Trading Places

Trading Places 

Cover Story in Horse Directory,  July 2011                                                                                                                                

By Tom Gumbrecht                                                                                                                         

Have you ever had a good friend who you got along well with, but who was enough of a goofball that you never felt fully comfortable subjecting your family or your other friends to his antics? I have a horse like that. His name is DannyBoy.  He’s a really handsome guy, and he looks good in the paddock. He will show you a sincere interest if you approach the fence. Then he will show a sincere interest in your clothing, your extremities, your hair, your phone. He’s like a little boy starved for attention and he will do anything to get it, and to keep it.  This is the DannyBoy that Samantha knows, because she takes care of his stall and paddock as part of her barn chores. If I hear a scream from the barn area, I can pretty much rest assured that Danny is up to something and Sam is not amused by it.

But there is another side to DannyBoy. When you put the tack on him he immediately becomes a mission oriented machine, and he’s all business.  He can be a bit opinionated, and at 1250 lbs., he can afford to be. He really just wants a general idea of what you want him to do, and he thinks that the execution of it is all up to him. He can be challenging, but not dangerously so. The trick is getting him to do things the way you want them done, while letting him think it was his idea all along!

Danny has been primarily a one-rider horse, and that rider has been me.  He was four years old when I got him, and it was me in the saddle when he went for his first trail ride, got over his first jump, went to his first horse show, and his first horse trial.  It was me who placed his first ribbon on his stall door, which he promptly ate! We were teammates, and I loved being his teammate. I loved the proud way he pranced around his paddock in front of the other horses when we came home from a show. We worked well together.

When we were just beginning to find our niche in the jumpers, DannyBoy got injured. It was eighteen months of, at various points in time, stall rest, therapy, surgery, recovery, hand walking, tackwalking, and finally hours of walking on trail. He showed improvement, had a setback, and we started the process again. Eventually he did get better. By that time, though, I had begun training my young OTTB mare, Lola, now at a critical point in her training and taking up all of my riding time. Being no youngster myself, and having a business as well as a home and a barn, I physically and logistically can’t have more than one horse in training at one time.  Samantha has her own mare, Bella, who she’s in training with also. And she’s a full time student with a busy life. Danny became relegated to a weekend trail horse position while the two mares were our training projects. Then fate intervened, as it frequently does:  Bella developed some lameness issues which required considerable time off.

It was with some trepidation that I mentioned to our trainer, Laura Ruben, my idea of possibly putting DannyBoy back in training, with Samantha this time. The trepidation had nothing to do with my questioning Sam’s abilities as a rider. She’s young and athletic and has a great deal of experience on difficult horses. She has a keen eye, a good seat, quiet hands, iron legs and a calming effect on horses. She’s just the kind of rider that you want on your horse. I knew she could handle DannyBoy. My question was more one of personalities. He can be a bully, and Sam doesn’t like bullies. Can they get along? If they can’t, can I handle it? Will I be impatient? If they CAN, can I handle it? Will I be jealous? I never realized how emotional a decision like this could be. It made me realize how much I love that big goon, and how attached I’ve become to him.  It turned out that trainer Laura had been thinking along the same lines. Though young in years, Laura possesses the wisdom of an old soul. She told me exactly how to handle the situation, which was, simply put, to keep my mouth shut. She didn’t use those words, and she was very polite and quite eloquent in the words that she did select. But her meaning was clear: Don’t allow my own projected insecurities to define someone else’s experience. Just let it happen.

At their first training session, it became obvious that my concerns were groundless. Under Laura’s tutelage, Samantha put DannyBoy through his paces like a pro. But that was never really in question. More important to me was that it had become obvious that she cared about him. She had been able to look through his clownish exterior and see the horse that I see: Skilled, honest, willing, confident and bold in his maneuvers, but yet with a huge need to feel valued and appreciated. It made me feel good to see her confidently guide him over the fences, but it made me feel even better to see her stop in the paddock and pat his neck or brush his forelock out of his eyes.

In our history together, through the years of learning each others’ idiosyncrasies, I had developed the mindset that I was irreplaceable as his rider. Whenever my thinking gets to that point, I have to stop, smile, and remember a time when I would rant to an old neighbor about how some experience of the day proved that no one could be trusted to do a job but me. He would listen thoughtfully over the fence, and then say, “You know, when JFK died, they had him replaced in an hour. And he was the president”! I try and keep that in mind when I get to feeling too self-important.

For better or worse, I have a mind that tends to look for potential complications. In my profession that’s basically what I do, and it’s actually a helpful quality.  But with a horse, sometimes all that’s needed is one part knowledge, one part ability, and two parts of caring. Luckily for him, DannyBoy has a new rider who has all the parts needed. And things aren’t so complicated, after all. After witnessing Sam’s performance with DannyBoy this weekend, I’m beginning to anticipate filling out entry forms again for the first time in a few seasons. This time, when I hear the announcer, it will be, “Thomas Gumbrecht, Owner. Samantha Mullen, Rider”.  And I can’t wait!

Samantha with her mare, Bella, in a quiet moment.

 

 

 

DannyBoy, with whom Samantha and I "Traded Places".

Living the Dream?

Living the Dream?

Originally Published in Horse Directory, August 2011

By Tom Gumbrecht

I’m pretty sure that the first thing to come to mind, to someone rolling down the driveway

at my little backyard barn, would not be “This guy is really living the dream!”  There are no lush green paddocks, nor miles of pristine white fencing. What grass there is, quite possibly might be slightly overdue for mowing, and there may be a fence board or two that needs replacing. But, they would be wrong.

I began my riding “career” totally on a fluke. Skip Lauinger, then owner of Hunters Isle Show Stable in Old Brookville called me on a professional level, to rewire one of his barns. At that point, the only time I had been near a horse was about twenty years previous when I acquiesced and agreed to go trail riding so as to appear a “good sport” on a first date. I met with Skip and agreed to take on the job, not knowing that that particular small decision would change my life.

I realized very quickly that there was something different about that place than anything else I had ever experienced. The world of horses and horse people was already exerting its pull on me, although I didn’t know it yet. I was enraptured by everything around me when working there, but I never considered that I could actually fit in to that world. I was a working guy, and all of this, while fascinating and enjoyable, seemed a world apart from the one I lived in. But Skip and then-fiancé, (now wife) Elise Seely, took me into their world.

Apprehension aside, after about two weeks working there I couldn’t stand it any longer and asked Skip if he could teach me how to ride. “Probably”, he replied, in his usual dry fashion.

So began my journey. My first lesson horse was Circus, a chestnut Appendix gelding who had had a career with Ringling Brothers prior to arriving at Hunters Isle. I had it in my head at that point, that I would probably take lessons for a few weeks, then, knowing all there was to know, I would take Circus out to the vineyards across Hegeman’s Lane. Yeah.

Business circumstances on Skip’s end dictated that I would have to lease Circus if I wanted to continue riding him, which I did. First of all, I never even thought I would be learning to ride a horse at age 45, let alone leasing one. But Skip made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. And I was leasing a horse.

From the beginning, I was fascinated by the jumpers. Of course at that time I didn’t know the difference between Hunters, Jumpers, or Eventers. I just liked horses that jumped. I would volunteer, on Friday late afternoons, to help set up the jumps at the Hunters Isle shows, and others that Skip then managed, at their various venues. We had fun doing it and I found myself uncharacteristically devoted to assisting in all manner of horse competitions. Of course, I no more saw myself as a potential competitor at these events than I saw myself as a major league player when going to the ball park. I just continued taking my lessons with the hope that one day maybe I could get Circus to pick up a right lead canter.

Too soon, Skip and Elise sold their Brookville farm to buy a larger one in Northern Virginia. I thought my riding life was over, but actually it had only just begun. I continued my lessons with Jimmy Rice at Red Barn, who had taken over management of the Hunters Isle shows, and it was under his patient guidance that I went over my first jump. Within a year I was so overtaken by it all that my wife Mary and I sold our little beachfront- community house in Centerport for a much older home in Fort Salonga which needed work everywhere but had the property and the layout for a barn, paddocks, and riding ring. Eight months after we closed the deal, the property was ready for my first horse, Buddy (another chestnut Appendix) with a brand new barn in the back yard. At about that same time our niece, Samantha, then ten, came to live with us. That was ten years ago this summer.

Some wonderful horses and trainers have been part of our lives since then. We have seen some triumphs and some heartbreak. I was a “show dad” for many years as Samantha moved up the ranks. Around the time she went away to college, I started showing, myself. Eric Lamaze has nothing to worry about. But I think that my jubilation at just simply being a competitor at Hunters Isle, where I once set up jumps and watched the funky ballet of the jumpers, probably equaled his elation at winning Spruce Meadows.

I used to rent trail horses and ride by the backyard barns along the trails of West Hills Park dreaming of the day that that life could be ours. Sometimes when I’m riding in my back yard, usually toward evening when the sun hits the barn just right, I become overwhelmed with gratitude. I used to think that a life beyond my wildest dreams meant a life with things I had previously dreamed about, but just in larger quantities. Now I realize that “beyond my wildest dreams” means just that… a life I had never even considered, that I now find myself living.

It began with one friendly trainer and one sainted horse.

Buddy in his new digs. July, 2001

A Horseman Remembers 9/11

A Horseman Remembers 9/11                                                                                                   Originally Published in Horse Directory, September 2011

By Tom Gumbrecht

Like everyone else on the morning of September 11, 2001, I can clearly remember exactly where I was and who I was talking to when I heard the news.  I was talking to a client with a backyard barn in Brookville with whom I had an appointment that morning. “We’ll have to reschedule. Didn’t you hear, they flew a plane into the World Trade Center”.  I hadn’t heard. The radio in my truck is as likely to be off as it is on, and it was long before the days of instant internet updates. It sounded like an event of which to take note, but I didn’t really understand the need to cancel an appointment.

As many probably assumed, I pictured an errant, small Cessna trainer on a sightseeing mission losing its way and striking one of the towers. Unfortunate, certainly, and tragic to those involved. When I turned on the radio I learned that the reality of what had happened was quite different. The second airplane had just struck the other tower.  Feeling the need for human contact at that moment, and being in the proximity, I stopped at the barn of another client, this one a commercial facility in Syosset.  The normally busy riding ring was empty, and everyone was gathered around a ten inch television in the barn office.  I knew then that the gravity of the situation was much greater than I had contemplated.  I arrived in the huddle just in time to see the first tower fall.  I remember nothing being said, perhaps a gasp, but everyone stood transfixed at the tiny screen for a moment frozen in time.

I called home to my wife, Mary, who had just seen what I saw on TV.  I made the decision to stop by at the home of my elderly parents in Glen Cove.  It seemed at that moment to be an event  unspeakably horrific in nature, but one directed locally and specifically at the World Trade Center towers.  As I drove, I heard the news about the third and fourth flights in Washington and Pennsylvania.  Normally a person who assumes that nothing bad will happen to US, the magnitude of the situation began to reveal itself to me and I couldn’t fight back the thoughts of a cataclysmic event the likes of which had only been imagined by doomsayers and screenwriters.  And we were in the middle of it.

On the drive I talked to Mary and we made arrangements to have Samantha brought home from her  sixth grade class at a small parochial school in Hicksville by our car-pooling partner and mom of Sam’s best friend, Kate. Once at my parents’ house we sat and stared at the television some more, as there was little else to do.  Lacking information, the airwaves were full of speculation and conjecture, and I felt the need to get home and be with my own family.  When I got there, Samantha was there already, with Kate.  The children, Mary, and I stayed close, as if we were expecting the aftershock of a hurricane.  I promised Samantha that I was sure that we were going to be all right. It was the only time I can remember consciously lying to her.

Kids being kids, the girls were soon outside in the barn fussing with Buddy and Magic, just being what they were, young girls who loved horses.  I watched their carefree meanderings from the house and wondered how long they would remain carefree.  I joined them a little while later and was struck by the seeming normalcy of life once I stepped into the barn.  The horses didn’t know what had happened, and weren’t afraid of what might happen next.  To them it was business as usual.  The difference in my mental state once I walked into the barn was remarkable, and the thought of it remains so, even today.

Later that evening I walked out to do night check and was taken by the unusual silence.  I had never realized how much background noise filled the late summer evenings until it was no longer there.  All at once, the stillness was permeated by a lone jet fighter slicing through the evening sky cutting a perfect incision over the barn from west to east.  I remembered at that moment, when I was a child and my father would get up when the eleven o’clock news came on after having dozed off in his chair. In his nightly ritual, he would make the rounds and lock each door before making his way to bed.  I remember how secure hearing that last lock-bolt click closed made me feel, and I always drifted to sleep soon after.  The low shriek of the fighter jet gave me, at least for that moment, a similar feeling.

But in the hours, days, and weeks to come, it was my horses who gave me back my sense of normalcy, or as close to it as I had been able to get.  They deal in the here and now, and that’s all; they reminded me that life does go on by expecting of me the same routine that I had always provided for them.  My personal losses were much less than some others.  But I had lost a sense of security, the sense that after all, we were going to ultimately be all right.  My horses gave it back to me, a day at a time. They quelled my fears by requiring that I live in the same world they do, and not the dangerous, fearful, horrific place that lay in my projections.

For that, I continue to repay them…. a hug, a bale, and a bucket at a time.

Magic, foreground, and Samantha with friend Kate, in barn aisle, on the afternoon of 9/11/01.

The Soul of a Horse

Buddy liked the camera

THE SOUL OF A HORSE

Originally Published in Horse Directory, October 2011

By Tom Gumbrecht

At six a.m. the barn was still enshrouded by darkness on a late September morning as I made my way down from the house to the barn.  Had I been paying closer attention, I would have noticed something

different about this particular morning.  DannyBoy, my gregarious Paint gelding, didn’t try to swipe the bin of clean saddle pads from my arms and fling it into the mud. Lola, my OTTB mare, did not whinny gleefully at her first glimpse of me.  Bella, Samantha’s normally somewhat aloof Arabian mare, today looked straight into my eyes and did not waver her glance. The clown was being serious, the sweet was preoccupied and the chilly was warming with unprecedented concern. But I didn’t notice.

I didn’t notice that, Buddy, our senior citizen, the gentleman of the herd, wasn’t with the others. He sometimes stays outside until he hears the banging of feed buckets so his absence was of little concern. As I turned the rest of the barn lights and the paddock floodlights on, I expected to see the huge white blaze on his chestnut face shining the light back at me like a reflector. But I didn’t.

Buddy checking it all out on his first day with us.

Curious now, I peeked around a little. Finally my eye met his on the floor of his stall. He wasn’t looking back.  The breath pulled into me so quickly that it hurt my throat. Oh, the chaos when the mind cannot process what the eyes are taking in. This horse, my horse, a horse who defied all odds and veterinary science to live a full, healthy, happy life seven years longer than the most optimistic of vets had given him… was gone. Normally composed in a crisis, I stood transfixed for a long moment, then went in and kneeled down behind him and stroked his head and neck as if he could still feel my touch. His huge eye, which he had used during his long illness to communicate to me his desire to keep going, was beautiful and fluid, but different.  Sometime during the night the life had left it.

Perhaps oddly, I sought the comfort of routine. I fed and watered the other three horses and cleaned their stalls. I put hay in their racks. As they had their breakfast I called Buddy’s vet, who had been with me on the long road of the big Chestnut’s unlikely recovery.  I hadn’t cried yet and hadn’t felt the need to. That changed when I mouthed the words, “We lost Buddy this morning”. I guess saying it made it real. Without thinking why, I grabbed a brush and knelt by him and brushed his mane and tail. I put a clean blanket over his side, and one by one I led the other horses in to see their friend and pay their respects. The mares were characteristically reserved, but the normally boisterous DannyBoy was quite uncharacteristically respectful.  He bowed his head and touched his nose to Buddy’s leg for a moment.

Finally I walked up to the house to wake Mary and Samantha with the sad news. I called our friend Jeanmarie who had been Buddy’s “guardian angel” during his convalescence. They rushed down to the barn with me and we just sat with him and cried, then alternately cried and smiled, then smiled.  It was sad to see him go, yet we couldn’t help but marvel at his remarkably long and amazing life.

By our best accounting, Buddy passed at the age of 32, surrounded by his horse friends. Men and women of great accreditation at a prestigious institution of higher learning were certain that he wouldn’t make it past 25. But he did. Eventually, there came a point when we got a couple of young horses in the barn. In addition to the medications, treatments and procedures, those youngsters were the catalyst for his recovery. Buddy found new purpose in life teaching the young ones how to be.  DannyBoy, who outweighed him by 300 pounds and backed down to no horse, showed marked deference to Buddy. It was an engaging show put on daily in the paddock.

It’s sad to lose a friend like Buddy, but as each day goes by, the sadness gets replaced more and more with gratitude.  I had an amazing horse in my life for much longer than I had a right to expect or even hope for.  People are kind and remind me what I did for Buddy, but I like to think of what Buddy did for me:  He taught me how to take care of a horse. He didn’t give up. He taught me to not give up either. He taught me that sometimes faith works when nothing else does. He taught me that men and women of high regard in their field can be wrong, and that men and women with much less knowledge but a commitment to keep doing the next right thing, in spite of (or because of) not having a total understanding of the “big picture”, can sometimes make a difference.

I find solace in this: if I had known the day before that it was to be Buddy’s last day, there’s not too much I would have done differently. Perhaps I would have taken him up on the lawn to graze, or brushed him for a while in the sun, but that’s about it. I can stand before his stall now and say that I did my best for him, and that’s certainly not because I’m such a great person. It’s because he brought out the best in me.  Other horses made me a rider.  Buddy made me a horseman.

 Do horses have souls?  Theologians have filled volumes speculating just that.  This I know to be true: the spirit that was in Buddy was obvious to anyone that was in his presence for more than a minute. Part of that spirit is now within me, and part of it is within other people and horses over whom he had influence.  What he has given me, I will not lose. That is the soul of a horse.

Buddy, left, with pasturemates Lola and Bella.