A rider who is “bemused” about the lack of everyday male participation in equestrian – and what he sees as the bias towards females in marketing the industry has spoken out about the issues.
Tim Barrett started riding as a teenager and now loans former racehorse Turnwood Boy. He told H&H riding and horses are part of his identity, but that he feels in the minority in the industry.
“This has been building up for a while but I recently got back from a trail ride in north Africa, where everyone involved with the horses was male,” he said. “I know there are cultural differences but then I found myself back here. I went to an event with a friend, and what really stuck out was all the branding and marketing.”
Tim said he felt the event in question was entirely aimed at women.
“I’ve been involved with horses so long, I usually take it on the chin,” he said. “But I had a think and decided to email the event organisers to ask if they could maybe be a bit more encouraging and inclusive, and a bit less feminine.”
And although Tim did not want to single the event out, he feels there are generations of men who are put off from entering the industry. The most recent British Equestrian Trade Association survey indicated that of those who ride regularly, 67% are female and 33% male.
At the top of the sport, male riders make up a much higher proportion, but Tim said: “It’s mainly at the entry point, it can be quite intimidating.”
“I feel we could be losing whole generations as everything is so gender-specific,” he added. “I think maybe the whole industry could think about being more inclusive. We might never get to 50-50 at the amateur level, but to get it a bit nearer would be fantastic.”
Tim said he “stuck out like a sore thumb” when he was learning to ride.
“I realised it was my DNA and identity; some things in life, you don’t realise till you try and this was one of them,” he said. “But I only really talked to my family about it; I wasn’t really able to talk about it at school or even in the workplace. It always surprises people and I can’t really talk to male friends about it. If I want to talk about football or rugby or cars, that’s brilliant but I have to compartmentalise my life.”
Tim said he has faces assumptions about his sexuality, and even concerns, when he was looking for a horse to loan or share, based on the fact there would be children at the yard, which he described as “hideous”.
“At that point, I realised we needed to address this,” he said. “We’re not all monster raving loonies, us men.”
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