How Today's Grandparents Impact Tomorrow's Horse Market
In her November ’09 Horse & Rider column, “The Horse Legacy” (Just Between Us), Juli Thorson shares what an immense impact her grandfather has had on her horse life--past, present and future. Here’s your chance to review an article Juli wrote in our July ’07 issue, “Going Grand,” about the impact current grandparents are likely to have on the future horse market.
Out in the everyday corners of horsedom, a powerful but largely unheralded force is busy sowing seeds for tomorrow’s horse market. Even though it enjoys great success at bringing new enthusiasts into the fold, this group of promoters has no ad campaign, no marketing budget, no cable-TV show, and no slick slogan behind it--at least not so far.
Instead, this group’s members rely on love and attention to get their point across, and go by the names Grandma and Grandpa, or their derivatives. Using the one-on-one approach that’s the hallmark of active grandparenting, these folks are passing their appreciation for horses on to an eager audience, one that consists of their offspring’s offspring. They’re also pouring an unmeasured number of dollars into these horse-enhanced relationships.
No one knows how many of the nation’s two million horse owners are grandparents, but it’s safe to say the number’s growing.The reason’s simple: Thanks in no small part to the aging of the baby boom generation, a record 70 million Americans--about one-third of all adults--now have grandchildren in their lives. Today’s mid-life adult horse lovers fall squarely in the middle of that demographic.
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To date, the grandparent boom is a phenomenon that’s been largely ignored by the companies, media and associations that serve the horse world. H&R found little evidence of campaigns or programs aimed specifically at grandparents, and their from-the-heart efforts to involve themselves in their grandchildren’s lives.
But, as you’ll see from this look into the subject of going grand, some eye-opening reasons exist for that to change. There’s potential gold--not to mention growth--to be had from the horse owners who’ve reached, or are about to reach, the grandparenting phase of life.
Grand Statistics
Grandparent numbers aren’t just big. They’re also on the rise--up from 60 million a decade ago, and expected to reach 80 million by 2010. Add great-grandparents and step-grandparents to the total, and the forecasted number bulges to 115 million within the next few years.
Furthermore, it’s not just the number of grandparents that’s growing. Spending by grandparents is on the rise, too, for an annual market worth $35 billion--double that of 10 years ago, and $10 billion more than the annual market value of the entire horse industry.
If it seems to you that more and more of those within your horse-friends circle have new grandchild pictures to pass around, you’re not imagining things. On average, a U.S. adult is 47 when the first grandbaby arrives. That’s just a few years older than the mid-40s age of the typical H&R reader, or the typical member of most horse-breed or horse-sport associations. If you fit that profile or have friends who do, you’re bound to hear more about the arrival of precious grandkids as time goes by.
While grandparents have always spent time with and money on their grandchildren, another piece of statistical info--that of increased life expectancy--stands to affect both kinds of expenditures in an unprecedented way. In 1900, when U.S. life expectancy was 49, most newborns had just one in four grandparents still alive. By the time those children were 15, their chances of having a grandparent still alive plummeted to 2 percent.
Today, with U.S. life expectancy at 77, it’s normal for a newborn to have all four grandparents. Not only that, but modern-day grandparents can have as long as 30 years to play a role in a grandchild’s life--a concept unthinkable when our own grandparents were children.
Thirty years. That’s more than long enough for the stuffed-horse crib toy from Grandma and Grandpa to be fully cultivated into another generation’s lifelong passion.
Grand Examples
Not every horse-owning grandparent gets the chance to facilitate horse involvement by the grandkids. But those who do are fervent about it, gladly devoting time and money to the activity.
Picture, for instance, the gone-grand lifestyle of H&R reader Ann Robison, Chrisman, Ill. Her three grand-children (and two daughters) keep their horses on her farm, where they all take part in the daily responsibility of horse ownership. The extended family also competes in local open, 4-H, and breed shows.
"I no longer show," says Ann, "but enjoy being a horse-show grandma--making entries, saddling horses, wiping off boots." It's not all about trophies and ribbons, though. "My daughters and I agree that having horses teaches children valuable lessons that can help them develop into responsible adults," she explains.
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