How to Solicit Equestrian Sponsorship: Building a Portfolio That Gets Results
Everything equestrian athletes need to know about building a sponsorship portfolio: what to include, how to present it, and how to get it in front of the right person.
Rick Silvia
7/1/20269 min read
Sponsorship in equestrian sport is one of those subjects that almost everyone talks about and very few people do well. Riders at every level, from the weekend amateur competing in regional hunter derbies to the Grand Prix professional campaigning internationally, understand that the financial reality of this sport demands partnership. What they often lack is a clear, professional method for pursuing it.
Having managed media and sponsorship for equestrian athletes across multiple disciplines, including Olympic medalists and international Grand Prix competitors, I have now built and submitted enough of these packages to know what works and what doesn't. What follows is an attempt to share what I know clearly and practically
The document you are building is called a sponsorship portfolio, and that word choice matters. A proposal (sponsorship proposal) asks for something. A portfolio presents who you are, what you have accomplished, and why this particular relationship makes sense for both sides. Brands receive countless requests. They receive far fewer portfolios that feel authentic, specific, and assembled with genuine care. That is the standard we are working toward.
Start Here: The Questionnaire
Before any portfolio gets built, a conversation needs to happen.
When I take on a sponsorship client, the first thing I do is send a questionnaire and schedule a brief call. Not because I need the basic facts, most of those are accessible, but because I need to understand something no public record can tell me: what is the rider's genuine relationship with this product or brand?
Brand managers read sponsorship portfolios for a living. They can tell the difference between an athlete who has used something for fifteen years and one who added the logo to their wish list last week. Authenticity either comes through on the page or it does not, and no amount of good design covers for its absence. The portfolio should be built on the honest answer.
The questions I ask include: How long have you used this product? What specifically do you value about it? Have you had any direct experience with the brand or its team? What would you tell a student who asked you about it? What does choosing this product say about how you approach your horse and your sport?
The answers to those questions become a huge part of the copy at the heart of the portfolio.
Section One: The Cover and Introduction
The cover of a sponsorship portfolio is not decorative. It is the first impression of your professionalism and the level at which you operate. A strong competition photograph, a striking portrait, or a lifestyle image that honestly conveys your world sets the tone before a single word is read.
The introduction page that follows should accomplish four things in as few words as possible: establish who you are, name the discipline and level at which you compete, convey what makes your story specific and worth reading, and make clear why you are approaching this particular brand. Generic introductions are the single most common reason a portfolio fails to generate a response. If the opening paragraph could have been written by anyone, it is working against you.
Section Two: Career Highlights and Credentials
This section is your competition record and professional biography, organized for impact rather than chronological completeness.
Lead with the achievements that carry weight for someone outside the sport. An Olympic medal, a national championship, a major International Division win, a recognized award. These establish your standing without requiring deep equestrian knowledge to appreciate. Follow with the details that show depth: your training lineage, the horses you have developed, the clinics you have hosted or attended, any meaningful time spent training in Europe or under coaches with international reputations.
Career highlights should convey not just what you have accomplished, but what makes your path specific and worth telling. The horses you brought up through the levels, your training style, the moments that shaped how you ride and teach. These are the details that stay with a reader and distinguish a biography from a list of placings.
If you have been featured in industry press or any publication with a meaningful readership in your discipline, list those placements with the publication's reach or estimated audience where available. Coverage in established outlets functions as third-party validation, and marketing teams recognize it as such.
Section Three: Sphere of Influence (The One-Page Metrics Summary)
This is the most important single page in the portfolio, and the one most riders either omit entirely or present poorly.
The sphere of influence page is a clean, factual accounting of your reach across every platform and channel where you have a presence. No commentary, no projections. Just the numbers, clearly labeled and current.
Every metric should appear here:
Social Media
Facebook followers and average post engagement rate. Instagram followers, average reach per post, and Story views where trackable. TikTok followers and average video views if the platform is active. YouTube subscribers and average video views if applicable. LinkedIn connections and follower count.
Website
Monthly unique visitors. Average session duration and pages per visit if available through Google Analytics. Top-performing content categories.
Email
Newsletter subscriber count and open rate.
Physical Presence
Number of students actively in training. Number of clinics taught or attended per year, and approximate total attendees. Competitions on the calendar for the current season, with venues and approximate spectator attendance where known. Any events hosted at your facility.
Press and Media
Total cumulative audience reach across press placements. Any broadcast or podcast appearances.
In 2026, the equestrian brands doing the most thoughtful sponsorship work are looking at athletes across content, in-person presence, and digital channels, not just at a raw follower count. A rider with 4,000 highly engaged followers in a specific discipline can be more valuable to a niche brand than a general lifestyle account with ten times that number sitting largely dormant. Present your numbers honestly, and add context where it helps tell the full picture.
This page should be formatted for visual clarity. A well-designed grid or icon-based layout reads faster than a paragraph and presents the information the way a marketing team actually wants to see it. If you cannot produce this page at a high graphic standard yourself, it is worth hiring someone who can. The investment is small relative to what a well-placed sponsorship is worth.
Section Four: Your Competition Calendar
A sponsor wants to know where their brand will appear and when. The competition calendar section answers that question directly.
List every event on your schedule for the upcoming season: the show name, the date, the location, the governing body (USEF, FEI, UPHA, NRHA, etc.), and the approximate attendance where you can find it. Major national shows, CDIs, Devon, Thermal, Tryon, the Winter Equestrian Festival. These names carry real weight with equestrian brands who understand what they represent.
If you host clinics, charity events, or a competitive series, include those as well. Every gathering attached to your name is direct access to an audience that trusts your judgment, and that is exactly what a sponsor is paying for. The equestrian audience carries significant purchasing power across luxury, lifestyle, and performance categories. Your calendar is the proof of your physical reach into it.
Section Five: The Value Proposition
This is where the portfolio stops presenting data and starts making a case.
The value proposition section should be written in your own voice, not in the corporate language that sneaks into most sponsorship documents. It should answer three questions, specifically and directly.
Why this product? Not because it is excellent in general terms, but because of your personal experience with it. What do you know about this product that only time and regular use can teach? What have you told students or clients about it, and why? What would you want the brand's marketing team to understand about how it has fit into your program?
What do you bring to this partnership? This is not the place to repeat the metrics from the sphere of influence page. This is where you speak to the things that do not show up in a spreadsheet: your reputation in the community, the students whose purchasing decisions follow your lead, the media relationships you maintain, and the trust your audience extends to you because they know how carefully you choose what you stand behind.
How could this relationship work? Come with ideas. A thoughtful, concrete proposal for how the partnership might take shape, a content series, a first look at a new product for your students, a branded element at your clinic, a giveaway tied to a competition, tells the brand that you have thought about them and not just about what you hope to receive. A specific content plan with real post concepts, tied to your actual calendar and your actual audience, is one of the clearest ways to separate a serious portfolio from the pile.
Keep this section honest. If you have used a product for two seasons and have real opinions about it, say so. If the relationship is newer but the fit is genuine, acknowledge that and explain your thinking. The brands worth partnering with are looking for authenticity precisely because their customers can tell when it is missing.
Finding the Right Point of Contact: LinkedIn as a Strategic Tool
All of this work is diminished if the portfolio lands in the wrong inbox.
The right contact at a company considering sponsorship is almost always in the marketing department: a VP of Marketing, a Director of Brand Partnerships, a Head of Sponsorship, or the equivalent. It is rarely the general inquiry address, and it is rarely the social media account.
LinkedIn is one of the most genuinely useful tools available for finding that person by name before you ever reach out. Most marketing professionals at mid-sized and larger companies maintain active profiles. A search combining the company name with "marketing" or "sponsorship" or "brand partnerships" will often surface the right individual in a matter of minutes.
I use LinkedIn regularly to identify and reach decision-makers at the brands my clients want to approach. With nearly 30,000 connections of my own on the platform I'm lucky to have the ability to often connect directly. I send a brief and professional note, and then follow with a full portfolio addressed to a named individual. I find it changes the nature of the outreach completely.
Beyond its value as a research tool, LinkedIn deserves attention as a platform in its own right for equestrian professionals. A profile that is consistently updated with competition results, training insights, program highlights, and thoughtful commentary on the sport builds credibility over time. That credibility makes any sponsorship outreach feel earned rather than unexpected. A following built on genuine expertise and regular engagement is a legitimate line item on your sphere of influence page, one that speaks to an audience marketers find surprisingly difficult to reach anywhere else.
If you are not yet on LinkedIn, or have a profile that has sat untouched for two years, it is worth the effort to change that. The platform connects you not just to potential sponsors, but to the people within those organizations who have the authority to say yes.
The Physical Portfolio: Why Print Still Wins
When the portfolio is ready and the right contact has been identified, the question of how to deliver it deserves real thought.
Email is fast. Physical mail is remembered (in my opinion).
In my experience, a well-produced printed portfolio mailed directly to a named individual generates responses at a rate that digital submissions do not match. This is not about sentiment. It is about what happens in practice when something lands on a desk versus an inbox. A brand manager receiving a physical portfolio on premium paper stock gets a moment of uninterrupted attention that no email can purchase.
The written sections belong on a high-quality text stock, something with weight and presence, nothing like what comes out of an office printer. The images, competition photographs, facility shots, a lifestyle image that puts a face to the name, belong on photo-glossy stock that lets them be seen as intended. The whole thing should be bound or packaged in a way that reflects the standard you hold yourself to professionally. It should feel, from the first moment it is handled, like it came from someone serious.
Include a brief, personalized cover letter, one page, signed by hand, addressed to the individual by name. Reference the specific reason this brand matters to you and the specific reason you believe the fit is right. Then let the portfolio speak for itself.
A Few Principles Worth Remembering:
Specificity over volume. A portfolio sent to fifteen brands with the name swapped out is a form letter, and experienced marketing teams recognize it as one. Submit to fewer companies and do each one properly. A brand that feels genuinely chosen is far more likely to respond than one that suspects they are somewhere on a list.
Demonstrate before you ask. If you genuinely use and believe in a product, start saying so publicly before the portfolio goes out. A brand that already sees your name in their mentions arrives at the conversation already inclined toward yes.
Follow up once. After two to three weeks with no response, a single brief follow-up is entirely appropriate. One. The people you are reaching out to are busy, and a thoughtful reminder is professional. Anything beyond that works against the relationship you are trying to build.
A Note on Managing Sponsorship as a Service
For riders who would rather spend their time on their horses than on building a media package, this is something I offer as part of my work with equestrian clients.
The process starts with a questionnaire and a conversation. From there, the portfolio takes shape, sphere of influence page, career narrative, value proposition copy, the full document, in a voice and at a standard that honestly reflects who the athlete is. The goal is always the same: something a brand's marketing team will take seriously from the first page to the last, submitted to the right person, at the right time, in the right format.
The equestrian world is full of extraordinary athletes whose public presence has not kept pace with the quality of their riding. That is a solvable problem, and if you have questions about where to start, feel free to send me a note at Rick@RickSilvia.com.
