Still in the Saddle, Still Fighting:
The Problems Women Shouldn't Have to Face in the Equine Industry in 2026
In most major equestrian markets, women and girls make up around three-quarters of riders at grassroots and amateur level. At elite FEI competition, women now represent a slight majority of registered athletes, clocking in at roughly 54%. On paper, this looks like progress. In practice, it reveals one of sport's more elegant contradictions: the people who keep the industry alive are still not the people most visible, most funded, or most protected.
That 54% majority of registered athletes shrinks to about one-third of ranked athletes overall, 16% of the top 100, and roughly 6% of the top 30. The mathematics are blunt. The industry runs on women's labour, women's spending power, and women's commitment to keeping horses fed, trained and competitive. Yet when it comes to who holds the reins on decisions, budgets and visibility, the picture looks remarkably different. This is not an oversight. It is a structure.
As we move into 2026, Equitas is launching a conversation about what should no longer be acceptable in an industry that has spent decades relying on women to do the work while systematically misaligning power, money and safety with that reality. This is not about asking nicely for incremental change. It is about documenting what still needs fixing and why the excuses have run out.
The Decision-Rights Problem
Women dominate participation across most equestrian sectors. They make up the majority of the workforce in riding schools, yards, racing staff, veterinary practices and administrative roles. They are the ones mucking out at dawn, managing complex care schedules, and keeping businesses operational. Yet when you look at who sits in senior management, on boards, or in decision-making roles, the numbers tell a different story.
A major UK racing report found women consistently underrepresented as jockeys, trainers, owners and breeders. More revealing still, some racing boards had no women at all, despite women making up roughly 60% to 70% of college entrants feeding the industry pipeline. National sports data from bodies including Sport Ireland and British Equestrian show women still holding a minority of leadership roles across the sport, even where female participation on the ground is dominant.
This creates what might politely be called a decision-rights problem. The people who set the rules, control budgets, sign sponsorship deals and design welfare and safeguarding policies are not the same people who do most of the work and take most of the risks. That misalignment has consequences that ripple through pay structures, safety standards and who gets heard when things go wrong.
Economic Reality and the "Love of Horses" Discount
Survey data from equine veterinary practice offers a particularly clear view of how this plays out in financial terms. Women earn less than male colleagues across virtually all career stages, despite working similar hours. Female equine vets produced about 20% less revenue than men in the first five years of practice, and the gap widened over time. Time worked was similar. Effort was not the variable.
Hypotheses from within the profession itself, surprisingly from males pointed to structural and cultural factors: women spending more time on detailed notes and client relationships, lower confidence in charging appropriately, and unconscious bias in which lucrative work and mentoring opportunities went to male associates. These are not isolated incidents. They are patterns.
Across the wider industry, reports on horseracing and equestrian employment describe precarious contracts, poor job security and limited progression, with women disproportionately concentrated in lower-paid and more insecure roles such as stable staff and casual work. Even where official gender pay gaps in some governing bodies appear small or even reversed on paper, the underlying workforce is often split by grade and contract type in ways that conceal who has real financial power and who remains stuck in lower-status roles.
The most persistent justification remains the one that should have been retired years ago: that women are lucky to work with horses, and should therefore accept lower pay or poor conditions as the price of proximity to animals they love. It is a remarkably effective way of extracting skilled labour at a discount. - (You can expect more on this one from us this year!)
Safety Failures That Should Be Indefensible
A 2025 study across Sweden and Norway found that over half of participants in horse-related environments reported experiencing sexual harassment or abuse, from degrading comments to unwanted touching and coercive situations.
Qualitative interviews highlighted entrenched power imbalances: older, often male coaches, owners or senior staff controlling access to horses, opportunities and references. The leverage is explicit. Speak up and risk losing not just a job, but access to the animals, the training, the career pathway itself.
Earlier work in racing and equestrian workplaces documented bullying cultures where "sexist banter in yards" normalised abuse and made it harder for women to access support or complain. This is not new information. It has been studied, reported and discussed for years.
What remains absent in too many organisations are the basic structures that should be non-negotiable: clear codes of conduct, independent reporting channels, and consequences for perpetrators.
In 2026, debating whether these protections are necessary should no longer be on the table. They should be the baseline, not a radical demand.
The Visibility Gap and Commercial Choices
Equestrian remains one of the only Olympic sports where women and men compete on equal terms. Yet even here, visibility at elite level is skewed. While women are the majority of registered athletes, their presence falls sharply in top rankings, which drives a knock-on effect on sponsorship, media coverage and commercial opportunities.
Some media coverage in 2024 and 2025 still defaulted to spotlighting male riders and male-fronted teams, even in disciplines and events where women were winning a high proportion of medals. A woman-dominated participant base with male-skewed sponsorship and airtime is not an accident or an oversight. It is a commercial choice that continues to undervalue women's stories and contributions.
This matters because visibility translates directly into funding, career longevity and the ability to stay competitive at the highest levels. When the default lens remains trained on male athletes in a female-powered industry, it reinforces a hierarchy that has no basis in participation, skill or results.
What 2026 Should Not Tolerate
There are problems in this industry that are simply indefensible at this point. Normalised sexual harassment and unsafe training and yard environments persist despite clear evidence and repeated studies calling for urgent change. Leadership and board tables in racing and national federations still do not reflect the majority-female workforce and participant base. Persistent gender pay gaps and opaque pay structures remain across veterinary, racing and governing-body roles, even as awareness of inequity has been mainstream for decades. Media and sponsorship ecosystems continue to treat women's success as exceptional rather than routine, even when women are winning a large share of medals in global championships and the Olympics.
There has been some genuine movement. Formal diversity and inclusion action plans exist. Gender pay gap reporting is now published in some organisations. Some federations are beginning to embed equity and safeguarding into strategy rather than treating it as public relations. But the gap between policy documents and lived reality remains wide, and patience for that gap is running thin.
What Comes Next
Equitas will be tracking what happens when an industry built on women's work finally aligns its structures with that reality. This means examining representation that reflects participation, economic systems that value expertise fairly, safety mechanisms that actually function, and visibility that treats women's achievement as the editorial baseline rather than a themed feature.
The conversation is starting now because 2026 is not too early. It is long overdue and it is high time for change. The women who power this industry have been waiting long enough.
Ends.
About this piece: This was investigated, framed, drafted and and written with the help of our AI Journalists Eva and Tess in the Equitas AI News Desk. They will play a big role in our investigations shining a light and showcasing the truth of what women around the world go through daily to do something they love.
In an industry that women drive all year round, the backbone of the industry... but it does not seem to want to give women the support, respect, control or power that they have earned.
