Study suggests more needs to be done to improve grooms' lives

Research has been done to assess the effectiveness of campaigns that were designed to help grooms

- BECKY MURRAY

ARE recent initiatives and campaigns improving groom’s lives? Academics from the Netherlands have researched whether four initiatives were seen by grooms as addressing issues that prevent them from staying in their jobs. The initiatives are: the formation of the International Grooms Association (IGA), recognition at the 2022 World Championships, the #ChampionsAsOne campaign and the FEI best groom award.

More than 1,300 grooms took part in a survey, 54% of whom had left the industry. Some 52.3% had heard of some of the initiatives, but not all. Formation of the IGA was the “most impactful”, but asked about the personal impact of the initiatives 58.5% said none.

Co-author Susanna Ole told H&H the paper investigated the industry’s “real issues”, and whether the initiatives “actually tackled those”. She said grooms highlighted the need for better pay, reasonable workload and improved work-life balance, and that future interventions need to tackle these areas.