It happens all the time—you’re grazing your horse at a show, your horse pulls you toward a fellow grazer, and you strike up a conversation. Around these animals we love, in the surroundings we’re fortunate enough to experience on a regular basis, it’s easy to find likeminded horse lovers. If you’re lucky, some of these rela­tionships will blossom into meaningful friendships.

This week at the Chronicle, we lost such a friend, someone who’s been a care­taker of horses, including the show hunters at Kathy and Gerry Newman’s Allwyn Court Farm, but also a horse show mother to almost every one of us here at the office. Cynthia Curran (see obituary in Sept. 16 issue), who worked part-time at the Chronicle over the last nine years, loved any horse she met, attending to every detail and insisting on tidiness and efficiency in any barn.

But even more importantly, in caring for these horses, she also touched the lives of the people connected to them.

When I was laid up with complications at the end of my pregnancy, she found my horse had an abscess and handled it without even asking me. Every time she came to soak him, she also groomed him—and she brought me books, videos, companionship. Months later, she knew I was overwhelmed juggling work and parenthood, and she thought I needed to ride more. Amazingly, as I came flying down the driveway, I’d see the horses crosstied, saddled, booted up, tails brushed out, manes still wet from being combed over, all for just an early evening weekday ride.

She set jumps, encouraged me to raise the fences when I wanted to be a wimp, came with me to lessons and shows, where she helped groom and tack and warm up, her positive presence being just the kind of calm reassurance that you need even more than a last-minute boot wipe.

It didn’t matter if it was an unrecognized schooling show or someone’s biggest goal, whatever competition a Chronicle staffer was aiming for, she supported all of us, cheering, praising, encouraging. She watched our shows and videos, loaned us money for horses, planned wedding and baby showers for us, rescued us roadside in middle of the night, brought us food from her garden.

I’ll miss the conversations we shared in the saddle. Almost 30 years my elder, she gave me a perspective on life that my peers could not. As we trotted through the woods or walked through fields, we discussed pregnancies and parenthood, challenges in work and in love.

We were both avid readers and always had recommendations for each other. Talking candidly on the way home from a horse show just a few weeks before the 2008 presidential election, I was surprised to learn we also had similar political views.

Over the years the demands of the horse world have often prevented me from keeping up with some high school and college friends. But horses have also brought me close to many people. In losing one of those people, I’ve learned one final lesson from Cynthia. I hope I thanked her enough, that she understood the impact of her kindness, not just to animals but to their people as well.

I’ve long known the importance of caring for horses. This week I gained some appreciation for the value of nurturing friendships too.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to read more like it, consider subscribing. “Caring For Horses, Caring For Friends” ran in the Sept. 9, 2013 issue.