Linda Birk is a 5* jumping groom. Originally from Denmark she is now based in Wellington in the USA. We spoke to her about the ups and downs of working as a travelling groom.
"For me traveling all over the World is one of the best things about being a groom! I love seeing new places. For the most part, I do not have time to explore much besides the show grounds, but I still get to experience new nature, culture and people which is amazing.
The downsides of travel ultimately affects most grooms. Even if you perhaps don't live too far from home, we are on the road so much. You can almost never attend any family or friends’ celebrations. Even if I could take time off to go to a birthday party, it is way too expensive for me to fly home for a weekend.
I have to be honest, when I took my first job abroad it almost broke me. I have always been very independent, but when I moved to Germany I cried every day for a week. It was so hard to be at a new place, where I didn’t know anyone and barely spoke their language.
I found it intimidating doing shows with no friends, especially at 5* many grooms have been around for a long time, and it was easy to feel like an outsider.. This is something I would really like to see the IGA help to improve.
In time I found that lots of grooms helped me and gave me tips and tricks. Working as grooms we all have so much in common, and learning from each other is a great way to start a conversation.
So many grooms are super friendly, as long as you’re brave enough to reach out; I just talk with whoever is stabled around me, and it has created amazing friendships over the years. Now it is much easier to make friends than before as social media groups have made many things easier.
Of course it’s nice when the shows give us the chance to have some fun and meet more people; I think it would be great if more shows provided groom’s parties or dinners, or just somewhere for us to socialise and mingle on the days we finish earlier. That way we could more easily make friends beyond our stable aisle.
On a more professional level, I hope the IGA will grow bigger and eventually have more mentors/ambassadors worldwide. It would be super cool to have some sort of list where you could see that an IGA Ambassador is heading to the same show as you, so that new grooms especially know they’d have someone friendly they can talk to.
Here in North America the gap between national and FEI is huge. So if you come as a groom who has only done national shows, there are so many new rules to learn, it would be good for those grooms to know there would be someone approachable there.
Working as an international groom gives you so many great opportunities to see different places, but there is a cost to being on the road all the time. The groom community is so important as your show friends become almost like family. Having an organisation we can all be part of is important in helping us pull together more as a community and make the connections that make this lifestyle an amazing one.
