August 2000

California Farm Managers
by Leigh Ann Howard

Several large farms are currently screening candidates for farm manager and assistant manager positions. The California university system has been canvassed, looking for people with training to be Thoroughbred farm managers. This search seems to show that our schools are not tuned in to the fact that "Thoroughbred Horse Farm Manager" is a viable field of endeavor. The agricultural schools already seem to have most of the classes available to train a young person to be an effective farm manager.

So why aren't they producing farm managers? The problem seems to be two fold: 

1) School administrators don't realize there are good employment opportunities and satisfying work available for their 'horse lover' students. 

2) School administrators don't know what the job requirements are.

Therefore this month's article is an outline of the many faceted job description for the California Thoroughbred farm manager. At the very least this might give the mare owner an idea about what the farm manager could be doing when the receptionist says the manager is 'out on the farm'.

As a secondary benefit this article might spur some of our universities into action! We continue to pay taxes - where are the graduates, trained to work on our farms and in our industry? 

All farms have managers. There are over 400 Thoroughbred farms in California. While the small non-commercial farms often have an "owner/manager" situation, many also have a husband and wife team managing the facility for absentee owners. Most of the larger farms stand stallions and have managers, and assistant managers, capable of overseeing all aspects of that farm's activity. 

The farm manager is ultimately responsible for how the whole farm functions and how much it accomplishes. This means the farm manager has to know how to do everything. So what is "everything"? I'll list an over view and then go back and discuss each item.

1) Horse Husbandry
2) Equipment/facility maintenance 
3) Pasture/feed/waste management 
4) Office functions 
5) Sales 
6) Veterinary issues 
7) Racing issues

A manager, whether on a very small farm where he/she does all the physical work him/herself, or on a large farm where the physical labor is delegated to subordinates, has to have had enough hands on experience in each of the above categories, to know when things are being done properly. 

Husbandry should always be the first item on the list of managerial skills. Most Thoroughbred farm managers have had 'hands on' horse handling experience. Because there is a very large difference between the breeds, experience with Thoroughbreds is necessary.

The farm manager will handle all the horse husbandry items him/herself or train, supervise and direct the subordinates doing this work. 

Most of the husbandry items have been covered in detail through the past two years. Suffice to say that the husbandry issues deal with breeding, foaling, care and handling of the horses. 

As far as all the other items on the list, each item is equally important, which means that the order in which they are handled has to be prioritized.

An example would be if the pump went out on a well that supplied the drinking water. Because the horses, and people, have to have water, getting the pump fixed or replaced would take precedence over changing the oil in the tractor.

Equipment purchases need to be well researched. One of the farm manager's jobs is to figure out what equipment the farm should own and what equipment can be rented when needed. A good rapport and an open account with the local equipment rental company are paramount. Basic maintenance on the equipment the farm owns, such as regularly checking vehicle fluid levels and changing batteries, are examples of items the farm manager must oversee. 

As far as the facility maintenance goes, the farm manager has to see to it that the fences, barns, stalls and sheds are practical, safe and kept in good working order. Roads have to be designed and maintained so that there is minimal wear and tear on the farm vehicles. Ingress and egress has to be designed so that large hay trucks, trash trucks and horse vans can get in and out safely in all kinds of weather.

Landscaping is important, both on a commercial farm and on a private farm. I think Joe Taylor, one of the sage farm managers in the east, once said "a well kept farm is usually a well managed farm".

Pasture maintenance is very important in California. Most of us have to water in order to keep pastures year round. This means a good irrigation system has to be designed and kept working. Attention has to be paid to the proper seed and seed application for a particular area. Soil has to be aerated, and grass fertilized and mowed. Parasite control and manure removal also dictate how pastures are handled. If dry land farming is done, issues dealing with seed selection and soil management have to be faced. 

Knowledge of equine feed and feed requirements is very necessary. The manager has to be able to look at the horses and see that they are being properly fed. Decisions need to be made about when, where and how much feed is given to different groupings of horses. Changes and adjustments become the norm as pasture populations age. 

All the activities in the office setting are also the responsibility of the farm manager. How and when the phone is being answered can have a major impact on how the farm is perceived by clients. Clients always prefer to receive current up to date information when they call. 

Billing for services rendered is the method by which cash flow is maintained. Because cash flow problems can quickly shut down a farm operation, money collection is high on the list of priorities for all farm managers. Because this issue is unpleasant, most farm managers are very careful when taking in borders. Managers with any experience, require references and often "up front" money from prospective clients with either no or poor credit references.

Contracts, for both boarding and breeding, are very important for both the farm manager and the clients. These need to be updated regularly. The farm manager has to be cognizant of changes that involve the legal aspects of the industry. 

The required paper work that, in California, includes reports to The Jockey Club, the CTBA, race and sale nominations and entries, are all important issues that must be dealt with in a timely fashion. 

In this new millennium, the farm manager has to be computer literate and able to communicate on the Internet.

If the farm stands stallions, the handling of season sales is under the auspices of the farm manager. The sales contracts and paper work involved, which includes record keeping throughout the year, can be voluminous. Showing stallions to mare owners is a must and needs to be handled knowledgeably. 

Advertising is a large issue in farm management and the farm manager has to have a good idea about where, when and how to advertise both the farm and the stallions. Good skills in this area are valuable to the overall acceptance of the farm within the industry. Experience in journalism and/or advertising is very important.

Most farms sell yearlings, some farms sell two-year-olds. The farm manager has a large voice in deciding when and where to sell each animal. An evaluation process starts prior to birth and continues throughout each horse's farm life, to determine saleability. The farm manager bases decisions on the physical maturation of the horse and family trends. If the thrust of the horse's owner is racing, then the farm manager helps decide, through the same process, where the horse should be trained and by whom. 

The farm manager must also be very experienced in spotting heath problems. I cannot overemphasize how important it is that the manager be capable of recognizing a health problem in the herd. Whether it is the beginnings of a colic, a lymph node that is getting suspiciously enlarged or the onset of a pneumonia, early detection can sometimes mean the difference between life and death. The farm manager needs to be intuitive and experienced, enough to know when a wound or injury requires an immediate call to the veterinarian, or when all it needs is a little bit of first aid. And the manager needs to know how to do the, "little bit of first aid!"

Even if the farm is not focused on racing it's produce, racing is usually the intermediate, if not the ultimate, goal of all Thoroughbreds. This being the case, it is advantageous for the farm manager to have some experience on the racetrack. This experience will enable the manager to better evaluate the young horses being raised on the farm, and will enable him/her to better understand and care for lay-ups that will be sent to the farm. 

The last part of the farm manager's job description that I'll mention, is probably the most important. That is the management of the people who work on the farm. In California a high percentage of the farm workers are Mexican. Communication is the key to good management, which means the manager must speak Spanish.

The manager needs to see that his/her employees are well trained, well paid and well respected. He/she should see that living quarters are the very best that the farm can afford, and are always maintained. The first questions the manager should ask the workers on a cold morning is, "did you have enough heat last night? Do you need another heater?" Any encouragement the manager can give the employees to 'help themselves' and their family with better education and living standards will be returned threefold with the quality of work and loyalty from the laborers. 

Keeping employees well informed about the goals of the farm in general, and their jobs/departments specifically, is a tool used by good managers. This encourages the submitting of many 'good ideas' and a 'work together' attitude by the laborers in the field. 

So what do farm managers get paid? The range is directly related to the experience of the manager, the size of the farm, the success of the farm, the value of the 'perks' available (insurance, retirement, housing, car, etc), the geographical area, the business the manager brings in, and so on. Farm managers have been reported to make somewhere between $25,000 to $85,000 annually, with some earning considerable more with added commissions. 

An experienced, competent, knowledgeable manager is probably worth more than he/she is being paid. This situation is undoubtedly more satisfying to the manager than "being paid more than he/she is worth".

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