Life Of A Budweiser Clydesdale Ranch Manager

Amy Trout manages the Warm Springs Ranch in Missouri, where most of the Budweiser Clydesdales live. She's been working with the famous draft horses since 2002 and loves seeing the foals' first steps. In a recent interview with Business Insider, Amy breaks down what her life is like on the ranch.

She majored in animal science and minored in zoology at North Dakota State University before teaching high-school agriculture for a few years. After that, she started looking for a job that would allow her to work closely with animals.

She grew up with draft horses on her parents' farm in Virginia. Budweiser has been using Clydesdale draft horses since 1933, and they have been the company's mascots since 1950. Amy started working with the Budweiser Clydesdales in 2002 and traveled around the country with an eight-horse hitch. 

In 2010, she was promoted to manage the Clydesdale facility at Grant's Farm in Missouri. Grant's Farm is the historic Busch family home where faculty train the horses, and which houses a variety of other animals like cow, bison, and deer. 

In 2020, she was promoted again to assistant curator, which means she oversees all the animals at the farm. In summer 2021, Warm Springs Ranch in Boonville posted a job opening for a ranch manager, and Amy applied. She's been in the role since October 2021 and have been focusing on the Clydesdales full time ever since.

Amy oversees a team of seven full-time and 15 part-time staff at the ranch. She spends most of her days thinking about which horses would make good breeding pairs. It's her responsibility to match horses so their babies are born with optimal colorings. The breeding facility and the hitch are both in Boonville, so there are 75 to 100 Clydesdales at the ranch at any given time. 

There is so much that goes into the care of some of the most iconic horses. Honestly, it sounds like a dream job. Working with horses around the clock, who wouldn't love that? Read the whole interview here!