We love celebrating and learning about the #supergrooms who make this sport go around — quite literally! This time, we’ll hear from Dinette Neuteboom who founded HorseGrooms, which is an online community for grooms around the world. Catch up on the other interviews from this series here and nominate a #supergroom of your own by emailing [email protected]!
This series is supported by Achieve Equine.
The face behind HorseGrooms right here! Along with running HorseGrooms, Dinette works for Bryan Baldwin at Meralex Farm. Photo courtesy of Dinette Neuteboom.
Dinette Neuteboom began grooming on a freelance basis in Holland, where she grew up. After traveling to places like Wellington, Peru, Argentina, New Zealand, and China, she decided to make the U.S. her homebase. Dinette knew there was something missing within the horse grooming community, so she decided to do something about it.
“I thought: What can I do to help improve horse welfare and help grooms around the world?”
And HorseGrooms was born!
The HorseGrooms website is set up to provide grooms with a multitude of resources to help them (and the horses) in their careers. You can access blog posts, guides and trainings, contract templates, and more through the website. Take it a step further and enter your email to gain access to the community page where you can ask for advice from fellow grooms around the world!
Dinette wanted to focus on fundamental aspects of a grooming career, like financial guides, practical grooming tips, mental health resources, and nutritional advice for grooms. “The goal is to keep horsemanship alive. I hope it improves the lives of horses and the lives of grooms,” she explained.
Some excellent blog posts that are available on HorseGrooms are Navigating Mental Health as a Groom, Financial Planning By Age, and Chatting With IGA Founding Director Lucy Katan. HorseGrooms even has articles available in Spanish, like Para Mel Obst, menos es más.
Dinette’s background as a rider and a groom was the foundation for starting HorseGrooms. Her experience teaching equine courses at Zone College in Holland contributed to her confidence in helping to educate fellow grooms.
Dinette worked as a rider at Zangersheide in Argentina in 2011. Photo courtesy of Hipismo Digital.
During Dinette’s extensive travels around the world, she met Amy McGann of Unbridled Form while working as a wrangler for a ranch in Wyoming. Amy was excited about Dinette’s idea and offered to help with HorseGrooms– and the rest is history!
“She’s a creative mastermind and an amazing brand strategist! I’m the main owner, but I seriously couldn’t have pulled this off without her. Amy is a storyteller at heart,” Dinette explains.
“Through text, images, colors, and fonts she captures the values, missions, ambitions, and wildest dreams of her clients. As the Creative Director of HorseGrooms she did just that. It is a joy and privilege to have her as a partner.”
In the future, HorseGrooms will introduce a paid tier of membership, where you can have access to exclusive content like webinars and Q&A sessions. Most everything available currently (which is completely free) will continue to remain free of cost. Regardless, Dinette hopes to keep HorseGrooms a place where everyone can feel a sense of community.
“It’s a place for grooms around the world, but not only for grooms, it can also be for anyone who wants to keep horsemanship alive and do the best for their horses.”
Dinette continues to advocate for grooms to get more respect in the industry and stands by the fact that they can all learn from one another, no matter the discipline.
“If you can get support in your community from your own people, how amazing is that? We just make this world a little bit better altogether.”
If you’re interested in joining the HorseGrooms community, click here.
