We love celebrating and learning about the #supergrooms who make this sport go around — quite literally! — so we’re on a mission to interview as many grooms as we can to learn about their journeys. Catch up on the other interviews from this series here and nominate a #supergroom of your own by emailing [email protected]! Today, we get to hear from Debbie Carpenter, a freelance groom based in the UK.
Debbie Carpenter with Liz Halliday-Sharp and Miks Master C at the Aachen prizegiving. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.
Debbie Carpenter has nearly grown up with the horse bug, but the grooming bug bit her later on.
She grew up going to a riding school in Oxford, England and later went to agriculture college for two years. At 18, Debbie went right for the industry she loves and began working with Julie Tew.
After taking a year or two of a break in 2007-2008, Debbie got the bug again. “I came back into it and again realized I loved it and ended up working for Andrew Nicholson for a year or two.” After working for Izzy Taylor for around four years, Debbie went freelance and has now been at it for eight years.
“I just decided that I wanted a bit more time to myself, which turns out it doesn’t really happen!” she said. As a freelancer, Debbie is out helping at events almost every weekend, usually keeping Mondays and Tuesdays as her days off to recover from events. In 2019 alone, she groomed for 32 international 3-day events!
When she’s not traveling all around for events, she has some local clients that she works for if they need it — “It’s not stressful, it’s easy going and we just get the job done,” she described.
Since she jumps around from client to client, she doesn’t get to see their horses every single day as a full-time groom would. This is a unique aspect of a freelance groom’s life, and Debbie said the biggest difference between a full-time and a freelance groom is the relationship with the horse.
“I do miss waking up in the morning, walking out onto the yard and having all your horses that you look after everyday whinnying at you for breakfast,” she said. But even though she doesn’t care for them every day, she still manages to get to know her clients’ horses as well as she can while she works with them. “I work for a lot of the same clients as a freelancer, so I do have that relationship with a few of my horses now,” she said.
To make up for any gaps between the home groom and the freelance groom at an event, Debbie tries to keep the horse’s routine the same as their routine at home. She plans the day out with the rider the night before to make sure their horse gets all the TLC needed and isn’t afraid to call in support from the troops at home.
“I would quite often contact the grooms at home and say, ‘Is this normal? What does he like? What doesn’t he like?’”
Debbie said that grooms in the UK often aren’t able to come to every event because some of them don’t have the HGV license to drive the trailer, so the use of freelance grooms particularly in Europe is quite popular. Other times, American riders who are traveling sans groom will pick up her services at competitions. In this way, Debbie becomes a vital, albeit temporary, part of the team. “I always try and thank the team at home — and make sure that they don’t feel that I’m stealing their horses away and not including them in what’s going on!”
Since Debbie values keeping in contact with the horses’ grooms at home, this makes for a more successful way to care for them at the event.
“My role as a freelance groom, especially at the higher level is that the riders know that I would look after their horse and they don’t have to sort of tell me how to do it. They just know that I’ll get up in the morning, muck out the stall, feed, take the horse out for a hand walk and a graze. So the responsibility is that they don’t have to keep an eye on me all the time.”
But of course, this can still be a job that brings pressure with it — as does any grooming gig. “There is pressure, when you don’t know the horse -– it’s quite a lot especially at the big competitions when you don’t know them,” Debbie says. “But, that’s when you have to keep checking with the rider and making sure that, for feeling legs and stuff, that that’s normal for how the legs feel.”
Most recently, Debbie groomed for Liz Halliday-Sharp and Miks Master C at Aachen, where the pair finished fifth individually and second in team competition. “I have worked with her previously on and off for a good few years, so that was just really nice to be asked back again to work with Miks Master C, which was pretty cool because I hadn’t actually met him,” she recalled.
In working with so many horses, surely there have been a few favorites that have arisen — and Debbie does have one, though she admits it’s difficult to pick. “At the moment I’ve got a favorite horse; I shouldn’t have favorites!” Her current favorite horse is Bill Levett’s RNH Tom Tom R — “He’s a bit of a character.” — with whom she worked at Millstreet last year and has seen grow from a young horse into a professional athlete. “He just went around double clear at Bramham and hopefully we’ll finish the season at Boekelo.”
Debbie credits her knowledge and experience to working full time for three or fours years with a few different riders. “It’s invaluable, seeing horses’ legs every day, looking at their skin, assessing their weight, looking at their fitness, and gaining all that knowledge from being on a yard every day, with a professional rider.”
Debbie’s advice to anyone seeking to be a professional groom? “Surround yourself with good people and enjoy it because it’s one hell of a ride.”
Even though Debbie originally made the switch to freelance to free up more time for herself, but ended up with a busier plate she wouldn’t trade the job for anything else. “It’s quite a treat, really, doing it all.”
Go Debbie. Go Eventing.
EN’s #supergroom series is proudly sponsored by Achieve Equine, home to FLAIR Equine Nasal Strips, VIP Equestrian, and Iconic Equestrian. At Achieve Equine, it’s All About the Horse — and who better to trust with putting horses first than the incredible grooms who care for them? Keep an eye out for more #supergroom initiatives happening here on EN all. year round.
