Pegasus Podcast
@thepegasusapp https://www.thepegasus.app/🐴 Conversations with the movers and shakers of the global equestrian industry. Hosted by Pegasus founders Sam Baynes and Jen Tankel.
Pegasus Podcast
Our First-Ever Compilation Podcast
To kick off 2024 in the best way imaginable, we are releasing our first-ever compilation episode of The Pegasus Podcast.
Rather than giving you a new interview, we took some of the best moments from episodes of the podcast in 2023 and mixed them in one batch.
If you’d like to skip to your favorite parts, use the timeline below to see how this episode is mapped out.
- 0:38 - 6:18: Claire Williams, the Executive Director of the British Equestrian Trade Association, on why it’s so hard to enter the U.S. market.
- 6:19 - 13:41: Courtney Carson, former Olympic groom and cofounder of the International Grooms Association, tells us about what it’s like to be in her shoes.
- 13:42 - 28:33: The challenges the Western world is facing, featuring Brian Dygert and Jody Brainard of The Cowboy Office Podcast.
- 28:34 - 39:45: Andrea Knowles, the founder of Equine Residences, tells Sam and Jen why equestrian facilities should have more non-horse activities, among other topics.
- 39:46 - end: Jill Henneberg, the youngest American eventer in Olympic history, on her journey making it to the Olympics. (Pardon the occasional glitches toward the end.)
Before you listen to this episode, we wanted to let you know that as of February 1st, 2024, we will exclusively publish The Oxer by Pegasus on LinkedIn. The majority of our subscribers exist on that platform, so it only makes sense to keep it all in one place.
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Hi everyone. My name is Noah Levy and I'm the producer of our Pegasus podcast hosted by our founders, Sam Baines and Jen Tinkle. To celebrate a full year of Equestrian Insights, we compiled some of the best moments from Pegasus podcast episodes from the year 2023. The first clip we are playing for you comes from our podcast with Claire Williams, the executive director of the British Equestrian Trade Association. All right, let's get into it.
Track 1:do you have clients that come to you that are like, we started in Europe, the majority of our business is in Europe, but we wanna expand to the US market because it is, one-third of the global market. and have you noticed any patterns or anything interesting about how European equestrian businesses think about the American market and how they assess it as an opportunity versus a risk?
Claire Williams:Yeah, I think a lot of people desperately wanna get into it because of its size. and that's sometimes a risk.'cause we always say, the you know, the US market is not one market, it's 50. and'cause every state has its own, especially in some of the product sectors, like in feed, it's really complicated. And so quite young companies always say, we wanna get into the American market. And we'll say, just think about your own market. Make certain you've got you, know, you've got a good domestic market. Then maybe look at Europe and then go further afield. Because it's too easy to do, too much too soon. And that's why some of our, bigger members, they've actually, the way they've got into the US market is by establishing offices there. And so they get that base and then grow from there because because it is, and, you know, some companies, they've only really managed to succeed by having that base in the States. It's, it's a really difficult, otherwise, here you can quite successfully. Be a British company and export into Europe without necessarily having to have the office there. Same the other way. Europeans coming into the uk. But I also suppose that's why when we were looking at the export side, both for us and for our, some of our other members, that's where we started to do some of the consumer shows.
Track 1:You made the comment before that when you were advising, um, companies that wanted to move into the American markets to basically secure their foothold in Britain and then go to Europe and then go to America. when we think about the equestrian market in Europe, we see, a patchwork of different, smaller countries with smaller economies and each and inside every single country there is, key stakeholders who have their, they policies, they have their politics, they have their business relationships, everything. So as an outsider who's like, well, I'm gonna go into Europe, I've gotta basically go in and fight into every single market, one country at a time, it seems like quite a daunting, reality. But what you are saying is, is that you actually find that it's actually relatively easier to go into Europe for a British company than to go into America.
Claire Williams:I think it depends on what you're selling, but the American market is such a big market. You've still gotta find somebody and the chances of finding one person to look after the whole of the US market, Is a real challenge, is a real challenge. There are a few nationwide distributors or you try and go direct and use one of, the buying groups that exist or you target somebody like Dover that you go for a key retailer. So you could do that in the continent. You could go to somebody like Kramer or Loesdau in Germany or, one of the big chains in Germany, RIF Eisen, who who have lots and lots of stores. so yeah, you, you're right, you've got a potentially do, oh, meaning 25, than one. But I know and have seen the effort. It has taken people to find one in the states, which is the real challenge. And they can never find one. They always have to, a bit like Europe, find more than one and, and I'm generalizing'cause it really does depend on the product.
Track 1:sure. But that imply that. the distribution infrastructure in Europe, despite the fact that it is more fragmented from country to country, in many ways, is more professionalized and more mature, that just makes the whole process a lot more seamless than in the us
Claire Williams:I don't know. I think it's because every country maybe has a leading brand or a leading distributor and then that tends to become the focus. Or there's a major retailer so you can chip at it a bit easier than you might be. You know, you can You can chip away at it. So you can tick them off. And I've got members who, know, they've got a distributor in France, tick, they've got a really good distributor in Holland. Tick, they've found a really good retail customer in Germany. Tick. So they're eating into those markets sort of in a more bite-sized way than America is just such a daunting prospect for so many, you know, where do you start?
Track 1:interesting in the sense of like for, so for us as Americans, you know, and we have lots of friends who have started their own us as Americans, us Americans, yes. We have lots of friends here who have started like, you know, their own boutique equestrian brands and products and interesting. It is just a mindset like,'cause you're right, like they all face the same problem, which is how do you allocate your time and resources to get mass distribution? And it's hard because it is such a big market, but because they just live here and that's just their reality. They don't find it daunting. They just find it the way you do things. Well and there's just certain hubs. Yeah. And there's obviously big shows, so you kind of know where to focus your attention
Claire Williams:yeah. Because I mean, in shows in America, you've got the equine affairs. and then you've got the various, you've got, you know, Wellington and you've got the other centers, Tryon, but then
Track 1:Um,
Claire Williams:Yeah,
Track 1:thermal Aiken, you know, you could go up to Virginia, so it's, depending on what you're selling, it's kind of easy to at least be like, okay, I'm gonna focus on these regions and these shows
Claire Williams:But,
Track 1:from there. But
Claire Williams:but you are there as well, so it's easier for you to access them rather than having to fly the pond every time you wanna do one.
Next up we have Courtney Carson, former Olympic groom and co founder of the International Grooms Association, telling us about what it's like to be in her shoes.
Track 1:What can the industry do better to make it so that people aren't burnt out? Because for you with the military, it was, a certain amount of time you knew you were gonna get in, you knew you were gonna go do other things. Me as a working student, it was a working student summer. I knew there was a start end time. But for grooms where we want it to be a sustainable career and have opportunities to move up, like what are some of the things that maybe, the industry should think about to encourage more people to come into it and make it a more sustainable career, where people aren't doing this for a summer or a couple of years and are like, okay, get me out. I wanna go to the corporate world because at least I can be in air conditioning and not have to sleep in a cot in the back of a trailer every day.
Courtney Carson:Yeah. No. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's just, it's so funny. I'm just like thinking of all the different, little stories that I have about things like that. I really think a big shift that we could have in horse sport is having a groom and an assistant groom, like properly two head people or having a proper show groom that goes on the road and then somebody that stays at home. Because that was the biggest thing that I ran into and a lot of my friends have run into is, when you're on that daily grind of horse show horse show horse show for six weeks, like you come home and whether you have 24 hours at home or two days at home, if it's only one head groom, then you don't get a day off between those days. And even if like your boss is oh, you can take it, you can take it. Well no I can't because. I have a bunch of teenagers working for me as working students, which you can have great working students, but their job is to feed the horses, clean the stalls, basically keep them alive on the days that myself or my boss isn't there. I need someone who I know can take a look at the board and go, okay, these five horses went to this horse show. These five horses are going next weekend. This tack overlaps with the two, but you're going to need this to come out of the trailer and this to go in so that I could take a day to mentally check out. Because even if you're given a day off, most grooms won't take it because they would rather go back in and put their hands physically on things themselves and also not put that responsibility on a working student to make sure the correct stuff gets packed in the trailer for the next
Track 1:Sure. So, so, so are you saying that right now? There aren't there aren't assistant grooms or it's, something that you only see at very top end, barns but you are saying it should become something that's widespread.
Courtney Carson:Yeah, it would be, like McLean's program is set up quite well. He's got three grooms that will travel with him because he's in Europe and then he is at Spruce and then he is in New York. And he has to have three or four people that he can trust or that, I would say Virginia is his head girl at this point. Like his top, top girl right below Lee McKeever, who's been with McLean for 20 years. they know that those other two or three people right below them can pack whatever and take for that horse that they need. Will Fadrer's got a really good situation. Christina goes on the road with him and then Nat, who used to be a traveling show groom now just stays at home. She said, I don't wanna be on the road. I wanna have a bit more stability. And she runs the farm at home, especially when they're gone. So his horses are body clipped, their manes are pulled, they're trimmed up. everything that horse needs is sitting there ready to go for when they pull in. They can pull out the equipment from the horses that have been on the road, put the equipment in for the next horses. And Christina knows that if Nat has packed it, it is set.
Track 1:Right.
Courtney Carson:I did not have that luxury. I had a good girl that kind of kept things in line at home, but she was riding and facilities managing and still having to, you know, coordinate all the moving parts at home. So she didn't really have the time to become that person for me. Um, and with the amount that we were on the road, we actually needed two people that could go on the roads that we could trade off and even have just a chance to do our own laundry
Track 1:Yeah. Right,
Courtney Carson:the number of days that I was doing my own personal laundry in the barn washing machine because I wasn't gonna be home for enough hours to do it at home is kind of sad to think about
Track 1:What's, what's the limitation? Is the limitation money? there just isn't enough money to go around to be able to afford, someone to put in that professional role, or is the limitation finding people who can make that commitment?
Courtney Carson:I think it's a bit of both, and I think it's too, the programs that you see that are really successful with this are riders that have either worked in the corporate world themselves at some point, or they come from families that. Have business in the corporate world, which is then where their money's from most likely. because they've had someone advising them of how to run this business, how to structure healthcare and time off and holidays and pay raises and things like that. so many people in the horse world, it's oh how'd you get into riding? Oh, I rode as a kid and then I went to be a working student and then I met some clients. So I started renting four stalls from somebody else that had four stalls available. And I started just running this business. And you're never taught how to actually do the business side of it and especially here in the us. Like most people don't even go to college then that end up in these positions. And I'm not gonna sit here and tell anyone that they should go to college or have to go to college. But I would say if you think that you want to run an equestrian business, go take a couple of business classes. And learn how to, structure that as a small business. And also too, it's looking at the number of horses in your program compared to the number of staff members you have. Just because your horses can get fed watered ridden every day with three staff members doesn't necessarily mean that you are adequately staffed for the number of horses in your program. I would like to say that maximum it's eight horses per employee because you figure it's probably about an hour's worth of work per horse a day. And so if you have, eight horses to one person, you have two extra hours in there for if something goes wrong, to pack a trailer, to set a jump course to cover. If one of your employees has the day off or is sick, or to body clip, obviously if you could have an extra employee to help fill those gaps a little bit as well, but, programs running with 40, 50 horses with five people, and that's just, you can't even take care of the horses in that sense,
Now let's listen to the challenges the Western world is facing, featuring Brian Diger and Jodi Brainhardt of the Cowboy Office podcast.
Track 1:this comes back right to the point we're talking about, which is the health of, horse shows and the competition infrastructure. So if there's been an uptick in interest and there's been an uptick of, economics, how is it possible? That you had this opinion that it's been an major uptick in economics in the industry, but simultaneously horse shows are limping along and not doing very well. Does that tell us a little bit about the fact of like, there's been this huge growth in interest and there's this huge growth in brands that wanna be associated with and sponsorship deals that all wanna get done, but the infrastructure hasn't really been there to capture all that extra interest in terms of getting people physically into the sport and competing in events and buying stores at events and all that sort of stuff.
Brian Dygert:My answer would be yes. You're a hundred percent correct. It's easy to increase money circulating in any given activity if you have it, and that's what we're seeing. So how does the economics in the cowboy sports increase by offering advanced purse money? Where does that purse money come from? You have to look at that. And where does the purse money for all the professional sports come from? Well, fundamentally the answer to that is from fan consumption. And a lot of that, in today's time, fan consumption is coming from broadcasting rights. Where does a lot of the money come from? That is paying professionals that go down to million dollar contracts. I don't care what sport you're talking about, it's fundamentally coming from the outside fan consumption into the industry, which makes an industry create wealth. We're not there yet. None of us are. That's part of my identity crisis part because are we at the beginning of that and starting to look at how that figures? I would tell you the American Rodeo and American Performance Horseman, that just happened in Arlington, the run for the million that they created in Vegas. Started with Raining now has raining cow horse and this year will have cutting, which is Taylor Sheridan's creation, which he's the creator of Yellowstone. What has he done? Taken a lot of those resources from creating a great entertainment movie and applied them into real things. That's what he's doing. Which is great. Are those events making net profits? I would question that yet, but they are, they're probably close to it. And so that's the beginning of what you're seeing. Can they Probably. And then how do you begin to scale that down the industry? That's where we're, that's where we are, but we're at the beginning as an industry.
Jen:Do you think show jumping has a place there in the run for the million? it's already incorporating these other disciplines in the, in the cowboy world, but could we see some English disciplines that are, in arenas and more interesting, exciting, kind of slipped their way in there as well in the future?
Brian Dygert:The answer's yes. are there many advanced disciplines that at the top end would be spectator friendly? I can make dressage spectator friendly. I can not 20 of them. But I can make some of them because it's about, and here's the answer. The answer to your question in my view is absolutely yes. Horse sports can be exciting to an audience. They're not yet because we don't present them to an audience. So the audience is not engaged. When Jodi talked about they gotta be crazy steeplechase, you can have an semblance to running, you know, on a almost bareback horse at 35 to 38 miles an hour. Yes, that's pretty wild and crazy. What do we have that they don't have? The emotional bond between horse and rider. What we gotta do is present that to an audience and endurance is pretty cool. Endurance has the hurdles that golf had, and I would tell you golf is the best study for cross country and endurance. Which is, how do you take the highlights to it and present it to an audience? And there's the goal.
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Jody:I think just to add to that very quickly, Brian said something really important when he talked about numbers. And that's tremendously important because if you think about what the American did with five Rainers and five cutters and five cow horses, and the run for a million is 15 head, you know, we're used to seeing these massive classes and shows with 150 in it, and you're like, oh my gosh. If you're even an, an official at it, you're praying that it gets over soon because you're exhausted after 15 hours worth of work. But five head, 10 head, like a two hour show of the best. Everybody can watch that. Uh, to answer your question, Jen, jumping, I mean, when I was young, we used to love to go to the world show and watch the jumping finals, especially when they put those last horses on the clock. That's something that everyone could understand, and it was exciting as heck because whoever got over'em the fastest without knocking one down one, and that was fun to watch them mean the Coliseum would be full.
Jen:also being able to have sounds like a combination of you want the best, you want it to be, a shorter duration, but I suppose that kind of calls into question, if you will. What about these events like the, wefts, the, thermals, these long series where it's really a long endurance game for the riders and the family that are coming to support it. It's not something that a spectator is gonna wanna necessarily camp out on a Wednesday and watch, right? So is it just one of those things that the industry might just have to accept, where if you're gonna come and you're an adult amateur and you're riding, you're just going to, simply go and compete amongst your crowd. And it's not necessarily gonna bring in the spectators, but as long as we're putting on these events that does connect the equestrian world with the outside world, that's the best we can do. And that's what we can do to attract outside brands to our equestrian industry.
Brian Dygert:The simple answer is yes. That's the identity crisis. I would tell you what you talked about is, Can those circuits, tournaments, call'em whatever you want. But those are large circuits in the horse world. We have'em too. What they're doing is trying to put on the best horse show to attract the most exhibitors, which are exhibitor based. That's fine. All sports have it. That's fine. Let'em Does that, do those circuits have to put on Grand Prix stuff and all the rest of that? No. Do they have to attract an audience? No. Are they self-sustainable? Yes. Can you make money with them? Yes. What do you have to do? Be business smart, which is keep your liabilities down. And now in our world, we means I could put on a large stock horse circuit, but the added money is gonna come way down. If I wanna make money, make money and provide a service for the, for the exhibitor. And those exhibitors are actually going through the trials of developing skills. Could we, as an industry, and you got all of'em from officials to show management to all the rest of that stuff. If we were smarter as an industry, we would be using those as very chronological steps in the industry. And everybody should be getting paid well for their services. And away you go, should today's time have gatekeepers that are making 75 or$85 a day to open and close the gate and make sure that the entry's going through it balanced to the, no, that's like obscene, but it's because we've been doing it for 25 years. We think that it's normal. So I just use it as a dorky example. Yes. There's different places in our industry where we're not Jen as an industry. We're trying to do, all of our horse events are trying to do the same thing. They're number one, volume based. They're number two exhibitor driven. And then number three, they are trying to balance their books, but they are providing an exhibitor service. That's it. They are not events that are focused on new revenue streams and having an audience. They're not supporting events yet.
Track 1:why isn't that enough? I mean, there is no shortage of equestrian brands trying to sell equestrian products to equestrians. Right? Like, yes. Is it nice to have a consumer luxury brand come in on top and put up$200,000 as prize per like Rolex or something? Yeah, absolutely. But the thing about the equestrian world is like, despite the fact that most people who live in metropolitan centers, they don't think of the Tian industry being a big industry because they live in the city. They don't see everyone else who doesn't live in the city. The thing, you know, the last 2017 American Horse Council economic study said that there was one in three horse in one, there was a horse enthusiast and one in three families, and there was 7.2 million horses in America. Right. let's just say you've got, if they have one in three families is over a hundred million people. Let's say 20% of them actually are not just an enthusiast who like supports the idea of horses in idea, but actually is interested in horses and actually takes some steps to reactively involved in it. So that gives you about 20 million, 30 million people. That's quite large. Like that's a relatively big consumer base for horse shows to make money from registrations, from brand equestrian brands to be able to sell products too, from boots to helmets, et cetera. What are we getting wrong? That even if we were just a self-serving ecosystem and we didn't interact with the outside world, what are we getting wrong? That there isn't enough money flowing through it or it isn't getting through to the right people to make this work?
Brian Dygert:yeah, there's a couple things. I'm not sure it's about getting wrong as much as it might be barriers or hurdles. And one of it is fundamental liability and the point is what you're talking about and that's what Taylor did with Yellowstone because you, your, your question is actually very complex. When you look at the industry, are there 30% of the American population? Ha one in three. You're correct. Which is a large number. What did Yellowstone do is create a product that is a very cool story, making cowboy cool again and sold that to a vast population. He did it. Absolutely. Now, what do you do with the rest of that and how does an industry get itself prepared? How do you make it more readily accessible? How do you have every town have a community horse arena where people can go ride, gather up, learn things, all that kind? I mean, every community's got a baseball field and a soccer field and you know, a park of some sort. I live in Scottsdale, Arizona. I was shocked. It's an incorporated city. We have livestock in an incorporated city. To my knowledge, there's only two cities in the country that allow that. That's not normal. Okay, fine. I'm not trying to pick on all of those, but I use it as an example. Now, Scottsdale does have horse arenas, part of their public park trail system. They're very different than Westworld, which is a major event venue. But if every region. In the country had things similar to that. You would see modern civilization adapt to that accordingly. How do you get that accomplished? I'm not sure I'm gonna use racehorse as a little bit of my case study, because the single biggest thing that the racehorse industry has been talking about for the last 10 plus years is that the racehorse industry is all governed at the state level. So when you race horses in California, it's different than the regulations in Arizona. And it's different than Texas and it's different than Kentucky and it's different than New York because every state's got some different rules and regs. And what the racehorse industry said to the US Congress was help us have, they wanted it federalized, they wanted it standardized. They wanted a commissioner of racing so that. Minimum standards of racing on a national level would be the same. And then states could adapt accordingly. And specifically, I'm talking about some of the rules and regs, but it was drugs and medication use because those rules get modified per state. If I use that as a industry example, to your question, Sam, we're in a similar spot when you look at it from disciplines and disciplines and breeds. You got the A Q H A, that's the largest breed on the planet in the U S E F. That's the largest membership organization that covers breeds and disciplines. That's where it gets gray and convoluted. I'm not saying that one needs to be the other, but the A Q H A is a breed function, but is also involved with discipline, production records, et cetera. And you got N C H A N R c H A N R H A. N S P A, I can go down all the acronyms. They're independent orgs that are focused on what they're focused on. You got an event like the American Performance Horseman, that's, they don't care about the governance. I'm not trying to speak for'em. What they're doing is putting a platform of high level competition in front of a new audience. And that I think is phenomenal, which is what Jen was talking about. Can other horse sports do that? Yes. Can other disciplines, could we do that? The world equestrian games would've been the closest example, but is there a spot for some of that in today's entertainment sports thing? I'd say yes. And technology. What do we know in today's industry? Traditional television is going bye-bye. It is consumer by demand. You can go get it when you want. Digital publishing platforms is now the way they're going. We in the horse world, could 100% capitalize on that if we want it.
Andrea Knowles, the founder of Equine Residences, tells Sam and Jen why equestrian facilities should have more non horse activities, among other topics.
Sam & Jen:when we were in France, we went up to Normandy and we were just, we're driving and we came across this, it was a riding barn on a riding club. No, but it wasn't polo. They had a bunch of different things happening there. different disciplines and stuff, but it was cool because they had this indoor arena and then there was a restaurant that was attached to the arena. And it was like nothing really fancy, but little things like that. So you have the barn on one end, there are a couple of different arenas with different things set up. was practicing polo and then there was another arena would jump. So clearly multiple disciplines taking place there, but then the little things and you know, the moms and dads are after they're done riding just to have this little cafe attached to the indoor arena. It was just this very lovely setup, like a golf club.
Andrea Knowles:well, I've told this story before and comes as a part of my inspiration for my it's 100 percent an enormous part of my inspiration for my designs. when we moved to Los Angeles when I was a child, My barn was at the Los Angeles equestrian center and a very, very super high competitive a hundred jumper barn. And we were there for like a year and a half or two. And at that time, that was where all of the horse shows in LA took place. They still do it. LA owns it. The city owns it, but it's managed by, I can't remember who. I would love to buy it, by the way. It's like, goals. I would absolutely love to buy Los Angeles Equestrian Center and redo it. It would be
Sam & Jen:Is that where the celebrities ride or is this where the real hunter jumper competitors ride?
Andrea Knowles:Well, Real Hunter Jumper Competitors Rode. I wouldn't, they don't have A rated shows there, I don't think, anymore, so they attracted all these show barns there, under the auspices that they were going to build a really beautiful facility for everybody. And it never happened. So someone else did and we moved there. We were the first barn to relocate to this facility where people still are riding. It's where show barns are. it was further away from my house. That was another epic thing that my mom drove me to the barn and as a not horse person, right? and by the way, I kind of loved it because other moms were standing at the rail, yelling at their kids over the trainer. Where my mom didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. And so she had no criticism or commentary, right? Totally. And so the, the, the new facility had, a clubhouse. And so the parents had a place to go. if it was hot or if it was cold or if it was raining or whatever, it was where they had a place to go sit and hang out. It kept them off the trainers rail in another place. And I have a theory and my mom and I've talked about this. When. We moved there. She was a lot more open to buying, new horses, I would say, because it was an easier place to have a conversation. If everyone was comfortable, had a refrigerator or some place to have food, or I don't know, a glass of wine, whatever, when your trainer would go and say, Hey, I just saw a horse we'd like to buy for Andrea, are you open to spending X? I think it really shifted because my mom had a comfortable place to hang out instead of Feeling aggressed as she was sitting in her car waiting for me to finish riding and then get the trainer walking up to the car and her rolling down the window and, her feeling like, Oh, now I have a great place to hang out and wait and, have a conversation. she loved the trainers. in fact, they liked her. She was easy going about certain things like new horses. but all that being said, I really thought about that when I started my business, that every barn should have a great place to hang out because. What an equine residence is, is it's a place where your horses live. Obviously it's their stable, but ultimately when you ride, you kind of live at the stable too. most of us don't wanna leave. what I mean there, there are jokes, ad nauseum, memes all over the place about, Hey, I'm going to the barn. I'll be home in an hour and 10 hours later you're not back. It's just, it's what it is. You're not trying to be rude or miss plans or anything. You just get. stuck in what you're doing at the barn, love being around your horses and talking about, who did, it's very gossipy, I think in some regards, but it's also like a healthy environment. You're talking about supplements or someone had a better experience with one veterinarian than another, or. who's going to what show? And can we all, go to get whatever that is. The conversation, you just, you're there. Then all of a sudden you're like, instead of just riding your horse, now you're hanging out, then you're sitting in stall, like whatever you're doing, playing around. And I just find that a, barn should be a really encouraging of the social. activities that you guys saw in Europe, all barns should feel that way. It shouldn't feel like a place that you don't have anywhere to sit and chit chat, hang out eat something, and also I've noticed the same thing. European barns have that in the U S barns are kind of less into that. there's this company that I'm obsessed with out of Sweden that I'm now involved with, that makes an arena footing foundation. So grass foundation and a whole system for hydroponic grass. And also, sand. So, I'm also working on utilizing it in different, not just in an arena, but utilizing it in the facility. I have an idea right now to take out all hardscaping, on a project so that it'll be all grass because you can drive on this grass. the grass is pretty much indestructible. it's great for horses because It's almost injury proof, and we're doing some work now to see if you can also ride without studs on it, which I think would be really cool. because it's not soil based, it's sand based, so it's a totally different ballgame than any other grass in the world. it's proprietary, they're the only ones doing this, and they're, they've just done, completed an install in Wellington. For a big Grand Prix field at a private facility. And they have several other, sand arenas installed already. In any case, I'm so excited about. Things like that, right? So No facility really wants, a parking lot made of asphalt. also it looks terrible. So to eliminate that so that you're also eliminating injury if your horse gets out or whatever is galloping across your, driveway. Now your driveway is just grass. I'm really into that's part of the, you know, again, health and wellness, but in the research and the product, getting into certain product and traveling quite a lot for that. And, I didn't mean to take it totally off topic. So I'm so into this company that I brought it to my husband's attention. as something for either us to invest in or him to actually get involved in the running of the business. So he is having good conversations with the people in Sweden. We talk every day, all of us and I was telling a friend in Germany about it and he was like, Oh my God, you got your husband in the horse business. That's hilarious. Like, you know, in one year you managed, congrats, that makes two of us, right? Now we all have to go have dinner because the two technologists who have now been pushed over into the equestrian side is really funny.
Sam & Jen:Is this the company that's targeting the footing and specifically the microplastics, which was something that you raised from our conversation that I personally wasn't aware of. Is this the same company?
Andrea Knowles:that's right. So Europe has banned or is in process of banning microplastics. And with that being said, the geotextile footings, all are microplastic base, which is. It's terrible for the environment. Terrible for your horse and your health. Terrible for everything. Terrible for your pocketbook as well. It's super expensive. So this product took everything back to an FBI approved sand and wherever you are, you're going to find FBI approved sand. You don't have to haul sand from Germany or whatever. so it's a lot cheaper. it's a lot cleaner, it's the Grand Prix fields require 85 percent less water than any other grass in the marketplace. I like, I can go on about this for the entire podcast, but not going to do that. But that being said, I'm excited that it's going to be a healthier product for horses and for us. I mean, while we're exercising and our horses exercising in a big thing filled with microplastics, it's terrible.
Sam & Jen:don't know a ton about footing. I just, as a rider, it was like, this is good footing. This is hard. you can definitely feel it when you're walking the course, et cetera. But what is the typical kind of footing that's prolific that has these microplastics and something that, we were just, at the Hampton classic and, a few months ago and I guess it's too late now, but the writers, a lot of writers were talking about the footing and it was hard and it wasn't the best. And is that kind of footing something that does have the microplastics in it? Is that something that's pretty much standard even at these really, big events?
Andrea Knowles:some use the geotextile footing. Some people don't. there are people that use a sand arena and also there are other arena foundation systems. This is one type, and then there's an ebb and flow where you can use sand or a geotextile. So some people are opting for sand, also because it's less expensive and, easier to replace. So I think it, it just depends on the, show runner or show manager or show owner. those are the folks that are making the decisions for the shows. And then as far as people's own facilities, I think, the writers themselves who own their own private facilities, especially competitive competition writers, they're pretty particular about what they're putting in their own facility. They're going to do the homework, and that's where. I think it's really positive where someone like me comes in because my whole job is to know what's in the marketplace, what's new, what's better, what's, being banned, all those things. that's what I do all day long besides dealing with my clientele and dealing with my partnerships is I want to know. And it's super cool too. That's another thing that, that Instagram's given me is. It's not just access to following accounts, but people that follow me dm'ing me and telling me about something that they've heard about that, I should pay attention to or do I know them or make, can I make an introduction, et cetera. It's really. I feel like without social media, but the world would be really a harder place to start a business like mine. And it's been
Sam & Jen:Totally. Yeah. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. You're right. You're the top of the sales funnel. and this comes back to the Europeans. You were saying, that they. Invest in, things that last longer than they're willing to spend a bit more money up front to get high quality products that last longer. And going back to my point, which was at the European market is a bit more established. and you see a lot more of these, hardware innovations coming out of the European countries, like the ones you've been talking about. but for them, they always want to get into the American market, but they're always like, well, do we send one sales rep across? And, hopefully they can go around and get us some sales before we fully commit or they find, your Instagram account that already has built out the audience. You've already built out the following. And so while they've done all this hard work of building out this entire, backend infrastructure, which is this company and it's hardware and it's logistics and all that sort of stuff, you get to come in and basically be the top of the sales funnel that helps to put together a portfolio of clients that need an assortment of different products. Thanks. And then plug and play, which of those companies are those partners you can plug into the project, which is a much more efficient way of those European companies doing sales than trying to go door to door, horse show to horse show and try and pick up clients with a sales rep.
Last but not least, Jill Henneberg, the youngest American eventer in Olympic history, on her journey making it to the Olympics.
Jill Henneberg:I used to ride my bike after school. I think I did it for four years. Every day after school, I rode my bike to the barn 10 miles.
Track 1:Oh wow. 10 miles there and 10 miles back.
Jill Henneberg:10, so it was between 10 and 12 miles. No. So what what happened was I got this bright idea one day to ride my bike to the barn, right? I thought, well, this'll be cool. I, I'll ride my bike to the barn. My mother worked in Trenton, New Jersey, which was about a half an hour past the barn, and she literally passed the barn on her way home from work. So once I did that once or twice, and she was like, she, she would pick me up from the barn. She just was like, well, this is a brilliant idea. I'll just get a bike rack. I'll pick you up on my way home from work. So then she didn't have to drive 20 minutes, past the barn to go home to pick me up, drive 20 minutes back to the barn, either sit there and wait for me, or do the back and forth thing. So it just became, if I wanted to ride my horse during the week, that was what I had
Track 1:But New Jersey, especially in the winter, that can be a pretty brutal weather.
Jill Henneberg:Well, yeah, I mean, I obviously, I'm sure there were times that I didn't do it when it was, two feet of snow or something like that.
Track 1:but generally speaking, commitment. Yeah, generally speaking,
Jill Henneberg:was,
Track 1:you put, you committed.
Jill Henneberg:and you think about it, you know, I mean, back when I was doing that, I didn't have a penny on me. I didn't have any id, I didn't, there was no such thing. Nobody wore bike helmets, didn't have a cell
Track 1:phone. It was the good old,
Jill Henneberg:And you, it was the good old days, you know, where you just were like, listen, I'm either gonna get there or I'm
Track 1:yeah. And if I go missing along the way, you'll find out tomorrow, probably, or a couple days later. This was Nirvana, right? Your old horse Nirvana. So you said you bought her for 600 bucks. Where did you get her from? Could you already see the talent in her?
Jill Henneberg:I mean, I was just a kid. I wanted something with four legs and a tail, I had just come across her at a local tax shop. There was a little advertisement for her. went out and looked at her and the lady was sort of in a financial hardship and said, you know, I really need to have her out of this barn by the end of the month. And I think she was advertised for like 2000 bucks or something, and she said, you know, I need 600 bucks to pay the board if you're willing to buy her.
Track 1:Could you see? Well, that she was destined for? Great things. And did. you also have the goal and plan in mind to eventually one day go to the Olympics?
Jill Henneberg:I mean, I had been riding for about two years. I think I started actually riding when I was 11, but I took, you your typical sort of once a week lessons so no, I was definitely not in a position to necessarily assess whether she was great or bad, but I was very much of the mindset that, I didn't have a negative thought about it. I had a thought of I'm gonna make this horse great. in fact, my first instructor that I had, said, I don't really know if she'll go training level. she's kind of small and I just don't know if she's really going to be a horse for you to move up from novice on. And the next day I called another instructor and I went to my current instructor and thanked her very much for everything, but that I was going to move on.
Track 1:So you were very much in the mindset of like, no, I'm going to take this to a higher level. And even though you didn't have the experience or wisdom to know whether your trainer was right or wrong, you were like, no, I'm just gonna sit around myself with the right team that's gonna get me where I want to go.
Jill Henneberg:even though I didn't necessarily have the experience, in my gut, I was like, well, you are basically telling me like to give up, like this is, the end of the road. and I just didn't agree with that.
Track 1:what was it like going to the Olympics? I know it's a loaded question, but I mean, I imagine you were probably at your most intense training period, but do you look back on that fondly and is it it some of like the best times? Was it some of the most stressful times? Like what was that. Part of your life like?
Jill Henneberg:I remember sitting there at the final selection trial, right? And there were 21 people on the short list that year T the, games were in the US So they figured, well, why not have a massive shortlist? Because it basically doesn't cost them a ton of money. You're not shipping horses overseas so there were 21 of us. It was at the old Blue Cart Farm in Georgia, They were announcing the team, the individuals, and just remember like hearing and I literally heard it was, I mean, I would imagine it's what it feels like to, to realize that you've won the lottery, you know, where literally everything else goes blank. In my mind, I just holy crap. Like I, I just
Track 1:Yeah. This like out of body experience.
Jill Henneberg:totally out of body experience and just thinking like, did, did I did, am I am Is this like for real?
Track 1:How do you basically get to that qualifier stage? And then how do they ultimately decide who's gonna be on the team?
Jill Henneberg:they look for consistency for sure, especially team. The, on a team. They're not always gonna um, somebody who is necessarily winning everything, but they're gonna look for the that's, I mean, that's the interesting thing about a team, right? Like you, you're gonna have some people that are really consistent whose happen to be like, extraordinary on the flat. So they win a lot more events and you're gonna have. People they're, you know, they're in the top 10, but they're not um, always sort of winning because their dressage is Um, so it's sort of a try to, you know, the two when they're, when they're picking teams, picking the person that's sort of in the top 10 has a really consistent record as to somebody who like wins every time out, except for when they get you know, is is it, when it comes to venting, right, because soundness is such a um, really sort of what you've done the previous year, it's helpful, there will be an Olympic year where you're like, holy crap. Like everybody from like, nobody's Um, so it would be really based off of Major f e i competitions in the right? Like your badminton, Kentucky, big five stars that will get the most, and then they'll formulate a short list off of those off of your spring. And then the short list will either ship overseas or, you know, our shortlist stayed here, and then they'll have I think now they're, you know, they're basically doing like teams and you know, ship over. I don't even know that they have like uh, shortlist Um, just sort of teams and alternates and whatnot that all Um, you know, they, I mean, they check the soundness on these horses every day.
Track 1:So going back then to point of like how you managed to get there in eight years, considering you know, even today, like the Olympic team is based off the last 12 months because of the soundness is such a big component of it, considering that you took your horse all the way through, that would infer to me I don't wanna say luck because that doesn't take into like your skill and your training and your preparation, but is there an element of luck. that managed you to get there with one horse the whole way through, which meant that by the time you got to selection, you had arguably the longest period of time with one horse. So your relationship with that horse was so solid that you guys were able to perform at a level that others who were going for selection didn't have that consistency or that time
Jill Henneberg:listen, there was a lot. Yes. I mean, luck, luck plays into a lot of it. timing is everything, especially in the sport of eventing. for instance, so I was on, I was actually first alternate for, the World Championships two years before at 18. and I think they, they were just like, you know, this kid's way too young for all of that. Then I was on the short list for the Pan-American Games the year before the Olympics, but my mare actually fractured her splint bone that year. I had to pull myself off of the list for that. So just sort of going back to a little bit of, as far as the year before, I didn't really compete much the year before the Olympics, because she was sidelined. So I sort of had to come out, really strong in the, spring of 96.
Track 1:Right. Yeah as much as there can be good luck. There's a lot of bad luck that happens too
Jill Henneberg:I mean, trust me, the year before I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. You know? I was like, oh, well that's just, crap luck. And when you're that young and you have to make a phone call to, somebody at the United States equestrian team and tell them you have to pull yourself off of a list, you know, it, it kind of, but, perhaps that injury happened because something else would've happened that year. And so she was fine for the 96 season.
Track 1:Yeah, absolutely. So, if you didn't have the perfectly lucky career, then, then you, or lead up I should say. You said at the start that you were a student of the sport. So how did that come into play in terms of getting you to that level of success at such a young age? And then on top of that, how did the rest of the people on the team respond to you being so young, and making the team.
Jill Henneberg:so I was just, when I should have been studying in school, I was studying everything that I could get my hands on. I was a person that if I was struggling with a movement in the dressage, say I was struggling with a leg yield, I would buy whatever I needed to buy. There was no internet then but I would look up articles in magazines and, try to really perfect that. Or I would, I was very outspoken with my coaches. I was probably their biggest nightmare student. Even though I was a good student, I was, Hey, so this is what I wanna work on today.
Track 1:Yeah.
Jill Henneberg:This Is what I struggle with, you have to understand I was a green rider riding a three-year-old off the track, wiry little thoroughbred mare that didn't know anything either. it's fairly amazing that that sort of things happened
Thank you so much for listening to the latest episode of the Pegasus podcast. As you heard from our mid roll, we are also releasing an equestrian event management software platform. Now it's easier than ever to host, sign up and sponsor for any equestrian event in the world. Thanks to all the features of the Pegasus app to sign up, go to our homepage at www dot the Pegasus dot app. That is www dot. T H E P E G A S U S dot A P P. See you next time!
