Are you looking for a chance to become a part of the sport horse breeding and dressage/H/J/eventing industries? Solomon Farm is offering two working student/intern positions available for spring/summer 2008. Learn all aspects of the sport horse breeding industry including breeding, foaling, working with young horses, training and marketing. Opportunities to learn about collecting stallions, preparing semen, and inseminating mares, as well as assisting in foaling, imprinting and halter breaking foals, starting young horses in ground work and under saddle, and showing/sales. We seek positive, energetic, hardworking students who are eager to learn. Previous experience with show horses is preferred, and any experience jumping/showing over fences is a plus. This is an excellent opportunity for extensive hands-on training in the industry!

Your duties will include: all aspects of horse and barn care including cleaning stalls, turnouts, fly-spraying, handling foals and checking pasture horses daily for injury; handling, training and riding young horses; grooming, marketing, and presentation of sale horses to customers; assistance at horse shows, including the opportunity to show our young horses in-hand, as well as under saddle, if qualified; several days per summer assisting with haying; and complete participation in all aspects of a professional sport horse farm.

For those students preparing for a career in equine reproduction or veterinary services, Solomon Farm offers a special opportunity to gain hands-on experience in breeding and foaling, including active participation in heat detection of mares, teasing, collecting the stallion and processing semen for shipping and/or on-farm insemination, inseminating the mare, ultrasound technology, foal watch and assistance foaling, care of newborn foals, and much more. Solomon Farm's summer internship program offers valuable real-life experience on a breeding farm, including routine basic veterinary care, combined with the opportunity to ride, take lessons, and show.

For those students preparing for a career in training, showing and marketing sporthorses, the internship will focus on the care, training and marketing of young sporthorses, including in-hand and under-saddle training, showing in-hand as well as under saddle, including Materiale and FEI young horse classes, free jumping, keuring training and presentation, video and digital photography, marketing and client relations.

Working students will receive housing in a comfortable apartment over the barn, including full kitchen and bath, laundry facilities, wireless DSL internet and satellite TV, board for one horse each, and riding lessons from a dressage instructor, as well as the opportunity to hack out on 4,000 acres of prairie. Everyone gets one full day off per week, with feeding chores rotated. Students must have health insurance. Position is for the spring and summer months, with the opportunity to extend your stay or come back for a second season.

Solomon farm is a small family-run business. We have approximately sixty sport horses on the farm, including foals, broodmares, riding horses and young horses for sale. We offer a friendly, supportive work environment with plenty of individual focus on each student's needs. Students must like kids, dogs, and ponies, and be ready for our South Dakota weather extremes of hot summers and the ever present possiblity of snow in May! Ours is not a high-pressure show barn environment. If you enjoy a truly rural environment and lots of hands-on time with the horses, this could be the position for you.

Solomon Farm is located in one of the last places in the world where horses are still used every day as part of the ranching lifestyle. We are proud of the traditions and history of our area. Students may have the opportunity to participate in some traditional Western ranching experiences such as roundups and working cattle. We are 70 miles from our State capitol, Pierre, South Dakota. Just two hours away on the interstate lie Rapid City and the Black Hills, with fabulous recreational opportunities for your days off. Our working students will enjoy a summer of unrivaled learning experiences and a great deal of fun as well.

  

Owner/manager and trainer are Equine Science graduates of Colorado State University, and trainer is also a graduate of Merideth Manor equestrian college. In offering an internship/working student position, our goal is to help young horsemen and horsewomen learn real-life lessons in horse breeding, training, management and sales, which will help prepare them for a successful career in the equine industry.

Please feel free to email or call with any questions about these positions. You may reach me at 605-669-2879 or on my cell, at 605-685-3089. I look forward to talking to you!

Ann Daum Kustar

Solomon Farm Sporthorses