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What a beautiful day for Horses in the morning.

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Here's your entertaining look at the horse.

World and the people in it.

I'm Julie Broadway of the American Horse Council.

And I'm Emily Stearns, health, welfare and regulatory affairs liaison for the American Horse Council.

And you are listening to the special monthly American Horse Council episode of Horses in the Morning on the Horse Radio Network for Tuesday, November 5, 2024.

Good morning, Horse World.

It's time to hear from the American Horse Council in this monthly episode of Horses in the Morning.

Thank you for tuning in.

We are very excited about today's topic on careers in the equine industry.

First, let me acknowledge I'm traveling in the car today, so this may be a little bit of a bumpy, bumpy episode, but we're going to do our best.

The American Horse Council speaks to a lot of equine science students across the country.

They range from the University of New Hampshire to Colorado State to Texas A and M, to name just a few.

Those students have a great passion for horses and are trying to navigate the transition from being a student to a young professional in the equine space.

Emily, you've had a firsthand experience with this journey.

What's your story?

Sure.

So I graduated with a bachelor's of science in Animal science with a concentration in equine science.

Shout out to University of New Hampshire out there.

And after undergrad, I went and managed a professional eventing barn for a bit because I wanted to be a professional writer and a professional trainer and a professional manager.

And during that time I got engaged to this pretty great fellow that got accepted into a program in downtown Boston.

And for those of you city dwellers, you know it's pretty hard to manage a horse farm from the city.

So I ended up taking a job at the local animal rescue that cared for not just dogs and cats, but also horses and donkeys.

And it actually is also in downtown Boston, which is pretty exciting.

So during that time, I went back to school and got my master's by research and did some adjunct teaching at a couple universities.

And then during a legal case that I was helping with for the Animal Rescue League, I ended up just happenstance in the back of a truck with a woman that worked for a large national organization saying they were looking for someone to help with research.

And that was something I really wanted to be doing.

So I applied, which led me to contracting Some research with the ASPCA Equine department, and then that all ultimately led me to the Equine Welfare Data Collective.

And you, Julie, with the American Horse Council.

And just in case anyone is wondering, I did marry that fella and we now own a farm up in New Hampshire.

Oh, that's a cool story.

Well, I think everyone who's in the horse industry has probably had a few twists and turns on the career road.

So we're excited about today's conversation.

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Episode as we explore different career paths in the horse industry.

We have brought three friends with us today to share their insight.

And again, Julie already mentioned she's on the road, you know, spreading the good word of the American Horse Council.

So you're all just stuck with me today.

Our list of panelists include Dr.

Savannah Robin, Ellen Taylor, and Dr.

Amy Burke.

And so, ladies, I would like you all to take a minute.

Ellen, you're first in my eyesight, so let's start with you.

Well, thank you for having me.

I'm very excited.

My name is Ellen Taylor and I am fourth generation in the harness horse business.

Been a racetrack bum my whole life.

But as we all do, we kind of take a twisty, turny path.

My mother and father were all trainers and drivers.

Excellent.

So, Dr.

Burke, Amy, you're next.

Great.

Again, thank you so much for having us on today.

I'm also excited.

This is my first podcast.

So thrilled to be here.

But My name is Dr.

Amy Burke.

I'm the director of the undergraduate program in the Animal and Avian Science department at the University of Maryland, and I've been here 23 years and I also serve as the coordinator for the equine program and I teach equine classes and I host extension events in the industry.

And I guess personally, I would say I'm an inventor when I have time, so thanks.

Inventors unite.

Yes.

Dr.

Robin, you're up.

Hi.

Well, again, I'm excited to be here too.

I grew up in the quarter horse industry and found myself at the University of Kentucky and doing a lot of different pieces and found a path within non formal education and formal education so came from a high school classroom.

And I'm currently in the role of a lecturer career professional development with the University of Kentucky's Equine Science and management undergraduate program.

So I help our students navigate what is the world of equine careers and I'm super passionate about this space.

So.

Great.

Well thank you all for joining us today.

So there are, you know, as we kind of think about all the options for people who are trying to get into the industry, there's a lot of, you know, educational programs, collegiate levels, Aggie schools, internships, working studentships.

We'll kind of start.

Ellen, again, you're my first in my viewpoint.

What's some advice you might have to help young professionals kind of combine their passion for horses with their skills?

What should they kind of be thinking about?

I'm neglected to say that I'm also executive director of the Harness Horse Youth foundation and have been with the organization over half my life, really close to 3/4.

But my biggest advice, my best advice would be learn how to clean stalls and work from the bottom up because it really does help in the long run.

It isn't mandatory, but I think that if you have an understanding of a horse from the stall, you can apply that whether you're going to be a media person or a social media person or in sales or.

It just seems to me that that is a very, very critical part of my kids success.

That is a great point.

Dr.

Burke, anything you want to add to that?

Yeah, when I talk to students, I think they get beaten down a little bit by the haters, if you will, that, oh, you can earn a living in the horse industry.

There are no jobs out there.

And I would say stay optimistic.

There are lots of jobs out there.

You just have to find them or you have to be in the right place at the right time and you have to network and you do have to work hard.

So I have a PhD and I still clean stalls and I actually love it because it's great exercise.

So you know, don't listen to everybody who might be in a bad mood that day.

You, you can do it.

If we all did, you can do it too.

And then I would say when I talk to employers, communication skills are such a big factor of their hiring process.

They want somebody who not only can orally communicate, they really want someone who has good writing skills.

So work on those.

And the one thing we've been trying to talk to our students about is business skills.

I Mean, you know, you can lose a lot of money in the horse industry, but if you understand basic business skill, I think that'll take you a long way to losing less money.

But seriously though, getting, you know, taking a business class or even the free classes on Coursera or edX, something like that, just to give you some skills in that, I think can very much help land you a job and help you make more money for that, you know, career.

Yeah, that's a great point, because I think something people get really scared of is they're going to come into the industry and be living off ramen and sleeping in an RV in their trainer's driveway for the rest of their life.

But there's a lot of opportunity out there to be kind of going different ways depending on how you want to apply your skills.

Dr.

Robin, anything you'd like to add?

Yeah, so, I mean, I think you all make some really excellent points here.

And one of the things that I really try to emphasize with our students is the beautiful thing about the horse industry is that it is an industry.

And so because it is, you know, we get to kind of look at it.

And a lot of our students come from the perspective being horse enthusiasts or riders or competitors.

And they may only see one or two or three different types of jobs throughout their time in that space until they get to that college age years.

And so it might be a trainer, it might be a barn manager, it might be a veterinarian.

And they don't necessarily get to see the wide variety of people and careers that are supporting this industry from multiple different spaces.

And so one of the things that I highly recommend and encourage is really thinking about their students as who they are.

You know, what are your, what is your personality type, what are the strengths that you bring to a position and opportunity, and then how can you apply that within the equine industry?

So where can you take what skills you have, what your special characteristics are, or what your gifts might be and find a place for you within this industry that allows you to support the thing that you might love the most in this, in the organizations or the people and the animal that you've been drawn to, maybe in a traditional or non traditional way, when it comes to thinking about hands on horse skills or, you know, some of the other careers that you guys mentioned in the auxiliary space.

So, and then I would always recommend too, like the next step is once, once you brainstorm that, start testing it out, you know, job shadow, as many people as you can, ask as many questions as you can Just getting yourself out there and starting to talk to people and understand what those careers are is really, really impactful.

Yeah.

That idea of kind of as we ask students to look at their individual skills and not just kind of ask themselves how they can come into the industry, but how can they bring the industry into their lives and into their interests and their hob.

It kind of goes both ways, I think, in my mind.

So for sure, talk about all of the different opportunities out there.

What are some of the non traditional careers you've seen professionals excel at?

And we'll start with someone else.

So, Dr.

Burke, let's start with you.

Okay.

I was trying to think of all the different places our students have gone and some of the cool jobs I think they've got into.

Like one of the really, I think great jobs is an extension and that might be more traditional.

But we have someone here that does equinix extension and poultry extension.

So you don't just have to like horses.

You can actually take more than one passion and wrap it into a job.

We've had people who maybe not want to work at a barn per se, but they are in soil conservation.

They love, you know, teaching other people about how to adopt environmentally friendly best management practices for their farm.

And so they work for soil conservation, they work with horse farm owners, and they help it better the horse.

But it's not like that hands on, direct job that I think a lot of people talk about about.

We've had some students go on to be events directors of the Maryland five Star, for instance, running big horse shows.

I guess that may be a lot.

I don't know what's traditional versus untraditional, but that takes a lot of business skills.

Again, not hands on with the horse, but everything they do is about the horse and about their industry.

And then you get students like go on to manage Banfield pet clinics or pet.

I guess they're like hospitals in the pet stores.

You know, earlier we mentioned I am married to the CEO of U.S.

eventing, the U.S.

eventing Association.

And that took.

That took kind of a zigzag path for him to get to.

But who would have thought, you know, you wake up one day and say, I want to run a major equestrian organization.

So those are just a few things.

I mean, whatever you love, like Savannah was talking about, whatever is your passion, you can figure out how to get it into the horse industry, whether it's directly with horses or indirectly in air conditioning, not in air conditioning.

You know, there's all kinds of types of jobs because it is such a diverse industry, and that means diverse jobs that are out there.

Yeah, it makes me think of, like, those high school career aptitude tests.

Deciding if you want to be working in air conditioning should definitely be on.

There, right inside the barn, in an office.

You know, those things you have to decide for yourself what really fits with you.

But there's that I think you can find that works with you.

Dr.

Raman, anything you'd like to add?

Yeah, I think those are excellent examples that Dr.

Burke provided there.

And I think, you know, we always joke that if our student.

If we didn't have an equine degree at UK, our students would make up maybe 40 different majors because they go in so many different spaces.

They're going to law school and thinking about what is equine law and how does that impact.

You've got students going to DC thinking about it from a policy perspective.

And I know that's really important.

When we think about advocating for the horse industry on the American Horse Council side, marketing, communications, you know, it was mentioned event planning, we're seeing an increase in equine assisted services.

So students being engaged in equine assisted services and therapies, you know, where that was, you know, eight years ago when I got to.

Or six, seven years ago when I got to uk, that was growing.

But now we're seeing a lot of our students come to that with a background from that space, or that was how they were introduced to the horse and how can we use horses to help heal people?

And then you have, you know, thinking about vet school or research.

You know, that's another space that a lot of our students think about getting into.

And I don't mean to just refer to students, but, you know, people within the industry, whether that's pharmaceutical research or biosystems and engineering and the impact on the environment.

So I think there's really all kinds of different ways and spaces that you can fill, and the opportunities are really endless.

I think that vet school point is such a good one, because even if you say, okay, I want to go to a vet school, you can be so much more than just an ambulatory equine vet that goes to someone's house and gives vaccines.

You could be a state animal health official, you could get into research, you could work for pharmaceuticals rehab.

And that's just the veterinary world.

And that diversity applies to kind of every single aspect.

Ellen, anything you'd like to add?

Yes, because I come from a racing background, I think that we haven't even touched on the racing front side.

Careers, everything from a chef to a photographer to a bugler.

There's hundreds of jobs at a racetrack, whether it be harness or thoroughbred, that often kids don't even think of.

That said, I have a very good example of a young lady that I had at camp.

She had very little horse experience and to this day I don't believe she's ever owned her own horse.

But from camp, she went through every level of our program and then she decided she wanted to work with hands on, with horses.

That's great.

She went to college, got an equine science degree, and then realized that maybe she didn't want to work quite, quite that hard.

And she became a race track, race secretary, assistant.

And from that she jumped to social media.

There's nothing more fulfilling to me than seeing a young person find their dream.

And I think that maybe as one of the older people on this panel, I believe that we can encourage new and creative jobs in social media, digital management, all those things that I really don't have an interest in, but young people thrive on it.

That is a great point.

That whole, not just social media, but marketing and communities in general is huge for the industry and there's a lot of opportunity there.

Can I piggyback off one comment there?

Yes, absolutely.

I think one of the things too that we have to encourage a lot of young people to think about is that as quickly as our industries change, as quickly as technology is changing, I think, Ellen, you did a great job representing this.

The job that they may have in five to 10 years or four to six years may not even exist yet.

I think sometimes we can get so focused on a specific job that I want to do that we miss the mark on thinking about, okay, what value am I going to bring to the industry, what space am I going to fill, what skills am I going to be able to contribute and then being able to find and maybe the job at the time that fits that skill set.

And I think that's really, really, really important as they navigate that journey.

Yes, keeping an open mind is critical.

And not being afraid to get creative and take that risk in being creative too.

I think you're gonna.

Anyone would say this.

I think in the horse industry you have to be dedicated to lifelong learning.

I know we talk about that a lot, but the horses always keep you on your toes and they're always teaching us something new and that as soon as you think you know it all, you don't with a horse.

But also I find in my own job, I'm constantly learning new software New things.

I mean, you just have to be self taught and learn.

So I think that's a good attitude to take is you're never going to know enough with horses.

Software, that's another.

We didn't even talk about software yet.

So there's app developers and horse show management software writers and contact management software writers who are all working in the equine space.

It's the industry's everywhere.

So moving on from this and we just talked about all the different ways they could be working in the industry.

Where can young professionals go to gain experience, I think is a really big question.

Dr.

Robin, let's start with you.

Yeah, so I think that it depends on, you know, people's different career paths.

Not necessarily.

I mean, I work at a higher education institution so I highly recommend university studies as a way to be able to get into the industry.

But I know that that's on everyone's path and I think that's really important that people understand that you can be within the industry and have a degree and within the industry without a degree.

And so I think it just depends on what type of career field you want to go into.

But regardless, you know, one of the first things that I ask our freshmen to think about is okay, job shadowing.

I know I mentioned that before, but you know, there's no other time in your life than the career exploration phase where you can ask somebody to follow them around for a little while or ask them a bunch of questions to kind of stalk their life where it's allowed.

And so when you get out into the real world, that's not necessarily as cool of a thing to do.

And so using that time wisely while they're young and in exploration to be able to say, hey, what does this actually look like?

And understand what that is, you know, whether that is exploring a veterinarian, you know, a lot of students will be like, yes, this is what I want to do until they spend eight hours in a clinic and realize, oh my gosh, it's not just what I thought it was.

Now I'm going to have to put this animal down and what are the realities of some of these places and positions too?

So I think that's important.

But I think taking advantage of so many different resources, following groups on social media, going to events, networking, putting yourself out there and meeting as many people as possible is really, really important.

Yeah, I agree.

And, and I think also that getting that hands on work experience, shadowing someone, I think it's important to be considering if you want to be Working for somebody or owning your own business because you could want to be a veterinarian and realize you don't want to own your own practice and have a much different lifestyle.

Working in a hospital, not being in charge of all the paperwork.

So I think the hands on experience is really good for helping people suss that part out too.

Dr.

Burke, anything you want to add?

Well, I'm not sure how old our audience is, but certainly getting involved when you're young with 4H and future farmers of America and Pony Club and there's just a lot of different horse organizations, I think that's really helpful because that's where you can network with people and they're great, you know, professional organizations that help with learning about horses.

I do like universities as well because we're an entry portal for a lot of people who never got the opportunity to work on a farm or even take riding lessons.

So it's great for me that so many people come in with no horse experience, but they have the passion and the desire to learn.

So that is an option as well.

And certainly trade schools, you know, going to get more training and being a farrier, for instance, you don't have to have a four year degree.

That's an opportunity.

And then the, the classes online, like you don't have to have a college education.

You can take Coursera for has a couple or two or three now horse classes that you can take for and learn about horse management, learn about equine welfare.

So I highly recommend those.

Extension Horse Quest is a group that has a lot of content online that you can look up and learn about horses that way.

I just think learning is such a big deal if you need the experience.

And then I'm a huge proponent for internships.

That's my last big push.

I love internships because you get into the job and you either love it or you realize I really don't like this and you get to change course.

And there's nothing wrong with changing what you think you want to do in the horse industry.

None of us, well, maybe a few of us have like this linear kind of straight line to our careers.

But I certainly did not wake up and say, oh, I want to be a professor at a land grant university.

Like certain jobs took me in the direction that I got to today.

But internships are a great way to figure out if you like something or not.

So that would be my recommendation, is to try that out.

Speaking of internships.

So Julie, is there something you want to add?

I can't help but make A plug.

The American Horse Council has a really robust internship program.

We have different opportunities every semester.

So this semester I have six interns.

They are doing a wide variety of research projects.

Some do it for course credit, some do it for the monthly stipend that we offer.

But our goal is to immerse them in what we do at the Horse Council, help them understand policy work and legislative and regulatory things.

But then they're given an assignment and they're given a mentor from the staff to help them navigate and get their project done.

At the end of the internship, they produce a white paper that tells us what their findings were, what their recommendations are.

We get to hear all about what their experience was like, and we provide them with a letter of reference so they can put that in their portfolio and it helps them get the next thing.

If I don't have an internship that works for them, I use all of our member organizations and contact AQHA or Arabians or Morgans or Saddlebreads or Aventers and say, hey, I've got this great intern.

They really want to focus on something specific and I don't have anything that sort of fits their needs.

Do you have anything?

And we've placed some great interns, believe it or not, at the Quarter Horse Museum.

We've placed one, I believe, with Ellen at Harness Horse Youth Foundation.

We placed one with the PATH International, the professional association of therapeutic horsemanship, who were looking for a social media intern.

So if you're listening and you're interested, did we got internships?

We post the positions usually a month before the semester starts.

So if you're looking for next spring semester, we'll have a laundry list out in December to say these are all the internships we're offering and you just contact us to apply and we sort of figure out how we navigate.

Unfortunately, I don't have enough internships for everybody because, Amy, I had 50 applicants for the six jobs that we had for this semester and we were like, whoa, we want them all, but we don't have enough projects for them all.

So anyway, tune into our website to hear more about that.

So back to you, Emily, and maybe.

I'll just say, if you are an equine industry and you're looking for interns, don't be afraid to reach out to us at the Horse Council and we can help shuttle some of those applications your way.

Ellen, anything you want to add?

Yes, I agree with the internships, I agree with the higher education, but we still need to have some hands on experience and volunteering or working for a local stable is invaluable, whether you're 16 or 6.

I think that there's always opportunities to maybe not make a lot of money but have at least an income to see if you like it.

And that goes from foaling attendance to racetrack grooms to even a vet clinic sometimes needs assistance.

So I just think that we keep an open mind and pursue it and you will find what you're looking for.

Volunteering is a great point and if you're trying to get hands on horse experience, I will stump for reaching out to your local animal rescue.

They often need help grooming horses, mocking stalls they will provide you training and they always are typically happy to get volunteers.

Julie, sorry to keep bothering you in the car.

Do you remember how many volunteer hours from the economic impact report the horse industry reported?

So we have 2 million jobs in the industry.

Those are full time or part time professional jobs.

We have another, I think it's 2.2 million volunteers in the industry, which I think is fairly low because I ran a horse show for many years.

I know how many volunteers it takes to do a horse show.

So when I look at that, I think, wow, that's not enough.

But yes, we are still compiling Emily a list though of all of the opportunities that are out there within the equine associations and organization space because many of them do have internships and volunteer opportunities.

I think about my friends over at Land of Lakes Purina or at Merck or some of the other groups out there that are always asking me, hey, got an up and coming young professional.

We're looking for somebody who wants to start on the ground level but is looking for a career path.

And so lots of opportunities out there.

And well, so talking about we're getting experience, we're getting education, we're meeting new people.

How important is networking in all of this or a good mentor and how does that work into writing and crafting a good resume?

What are kind of the secret ingredients or the secret recipe to kind of getting your foot in the door somewhere?

Ellen, do you want to start?

Did you say ill?

Ellen?

Yes, I think it's extremely important that you put yourself out there to introduce.

And so networking, I would say, is very, very, very, very important.

I personally don't go too much by a resume if I'm hiring because you just can't read what a person you might be able.

Oh, I think we lost Ellen there for a moment.

I was wondering if it was just me.

So you don't hear her either?

Nope.

Okay, we're gonna cut and I'm gonna restart the question.

Yeah, I think she's locked up.

She's gone.

Well, hold on there.

She's back.

I would start over.

Hey, Ellen, can you hear us?

Yes, I can.

All right, we.

You.

You locked up on us.

So I would just start over with the answer.

I think networking is extremely important, but as far as resumes, it's difficult for me to read on a piece of paper how dedicated a person is to pursuing a horse related career.

I'm not saying it's not important.

I'm just saying that for me that's the.

If I had to choose between networking, what are my theory options, A mentor or a well crafted resume, I would take it in.

Take networking as the most important.

I think that's a great point, that networking too, it's one of those things, you don't even know who has an opportunity until you start talking to people and getting to know people and spending time either volunteering or working mucking stalls or somewhere.

And that those opportunities of networking is really important to kind of understanding where doors are opening around you.

Dr.

Burke, anything you want to add?

Yeah, I also agree that networking is so important and just showing up, you know, talking to people, that's the biggest thing I always tell my students, just show up.

Just go to these events and you know, shake hands with people, introduce yourself.

It's those people might have a big break for, for them or they know someone who's looking for a person that you know or has a.

They have a.

They know someone who has a job and it matches the skills of that person.

But you know, like joining a horse organization and meeting people through that is helpful.

It's not all jobs are, it's all who you know kind of networking.

But some of them are.

We've had situations where students have gone out for one job and they, they just were out educated, they just didn't get hired.

But the person was like, hold on, can I give your resume to someone else?

And then they went interviewed at another job.

And it's kind of, you know, that network that you create that helps you land new jobs.

Yeah.

And I think I talked about my own experience in the beginning a little bit.

I ended up at the American Horse Council because I ended up in the back of a truck with the right person talking about the right things.

And she knew someone who knew someone who was looking for someone with my skills.

And just that little spiderweb of networking kind of led me down the career path I am now.

And I think that happens for a lot of people.

And showing up and starting to talk is just.

Just what gets you your foot in the door in a lot of places.

Dr.

Robin, anything you want to say?

Yeah, I mean, I really think that these three areas really build on each other.

You know, I think that networking is, to your all's point, like being able to be present and be there.

And I think that can be really intimidating for a young person just getting into the industry.

And so, you know, I think that there's this perception sometimes that the equine industry is either grew up in it and, and you grow up in it and that's there for you or not, you know, And I would say, and I would challenge that because I think that one of the cool things about our industry is that you're.

It's filled with people who are very passionate about preserving it and people who are wise enough to know that we cannot preserve it if we don't foster the engagement and passion of the next generation.

And so there's a lot of people out there being willing, that are willing to serve as mentors.

But I think one of the things is too, is that we have to teach young people how to network and to build mentorship relationships in a very genuine way.

You know, not being able to look at it as, okay, well, I'm trying to, trying to rub elbows with you, so I move up.

It's really, how do you show up to, you know, to your all's points earlier and do the hard work?

Doing the hard work and showing up is building your resume.

And so you having that depth within the resume is also having those relationships and those connections and being able to go out and meet new people and take a genuine interest in what other people are doing.

I think that's really, really important too.

And people love to be able to share their story in that background.

And I mean, we have found that.

And I'm sure it's very similar in your.

All the areas too, that people want to invest.

And you all have showed that in what you're talking about and how you mentor your interns within the American Horse Council.

It is really, really important that we foster that.

And I think that it's a space that we can do really well within the equine industry.

And so people shouldn't be intimidated by it, I guess, is what I want to say.

Even though it feels overwhelming and it can feel very scary, I think it's a good, safe place to do it.

I think that's a great point that also it's what we call that three legged stool that they all work together to kind of support your path forward in the industry.

Julie, anything you want to add?

I would just like to make a plug for telling students to leverage their career center at the university.

Some great opportunities for them to help you do a mock interview.

So you're working on your speaking skills, they'll help critique your resume, all those kinds of things.

They'll put ideas in your head for you to explore like we were talking about before, just, you know, get you out of your own headspace and out of the, you know, one particular idea.

The other thing is I'm a, I'm a perfect example of hire a career coach.

So at one point in my career I knew where I wanted to go and I didn't know how I was going to get there.

And a friend recommended a career coach to me and she and I have stayed in touch for years now and we talk periodically and she's always, to Dr.

Burke's point, she's all, I'm a continuous learner.

She's always challenging me and she's saying, where do you want to go next?

What are you thinking you want to do?

And it really helps expand my thinking.

So those are two things that I would certainly endorse because I've had personal experience with them and they've worked out really great.

That's a great suggestion.

And that's not something we hear a lot often either.

I don't think in terms of a career coach.

Definitely those of you who are at a university, use your university services.

You know, you've heard us all say now, resume isn't the most important thing, but you do need to have one.

It does need to have your name spelled correctly.

It needs to contact information correct.

And, and it needs to have your experience.

And that doesn't mean you need your entire professional history or if you've never had a full time job, that you have no experience volunteering your hobbies, your skills, your trips or work with church, whatever, that all counts as experience.

Experience isn't just paid work at your local Walmart or whatever, wherever you've been.

Emily, I'm just add one more thing.

Read the job description that you're applying for very carefully and make sure you hit those points.

Nothing me saying I'm looking for someone who pays attention to detail and then their resume comes and it has a typo in it or their cover letter is addressed to Jim Broadway instead of Julie Broadway or those kinds of things.

I was like, oops, okay, you really Weren't following here.

So just.

There's one little clue.

All right, we need to start wrapping up.

I can kind of see the clock ticking down.

So we've had a lot of really great advice, but I'd love the three of you to just go through, tell us the story of how you came to have a career in the equine industry.

So, Dr.

Burke, why don't you start?

Okay, well, I.

I think I got two copies of the horse gene.

You know, like, we don't really know if that's out there, but I just had to be around horses when I was a kid.

I just love them.

So I grew up riding and in forage and pony club.

I grew up in the suburbs of Maryland, so I begged my mom to get me lessons, and luckily she said yes.

I thought at that point, like a lot of people, you had to be veterinarian to you have a horse career.

So that's what I worked on for many years.

And after the biology degree at James Madison University, I did not get in.

And I was devastated.

And I worked hard and I got research experience and I reapplied and didn't get in again.

Oh, the devastation.

But then I realized, wait a minute, I got to change course here.

You know, maybe this isn't the right field for me.

So I actually found a great equine nutrition program at Virginia Tech, and I got my master's degree.

I actually got into vet school after my master's degree degree and decided not to go, which is strange, but by then I was like, this is the path I needed to be on.

So I got finished my PhD in equine nutrition.

We worked on a 420 acre thoroughbred breeding farm, and we raised thoroughbreds as part of our research.

So shout out to Ellen and I know a little bit about thoroughbred pedigrees and resources, and then got the job at University of Maryland as a lecturer.

Then kind of climbed my way up to get up to the professor ranks, and then, you know, recently just took over the as undergraduate program director.

But I feel lucky every day for the job I have.

And it took a lot of work to get here.

But, man, I jump out of bed at 5:30 every morning and I race to get to my job so I wouldn't change it for the world.

Well, there you go.

All right, Ellen, how'd you get where you are?

I was lucky enough to be born with horses and.

And racehorses specifically.

Of course, what we did was my mom became the first trustee of the Harness Horse Youth foundation outside the State of Ohio.

So at the age of 16 I started hanging out and going to meetings with her.

And when I was about 24 they hired me as executive director and I've been here ever since.

The reason I like the job is because every day is something new.

And I am also a lifelong learner and life like to create design plan.

You know, I guess I'm an event planner at heart, so that's how I got where I am.

Excellent.

And Dr.

Robin.

Yeah.

So when I was a kid I mentioned I grew up in the quarter horse world, but I also started in 4H and love the organization and that was such an important factor into me learning about leadership and what did that look like and how do you take a role and what is our, what is our responsibility within industries and where do we go.

And so really when I was a kid I thought I was going to be a teacher or a preacher and my mom said that I wasn't allowed to do either one of those and she wasn't going to help me pay for college.

And so I went and I was going to do ag communications and I was out in Amarillo, Texas.

I was the, my freshman year of college, I was the national youth president for aq and I remember looking at my youth advisor's wall and I didn't have much career mentor guidance.

I was a first generation college kid and I was like, I want to do her job.

Like I want to be a youth advisor.

That's what I want to do.

I love kids, I love teaching.

This will combine all the things and I love horses.

Like this will make what I want to do.

And I looked on her wall and she had an ag education degree.

And I came back to UK and changed my major to Ag Ed.

I had no idea.

Like I grew up in a city and I mean grew up on a farm, but.

And it went to an urban high school and we didn't not have FFA or agriculture education.

So somehow wound up in that degree program and it just led me down a path of education when it comes to agriculture.

And then equine.

I taught high school for a while and loved that.

I love teaching high school agriculture and I worked for a policy organization for a few years and was really very passionate about educational policy.

And then the opportunity at UK came open for me to return and being able to kind of, like I mentioned earlier, apply this that I had like building relationships, teaching, working with students and people within a space that I'm very passionate about, which was in the equine world.

So I was out of the equine industry for a while and then was able to apply those skills back within it in my current job.

And now I get to help my students figure out what their paths are and how that works for them and how to help them navigate it and not just hope one day that they can spin a wheel and find the best major or career them so and.

Keep feeding them into the industry for us.

Yep, I'm trying.

So as we close out today, what are some resources out there to help people explore their options?

Ellen, do you want to start?

Of course, but it's going to be a bit of an infomercial or plug for the Guide to Careers in Horse Racing is a publication that the Harness Horse Youth foundation and Amplify Horse Racing do together.

It is usually available for download, but we're in the process of updating the edition.

So it's not at this time, but it will be by January, hopefully.

It lists everything from chefs to frontside management to hands on careers and it is a 36 page book that gives a student at least an idea of other options.

Excellent.

Dr.

Ross.

Also, because I.

That's okay.

I also very much enjoy helping young people, so I offer somewhat of a guidance counseling service for if a kid has no idea or is very focused, I can at least try to help them navigate the system.

Excellent.

And so now before I move to Dr.

Robin, I'll say we're going to include links for all the contact information for the guests in our show notes.

So don't worry if there's anybody you want to reach out to, we'll have the contact information for them.

Dr.

Robin, anything you want to add?

I would echo that.

That resource is great.

I've actually used it myself and shared it with our students, I think, and Dr.

Burkle probably talked about this too.

But utilizing extension programs and resources at land grant universities and at colleges even again, if you don't plan to go to that university, there's still so many outreach opportunities and resources there.

That's super, super important.

Amplify is another great one that Ellen just mentioned as far as especially careers related to the racing industry.

And you know, I think our Kentucky Horse Council has a really great resource as well of just what different types of jobs are being posted in and around Kentucky.

And sometimes that's helpful too.

You know, I encourage our students to go on and search those job engines and use the word equine or horse and see what comes up because you never really know what might be out there.

And so just Kind of browsing through to see what might exist for you.

Yes.

Excellent points, Dr.

Burke.

Anything else?

I would agree.

I mean the Internet has so many things.

So when you're doing a search on the Internet, put in careers courses.

I like to put PDF so it's some sort of document and then knowing it's a trusted source.

So universities are trusted sources.

Extended extension veterinarians sometimes have some career resources that organizations a lot of times have career resources.

So just make sure it's a trusted source when you look for those.

There are books on equine careers but they're so old now because the technology just gets put all, you know, all the documents now get put online.

There are some career websites that you can find that are great.

Even I, I'm not a plug for this but like indeed.com, i find horse jobs all the time from myself, students.

When I'm bored, I just search in the dot com and look for horse jobs, yard and groom equivalent.

There's a lot of different search engines so they're out there.

You just got to look for them.

And then just the networking, you know, trying to have somebody hear about a job and you get hooked up that way.

But there's just a lot more resources now than there ever was.

So you have to sort through some of the, some of the junk per se.

But you'll find it.

Yes, yes.

Lots of information, almost information overload if you don't have a filter for yourself.

And I'll take a second and stump again for the association.

So you mentioned the veterinarians.

There's the aaep, the American association of Equine Practitioners.

We have the American Horse Council.

We have so many breed and discipline associations you could keep an eye on.

Usca, US eventing for jobs with them.

Usdf, usf, aqh, American Youth Horse Council too.

American Youth Horse Council, Jockey Club, Standard Bread Association, Standard Bread Transition Alliance.

If you're looking into getting into aftercare, all of those kind of Alphabet soups of associations, there's one out there for kind of the direction you're thinking of going.

So I want to thank you all for your time today.

Julie, any closing remarks you want to add from the road?

No, I want to thank the panel so much.

As I said in the opening remarks, we speak at a lot of universities to students about careers in the space, encouraging them to pursue a career in this space.

We really want those innovative young people to come into the space.

We need the leaders of tomorrow.

So we really trying to cultivate that.

And it always amazes me when I say to them, just get creative.

If you're passionate about horses and you happen to have an aptitude for sewing, you could become a world class clothier, you know, and sell outfits.

You could become a videographer, you could become an announcer.

There's just so many ways to take your passion for horses and put it with something you like to do and it turns into a career.

So you just never know.

I am sure there's someone out there that is a professional bedazzler for western shirts and jeans and saddles.

There's something for everybody.

So thank you all again and and like I said, I'll put all of our contact information so that way anybody interested in getting in the industry knows where to find us.

Thank you all.

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Since today's election Day, I can't believe we're finally there.

Our update isn't so much about a particular piece of legislation as it's about making sure you know about the American Horse Council's Congressional Scorecard, especially if you're just now headed off to the polls.

The Congressional Scorecard rewards points to members of Congress who have supported priority legislation that's important to the equine industry.

The impact of horses and the equine industry is evident in the various legislative bills that we follow at the American Horse Council and that we score.

Although horses are livestock and full members of the agricultural sector, they are also our partners in recreation, therapeutic, heat healing, rehabilitation, transportation, law enforcement, rescue efforts, and all kinds of other things.

And we especially want to shout out to those guys that helped during the recent Hurricane Helene in all kinds of equestrian sports.

The broad and versatile roles that horses play in our society is why the American Horse Council engages in relevant legislation addressing animal welfare, rural concerns, taxes, education, health care, job creation, and so much more.

So you can visit our website to see the full list of rankings and we really hope you'll get out and vote, but the top three on the Senate side were Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator John Arco, and Shelley Moore Capito.

On the House side, the top three ranking were Representative Don Bacon, Representative Jimmy Panetta, and Representative Andy Barr.

But there's a full list and they're all there for you to go see and check out if they're good supporters for the equine and industry.

Thank you for joining us today.

We'll provide more numbers and links in our show notes.

We invite you to support our beloved industry and join the American Horse Council and get a free subscription to our monthly newsletter which shares the latest in all the legislative happenings, federal and state, as well as more information that horse owners like you really need to know.

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And for all of those who are looking for a career in our industry, thanks for joining us.

SA.