Five years ago, Jill Girardi-Thomas had no problem finding employees to help operate her Franklin, Tenn.-based Arabian horse training and breeding facility. She sought staff who were willing to work hard for a wage that hovered around $10 per hour, and she found that kind of worker was plentiful in the local Hispanic community. All it took to make a hire was a little networking, a few paperwork checks, and provision of a detailed job description. But things have changed, Girardi-Thomas says. And not for the better.

“The labor is just not here,” she explains. “The situation is just horrible.”

Thanks to the lackluster economy, a porous Mexican-American border, and Americans’ call for stricter immigration law enforcement, Girardi-Thomas says many of the Hispanic men and women who maintained stalls and handled horses at private barns and on racetrack backsides have disappeared. The result has been an operational catastrophe for trainers such as herself.

In 2010, when the general economy began to tank and feed and fuel costs skyrocketed, the horse industry took a heavy economic hit. Subsequently, prices of all but the most royally bred horses plummeted, forcing many barn owners to either scale back their operations or shutter them entirely. Those whose businesses did survive had to make do with whatever labor was available, says Carmen Micheletti, who, along with her husband, Tony, operates Paso Largo Farm, in Williston, Fla. The labor force included workers from Mexico less and less frequently, she says