The Father's Day Card

The Father’s Day Card                                                                             

Originally published in Horse Directory, June 2013

I’m a selfish oaf. Oh, I often set things up so that I can appear to be selfless, but hidden underneath there is always a glaring self-interest. I sometimes hide it better than others, but it’s there. I do for others, but I am secretly always seeking acknowledgement.

I confess that I have hated the month of June for some time. For the past ten years we

Horse show dads get to celebrate victories.
Here, with Sheila Rodgers at Good Shepherd.

 have raised our niece Sam, whose mother died suddenly when she was only 12 years old. This tragedy befell our family soon after we established our little backyard horse farm that we call Dreamcatcher.  Mary and I had been childless up to that point, and for me, horses were the catalyst for a sometimes clumsy relationship between a sensitive, tough-yet-fragile beautiful spirit and a willing but clueless older uncle with an agenda. I gladly took on the responsibility for Sam, for which I received many kudos for my generosity and dedication. But on a late June Sunday every year, I looked for an acknowledgement that never came. I looked for a Father’s Day card.

Now fortunately, a few years ago I adopted a healthier lifestyle, one of the benefits of which has been the gift of clarity.  I have come to see many things that happen in my daily life as lessons.  In my business as an electrician, I try to be loyal to my clients and I value loyalty in return. On every circuit breaker panel and fusebox in most homes, there is a sticker with the name of the last electrician that provided service. It is always a source of pride when I visit a client and see an old version of my sticker on their panel, perhaps from 25 years ago or more.

One such client, Mrs. R, had a panel in a more conspicuous place than most, which normally reside in dusty basements or garages. Since it was visible in her living

We also get to be there when the day doesn't
go exactly as planned.

space, I asked permission to put my sticker over that of a long-forgotten electrician who hadn’t been there in a long time. Mrs. R. would always say, “Oh, give it to me and I’ll put it on. I want to clean the cover first”. She never would, and it always irked me on return visits to see someone else’s name on “my” panel. Yet, I was the one she always called. No one else had touched anything remotely related to the electrical system in her home in many years. I had had all the benefits, but without the acknowledgement I had been seeking.  It bothered me until I was able to see the situation through different eyes: she had her own reasons for keeping that sticker there, which were frankly none of my business.

My horsey lifestyle with Sam, although not without its ups and downs, has carried with it the three elements of happiness: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. As a fledgling parent, a horse-show “dad”, driving instructor, chauffer, confidante, coach, ATM, sounding board, crying towel, and cheerleader and all the other things that come under the heading of ‘parent”, I have had a life of purpose which otherwise would have eluded me, one that has given me those three essential elements many times over: not a duty; truly a privilege. Available to me only because she has, like our unendingly patient horses, given me unlimited second chances when I mess up.

In my narrow-mindedness, I was looking for a piece of paper with a store- bought sentiment as an acknowledgement.  Instead, she chose me to share her whole life with. I was looking for the label. I had already been given the job.  Every horse-show dad already knows what I have only recently discovered.  I’m the last one to figure out things, sometimes, it seems. 

But, I eventually do. Happy Father’s Day, dads.

Perhaps a slow week for news back in 2007
 prompted fellow equestrian Caryn Eve Murray to
 write this story for Newsday which included
Sam and myself.

 

One of the perks: an awesome riding buddy!

Ciao, Bella!

Ciao, Bella!    

                                                                                                                     

Originally published in Horse Directory,  August 2012

By Tom Gumbrecht

 I have, it seems, been blessed with a love for all horses.  Some, however, have at times been difficult to get along with.  For me, Bella had fallen into that category. Like many strained relationships, it was born of a lack of communication. Although in my barn, on and off, for quite a few years, I really didn’t know her.

Bella was Samantha’s second horse, purchased after her first horse, Magic, passed away as a senior.  She came from a farm in northern Connecticut, the fruit of Samantha’s exhaustive internet searches. She was as beautiful as she was young, only three years old when we met her.  Sam was 15 then, but we had both put in seven years with packers and schoolmasters, so with the help of a trainer, I believed her to be up to the challenge.

Bella, a buckskin pinto half-Arabian, half-Saddlebred mare, turned heads wherever she went. She proved a bit difficult to handle, but her speed and Sam’s keen eye and unshakable demeanor allowed her to do quite well in the local jumper shows.  At college, however, the instructors there were not as amused by Bella’s antics as we were, resulting in switching disciplines, and ultimately ending up in her not being used as much as we had hoped.  At one point, she sustained an unexplained lower forelimb injury and she ultimately came back home to recuperate.

She was given time off to heal, and during that time Sam had begun training with my Paint gelding, DannyBoy, who had just come off of a two year layup from his own injury.  During that time, I had been working with my recently rehabbed OTTB mare Lola, and our horse calendars were pretty much full.  Where Bella was concerned, the picture I had in my mind when I thought of her was with her ears perpetually pinned flat back, and teeth frequently bared.  She was a cranky mare.  I had a soft spot for her, but I never felt that my feelings were reciprocated.

Out of necessity, I had gained some experience in the years previous, rehabilitating orthopedic injuries in my horses.  The time had come to begin that with Bella.  In my back yard for seven years, save the four semesters at college in Ohio, I had nonetheless never ridden her.  I got on her in our ring and she seemed fine and offered no surprises.  So, I loaded her on the trailer and we drove to Blydenburgh Park in Smithtown for some light walk-therapy.

With a tiny bit of trepidation, I mounted up and we hit the trail.  She was a natural, blazing through overgrowth with ears forward and alert, cupping backward in acknowledgement of the slightest of aids.  She was reluctant to get her feet wet or muddy, so at first the puddles proved a challenge.  But she was otherwise brave, willing and interested.  Not wanting to overdo things on the first day, we headed back to the trailer after about a half hour of walking.  And then a crazy thing happened…

I untacked her and gave her a cool bath with a sponge and a bucket, scraping the excess water off so the remaining moisture could evaporate.  I noticed that unlike most horses, she seemed to want her face washed and actively encouraged it.  As is my routine, I brought out my little picnic lunch and let her graze peacefully as I enjoyed it.  She came over to investigate and gave me a look with such love in her eyes that was so intense and so unexpected that it gave me shivers.  She licked the side of my face and went back to grazing.  I didn’t see her ears pinned once during our excursion.  In subsequent days, the increased attention she paid me was at first curious, then disarming.  I was used to her being one way, and now she was acting another.

In one afternoon, a new friendship was formed.  We had only needed some one-on-one time to forge it.  The love had always been there; it was the “like” that we needed to work on.  That can be hard when someone seems to not like you.

 Sometimes, a little adversity forces us to work together.  And we discover something brand new, that has been there all along..