I am contemplating on getting into showing on a small scale. My main source of income has been through breeding which has been fine and good. However I would like to have a second way of earning money to supplement things.

I have already looked through different guides and threads that have been very helpful. But there are some specific questions I would like to ask. 😊

1. If I keep things small by owning and showing 5 - 10 geldings, will I get a decent profit? Or would I have to keep a big gelding army to earn anything? Note, I would be happy with something as low as 10k earnings per week.

2. Is showing very time-consuming? In RL I don't have a whole lot of spare time, from work and all. So I wouldn't be able to commit to hours each day sorting through horses, training and showing.

3. Is it a huge money-drain to train and show before I can earn any profits? I would prefer to keep spending to a minimum, and be able to continue my breeding operation.

4. Would it be better time-wise and/or financially to use a barn manager, or simply show the horses myself?

5. Lastly, what would be the best level training to start off with?

1. No. You would need a substantial amount of geldings. If you only have 5-10 and they level up, then you have nothing. Then no income.

2. Not really. Once a week it will take me longer to enter (entering horses that could be ready to shows). If I'm just entering horses in the green maybe 20 minutes if I dont stray lol.

3. Gotta spend to make money, eh? But if you get a big enough string you could look at 200k profit from that alone. You might have money held up for the night, but its nothing too bad.

4. If you absolutely have to it is an option. I find it better to hand enter, she sometimes enters horses that arent ready. But something is better than nothing, right?

5. I think leveled 3-6 are good.

1. 5-10 geldings is going to make you nothing. I'd recommend at least 50. One of my account has 100 geldings and does not make very big profit, so the more the merrier. I currently have 1000+ geldings on this account and am getting by with them.

2. The more geldings, the more time consuming. Once you learn how to show you can get through barns pretty fast, but I find that it takes at least an hour and a half each Monday to go through and show boys, but after that with easy show enter on Tuesdays and Wednesday's it takes no longer than 10 minutes.

3. As long as you're only showing boys that are in the money, you should not be losing money at any point.

4. Barn manager for the win. Lots of people hate her for whatever reason but I use her for the full 200 geldings she can take and she makes just as much as I make showing myself.

5. I'd recommend boys at levels 2-5 to start with, a they're on the cheaper end of the spectrum and will stick around for a while before hey become schoolmasters, since schoolmasters can't show

Okay, thank you so much for the answers. This is all a huge help! This showing thing is looking a lot more clearer now 😁

HEE myth 1. You need about a thousand geldings to make a "decent" profit. I keep the number of horses under 200, that way I also qualify for the Small Stable category on the LB.

HEE myth 2. You only need geldings to make said profit. I show mares, stallions and geldings. I make a decent profit.

Actually, I quite agree with this. I have less than 900 horses total and I show *everything*. Yes, mares and stallions take longer to train up - but if I'm paying for riders and feed them suckers gonna earn it LOL.

It's not needed to have a million horses, especially if you arent searching for huge profits.

I hand enter everything and mondays it usually takes me ~1 hour, which I'd say is pretty time consuming. After that, it's super easy to just use the tab button and enter the green placings.

I'll definitely be keeping this in mind. It would be nice to save on feeding costs, riders, and barn space as well by using some of the horses I already have. Also would save a bit on the cost of having to buy the entire amount of 50 - 200 new horses. At the moment, I have 108 mares and stallions...

The amount of show horses you need depends on your spendings. I have a small side account doing SD breeding. In SD the breeding fees are very small, so 100 show horses is more than enough to pay for that. I show every horse, I need to train mares and stallions anyway to track their training, I might as well show them too.

I probably spend about 100k - 300k (give or take a little) per month through breeding and buying new breeding stock. And I usually earn back money selling off horses and straws. Though I haven't calculated the numbers thoroughly. I should start doing that- keep better track of how much money goes out and comes in.

Here is a new question; what would earn the best profit, SD showing, or AD (eventing)? I will be keep training my breeding stock in all disciplines. Would it affect cost, showing, time, etc if I'm showing AD mares and stallions along with SD geldings, or would it be better to keep everyone on the same discipline?