Texas Horse Community
Businesses Supporting Horse Industry See Significant Growth
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Ask any horse owner, cattleman, or farmer near East Austin for their secret to success, and there's a good chance you'll hear the name "David Graham". For nearly three decades, Graham's store, Tri-County Feed, Seed & Supply, has served as Elgin's one-stop shop for reliable livestock and agriculture products. While the store plays an integral part in keeping operations up and running, it's also an indicator of the health of the agricultural economy across Texas.
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Graham has encountered a fair share of ups and downs over the years, but is unable to recall a time when the industry has seen this type of boom. Now, at his feed operation in far east Travis County, the benefits of investing in the Horse Industry Escrow Account are brought to light.
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The racing industry largely attributes its profit to the number of attendees in the stands and horses in the stables, but Graham believes tonnage is one of the strongest indicators of this sudden growth.
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"Around mid-2020, we started noticing some pretty surprising figures and, when we looked back, we noticed that we were up 25% in 2020 from 2019, and then up an additional 20% in 2021," he recalls. "This amounts to a 45% increase in the tonnage of horse feed we're handling [in store] in just two years."
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Explaining further, Graham says it's not only feed that's been affected by demand, but also tack, dewormers, leg warmers, stall forks, and the many other items needed to care for the horses.
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"I know it doesn't seem like much, but we've seen a huge lift in the number of buckets we're selling. This is just another indicator for us as to how many more horses there are in the area," he says.
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Currently, four of the top seven feed products sold at the Tri-County store are horse feeds, which, according to Graham, was "just unheard of" a couple of years ago. The public's interest in the horse industry has increased exponentially since Texas began investing more dollars back into its agricultural economy, and Graham's exposure is a small glimpse of what is happening across the state.
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When asked if new customers or familiar faces are responsible for this uptick, Graham mentions there have been people who own a Quarter Horse [or two] that have come to purchase two or three more.
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"I've also seen quite a few folks who were racing in Louisiana and Oklahoma starting to send, and even buy, their horses down here," he adds. "There's some incredible incentive for them to breed Texas horses... and it just makes good business sense for them to bring their businesses here."
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The equine industry in Texas is booming like never before as prosperity brought by the state's HIEA investment continues to reach businesses that provide products and services related to horse care, and, while farriers, veterinarians, feed store owners, and others have to adjust to this heightened demand, our economy only grows stronger.
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David Graham
Owner, Tri-County Feed, Seed & Supply. Elgin, Texas
Texas Horse Community Spotlights
From Youth Competitions to Beyond - Texas Horsemanship has a Bright Future
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From the moment Courtney Hammit could walk, she would follow her grandfather to the barn. By six, she had her first mare-"DeDe"-and was heading to horse shows. Now, at 13, Courtney is on her third show horse, "Jake," and is just coming off of a big win in the 2020 Novie Saddle Series in January.
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"Her attitude makes a big difference when she's riding her horse," says Courtney's mom, Trisha. It's just one of the valuable lite lessons she says her daughter has learned from competing. "She's worked so hard, and she competes against herself every time," says Trisha.
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Courtney dreams of one day getting to tell the horse's story. "I want my career to be with horses," she says. "I'm really into photography, so it'd be cool to be an equine photographer."
HIEA Finding a Home for Horses and Supporting Veterans Through the Texas Thoroughbred Association
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The TTA awards dollars from the HIEA to non-racing horse-related programs with the intent to foster the continued growth of the Texas horse industry.
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Anyone who has ever owned a beloved family pet understands just how deep the connection can be between animals and humans. However, there's something particularly special about the relationship between veterans and horses. In the same way veterans have been trained to be incredibly aware of their surroundings, so too are horses, and in that sense, the relationship between a veteran and horse can be steeped in understanding. And because horses are acutely aware of what is going on inside of a human, veterans who work with them are able to benefit from bio-feedback.
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That kind of mirroring-the feedback loop of a veteran learning to walk away, take a deep breath, and come back as a way to settle down a horse (and themselves)-is what makes equine therapy for veterans so successful.
Racing Comes Roaring Back to Texas
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Danny Pish grew up in a rodeo family in South Texas. "I think I was about 11 or 12 when it dawned on me the opportunities that might be there," Pish remembers thinking about the horse industry when he would travel to small race tracks with his family to look at rodeo horse prospects. A serious rodeo athlete until his mid-20s, in 1999, Pish decided to put his own competing on the back burner and learn more about the thoroughbred industry.
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"It was the perfect time," Pish says. "The industry was healthy- people were fired up about it. There were lots of horses, lots of breeders, lots of folks interested." But as surrounding states like Oklahoma and Louisiana began to include supplements into their purse structure, Pish watched all that energy dissipate. There were fewer opportunities to run; fewer horses, fewer breeders. "It really almost sucked the life out of it," Pish remembers. "It made it about 20 percent of what it once was. If every single state around you is subsidizing except the state that you're in, that's tough."
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Now, Pish says he's seen the industry come full circle. "There's a lot of excitement again," he says, "and there's no question where it's from." Since the creation of the Horse Industry Account (HIEA), the heart of the horse industry has come roaring back to where it belongs: Texas.