Programmes Manager Char to discuss the needs of the young people at Ebony and how they could benefit from a resource like EQUK. We were all in agreement with regards to the challenges and barriers that we knew existed within the horse industry: the primary ones being finance and access.
The concept of ‘access’ encapsulates many things: a currently unclear link between education and employability, the weighting of practical experience vs education, and an understanding of what it is potential employers want from staff. These themes run throughout all of the research I carried out.
Ebony’s young people experience particular barriers associated with their geographic location (inner city living means they only have limited access to equestrian opportunities and so do not see the wider context of the industry throughout the rest of the country), and many use the skills they learn at Ebony as transferrable into professions completely unrelated to horses, despite perhaps wanting to work with horses, because physical access to other equestrian education or employment is not possible.
Another issue which came up in conversation was a lack of equestrian specific careers guidance. Whilst it’s easy to know what ‘obvious’ horse jobs exist (e.g. groom, instructor, farrier) there is a plethora of others that exist which both directly and indirectly involve equestrian skills, and it was felt industry specific knowledge was needed to create a resource and support network that empowers individual to find their best fit within the industry.
From a practical perspective, we identified a few key take-aways that would come to underpin how EQUK would function:
- A directory of opportunities would make it easier to see what is out there, a trusted ‘one stop shop’ for the whole industry means that opportunities are not gate-kept by the need to know the right person or be in the right place at the right time.
- Workshops, interviews and direct CV/cover letter/application support that is industry specific would help empower young people who may otherwise lack confidence to apply for opportunities, but possess the knowledge and skills to succeed, find a means to articulate this in a manner that results in a positive destination.
- Ensuring that the resource is modern in its look and feel is important: being slick, easy to use, and easy to understand.
Ebony was the first piece of market research I carried out, but the themes and ideas which arose from those initial conversations would come up again and again throughout the other yards and organisations I would later visit.
June 2023: Edinburgh Equilearn Sample Day
Edinburgh Equilearn is a ‘equine assisted youth support service’ which takes young people with additional support needs such as autism, anxiety and ADHD and creates a constructive and education environment focused on riding and looking after the horses.
In June 2023 I visited them to carry out a sample career’s day about working as an Equine Massage Therapist, which allowed me to work with their young people in a manner similar to how EQUK could function: finding out what kinds of things they wanted to know about being a professional within the horse industry, the concerns they had, and how they saw their place within the sector.
Their founder Jaymee discussed with me how she felt that the young people at Edinburgh Equilearn could benefit from EQUK in the following ways:
- Support navigating the application process for various qualifications and jobs
- Financial support buying equipment which is needed for equestrian jobs and qualifications but is not covered by traditional student loans and bursaries.
- Help identifying opportunities that are within Scotland, as these are less plentiful than they are in England.
The group of young people I worked with were aged between 11 and 16 and all had very different backgrounds and levels of experience. They experienced social anxiety, and some had ASD and/or ADHD.
Some quotes from them were very telling about the barriers they perceived as existing for them:
·“Before I came here, I didn’t think someone like me could afford to be around horses, so I didn’t feel like I belonged.”
This same young person spoke to me about how she didn’t feel engaged at school in a traditional educational environment but loved working with horses, so she now felt inclined towards working within the equestrian industry.
- This highlights how financial barriers prevent engagement and also disenfranchises and disempowers those who would otherwise be passionate about a career working with horses.
Another conversation I had was with a young person who was currently on an equestrian course at college that she had started after working with Equilearn. She said that:
“I feel as though I don’t fit in with the others on my course sometimes because they’ve got more/different riding experience to me, I feel less than them… Sometimes because of the clothes that I wear.”
- This ties back to the point Jaymee made with regard to ensuring that young people who come from riding groups such as Equilearn into equestrian educational environments need to have the appropriate equipment to feel empowered to succeed.
It also highlights the importance of ensuring young people who come from under-represented backgrounds within the equestrian industry have the tools and support for themselves personally and individually to allow them to acclimatise to an environment they do not initially identify with or feel as though they belong, to prevent them from feeling ‘othered’ and consequently disengage.
Key Themes, Findings and Action Points
Edinburgh Equilearn highlighted the same themes as Ebony in terms of the barriers experienced to engagement: the importance of a feeling of belonging, the impact of financial barriers and geographical challenges. During this time period, I also had conversations with individuals who worked at riding schools and racing yards, which provided a wider context for what I discovered.
I identified that EQUK needed to develop a network of opportunities and also provide a service which makes these opportunities accessible.
Belonging is a factor which should not be undermined when considering what encourages an individual to go into or stay in an environment. Young people at both Ebony and Equilearn highlighted the importance of this feeling when choosing where and what they want to participate in.
From the perspective of EQUK, this means that it must support learners in feeling as though they belong in the equestrian industry to facilitate them to seek employment. Looking at it from a student recruitment and conversion perspective, this means demonstrating that universities and colleges are inclusive and welcoming and helping them to create an environment that appeals to learners from more diverse backgrounds. This has to go beyond tokenistic imagery choice, and be tangible through communication and language used.
Finance is obviously a huge factor in the equestrian industry. In the context of equestrian sport and learning, it is not simply a question of tuition fees and living costs, there are extra costs associated: equipment, riding lessons, and livery costs for staff who have their own horses all play a role in informing where learners and staff choose to go. Traditional student loans and bursaries often do not accommodate these additional costs which make equestrian education and employment less accessible due to it having additional costs that are often not optional whilst simultaneously being viewed as non-essential.
Part of the EQUK service we can offer now is to connect learners to financial support available to them, e.g. through their local authority or other funding bodies. However, EQUK aims to develop a bursary support system for learners who come from backgrounds traditionally under-represented in the industry.
Geography and travel practicalities are another influencing factor to engagement. Young people and adults who have inner city lives but are interested in working with horses will struggle to get the experience and practical, industry specific knowledge they would need to succeed, which is why organisations like Ebony Horse Club are so important in building bridges. Geography is also a challenge in rural areas, where young people in particular may rely on their parents to get them to yards that are not accessible by public transport. Many yards may not be on bus routes, those bus routes may be unreliable, and getting a taxi is a financial barrier.
Once established, an aim for EQUK is to provide support with travel costs, and help to build bridges between opportunities currently either side of the geographic barriers.
What next?
Having established there was a need for the service I was looking to create from the prospective of the learners looking to access equestrian education and opportunities, this in itself provided evidence these are barriers which overcoming helps universities and colleges. There is not a shortage of passion, energy or drive, but there are many invisible hurdles learners have to overcome. Where there is already a sense of a lack of belonging, finding solutions to overcoming these practical barriers can feel insurmountable. Providing access to information in a digestible way provides the first step, but EQUK can go much further to meet the needs of both the equine industry and its people.
Although these two focused sessions where fascinating and engaging to conduct, I knew that I needed to better understand the needs in a broader and therefore more widely generalisable way to the whole population. Thankfully, equestrian social media had a lot to say on the topic…